CIB: Ready, Set Grow!

CIB’s staff function, themed “Ready, Set, Grow”, took place recently in Johannesburg. The event was attended by the company’s entire Joburg team, who celebrated a long list of successes and achievements.

MD Wilhelm von La Chevallerie gave a rousing talk on planning and progress. Using a studying analogy, he said, “When you write exams you are forced to plan ahead. If you know how much time you have, and how much work you have to get through, you can figure out how to do it.

“But from time to time you hit a snag. Like when you set aside two hours for a section, and four hours later you’re still on page 2. It takes perseverance and will power. You cannot turn to the next page if you don’t understand the previous one. If you think you can skip a page and still succeed in the exam, forget it.

“The same applies in a work environment. If you think you can just skip through something without dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s, then move onto the next thing and think it will come right… it’s just not going to happen.

“The hardest worker needs to be the one who pays attention to detail. Work through the night if you have to, but make it happen!”

Wilhelm and other members of the executive team then handed out a string of long service and excellence awards (which they call Rhino awards) to those team members who have really delivered above and beyond in the past year.

The afternoon formalities were closed off by Good Things Guy founder Brent Lindeque, who shared his remarkable story of success, as well as a few of the good news stories he’s encountered since launching the GTG platform in 2015.

“90% of the country earns less than R7630 per month,” he said. “45% of South Africans live below the poverty line. And 20% of South Africans don’t eat every day. In that 20% are 4.5 million children who go to bed hungry every night.”

These stats prompted Brent to start a nomination movement called Random Acts of Kindness (#RakNomination), which encouraged social media users to film themselves doing something good and then nominating others to do the same. It started a global movement that has helped countless individuals across the world. 

“RAK, seven years ago, touched almost a million lives directly and reached 90 million timelines organically. That’s unheard of when it come to marketing campaigns.”

Good Things Guy eventually grew out of the #RakNomination movement (with a few positive stops along the way) and today the GTG website has 2.5 million readers a month.

“The reason I’m here today is to explain that in order to grow, in order to change things, in order to do something crazy or positive or really just grow within your own life, it’s not just one decision. It’s many,” he said.

Brent shared many stories of good news in our country and invited the CIB team always to look for the positive and do good for others wherever possible.

CIB head of marketing, Chelene Naidoo, says Brent was invited to speak at the awards event for a very specific reason.

“Brent echoes the positive outlook we have on life in general at CIB,” she says. “This is encapsulated in our #SAfacts campaign, which seeks out positive SA stories and shares them on our website.”

You can check out #SAfacts here.

At CN&CO we are extremely positive and optimistic about our future in South Africa and, having attended the CIB staff awards function, are even more so now.