WOW! I know that word doesn’t quite explain the feeling of having your company and president mentioned (several times) in HR Magazine, but it is about all I can come up with.

SHRM, which is the Society of Human Resources Management, is a great organization (I actually belong to the Austin chapter) that has been around for awhile and are the creative bunch behind the magazine.

The topic of the article is Motivating Innovation - a very timely article on many fronts, but especially for us.

Research tells us that “teams are considered the engines of innovation and creativity that lead to future products and services”.

What does this mean in English? It means that true creativity, productivity and success comes when we work as a team and especially when the members of those teams don’t work in the same departments and represent different perspectives.

I don’t want this to sound too easy - it isn’t. True innovation and using that concept to motivate people is easier said than done. It requires us to think a bit more than usual, expend more of an effort and may even seem like it complicates the overall process. All those things are true, but the effort put forth will be rewarded hundred times over.

The most recent example of innovation and using the team approach is our Recruiting Event. The original concept came from Dan, we then had a brainstorming meeting with Dan, Ivy and Sarah. Everyday some other member of our growing team comes up with a cool slant on it.

The responses to our unique and unusual ad has been beyond anything that I have imagined – and we’ve had over 85% compliment us for being different.

Why are we different? Because there is no “I” in Eliza, er, I mean “team.”