Wow, what a great first half to 2024 we have had, and we have only just begun! As I draft this article, I am reminded of just how fortunate we all are to have the legacy and leadership of the AICC team. They epitomize all that is great in the Americas these days, and they are, by all accounts, a rare breed. I have watched in awe as the team continues to provide us online and on-site education that is second to none and included in our memberships, and now to watch so many of our AICC member manufacturing teams receive focused operational training is, in one word, awesome! This type of support and confidence in all of us for 2024 and beyond is exactly why I want us to take a brief moment and give our heartfelt thanks to Steve Young, our past AICC president and current ambassador-at-large, and Mike D’Angelo, our current president, both of whom have led us into this tremendous growth of services and education. Through their generosity, caring, and business acumen, we have one of the finest teams assembled and most well-equipped associations to serve our industry in North America, Canada, Mexico, and beyond. I am proud to be a small part of this team.
My request, after our salute to the AICC leadership team, is a call to action for all of us. We have a responsibility to utilize these wonderful AICC capabilities that have been placed in our hands to the absolute maximum gain for our various companies. That means we must approach each minute, hour, shift, and workday with a renewed vim and vigor surrounding the highest quality, greatest sales, best service, and fastest production of each and every order. Our loyal and wonderful clients are kind enough to choose us to produce their key packaging requirements for them. They do have other choices, and we must always remember that as we conduct our daily work activities. Ask yourself the following questions routinely to remain grounded in what is important:
Am I providing the absolute best-quality product/service I can for my internal and external customers?
Am I holding myself accountable for my personal contributions to my company, and am I proud of what I have done/produced/made/sold in the past hour/shift/day/week/month?
What can I do today and tomorrow to better serve those wonderful customers who provide me the means to support my family and my fellow team members?
I know for certain that each one of you reading this article has the capacity within you to be great at what you do for your fine company. Do you believe that? It is essential that every person on your team knows they have the full support of the entire AICC team, and we are here to assist you in any way to excel personally and professionally every day.
As you can imagine, this servant culture in an association such as ours will allow us to move from really good to great. I urge each of you to find a way to make your capacity and capability to contribute today better than yesterday and to think about tomorrow’s improvement on your ride back to work tomorrow. Challenge yourself, your supervisors, and your management team. You owe it to yourself, your teammates, and certainly your ownership.
Lastly, it is our choice to react, respond, change, adapt, improve, speed up, slow down—you get it! I would suggest to you that, given a choice, you take the high road and err on the side of doing more, listening more, contributing more, adding more input, questioning more, training more—you get it again! We all have choices, and when you explore yours at every juncture, please ask yourself the following quite simple questions: How will my decision/input/recommendation affect this situation in the most positive way possible? How will the outcome and those involved in the process be improved by my approach?
You see, team, we all have untapped and tremendously powerful capabilities, capacities, and choices to make. Understand them, take your time to think about them clearly each day, and make use of them with the best possible outcome in mind for all concerned because we are all we’ve got!
Here’s to making it a wonderful second half of 2024 and beyond at AICC, at your company, and for all of you and your families.
Tom Weber is president of WeberSource LLC and is AICC’s folding carton and rigid box technical advisor. Contact Tom directly at asktom@AICCbox.org.
