“Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations — to boldly go where no one has gone before.”

Espace Bell…what a journey it has been.

In the early days, Bell Distribution was where it was at. Limitless possibilities, highly motivated individuals who worked as a truly unified team to revolutionize the way Bell Canada and Bell Mobility did business. Looking back over the seven years, my company (and I will always consider BDI to be my company even though I am no longer employed by BDI directly) has evolved in ways its initial founders could never have imagined.

In its simplest form, BDI was created to merge the operations of PhoneCentre/TeleBoutique (Traditional Bell Canada Wireline Retail locations) and the independently owned/controlled Bell Mobility retail locations in order to create synergies, operating efficiencies, scalability, economies of scale, and provide a new growth engine for the enterprise.

BDI’s founding members had all the drive, excitement, passion, and economic resources to truly invigorate the way Bell Canada did business. A clear, well thought out mission and vision was key to BDI’s runaway success. BDI was a combination of both old and new; Partnering and Co-Operating were the new defacto standard. As an employee of BDI you fully understood your role; everyone at BDI was responsible for truly managing some facet of the organization. Bottom up management was deemed as the only productive and value creating way. Virtual teams, cross functional teams, and true customer focus. It was about the relentless pursuit of charting uncharted territories. True responsibilities, accountabilities, and rewards were the norm.

Age, Politics, Gender, Race, and Socio-Economic status were irrelevant. It was about who could do the best job; Every single employee truly brought value to the organization. Why do I say this? Because a great deal of effort went into planning the organizational structure and employee hierarchy within BDI. Even BDI’s flagship head office was developed and designed in a way that promoted barrier free, open thinking. An employee’s dream work oasis (at least it was for me).

So what’s my point? I’m hoping with the right people engaged we can reclaim this culture. Re-invigorate. Plan a new future together and boldly go where others dare not. Selfless motivation and the relentless pursuit of excellence is what I believe to be the key to reinvigorating our workforce. Each and every one of us is responsible for instilling motivation and work-life balance so that people can breathe, have fun, and be extremely productive stakeholders.