7/31/2019 The Que - AGM Edition 2012
1/2
The Que
agm edition 2012In our travels throughout the company, we
areseeing that spring has sprung in a number o
our communities. All o our markets save FortSt. John, have just
sprung orward with thetime change and our business and
companycertainly seem to be springing into a positive2012.
Each spring, the partners o Urban Systemscome together at the
Annual General Meeting(AGM) to sign o on our previous nancial
year and to plan or the year and years ahead.This year, we spent
a considerable amounto time discussing our desire to truly be
aLiving Company, one that is successul or
generations to come.
Some o you may have heard o the Living
Company as part o Urban Systems vision.
Others use the concept interchangeably
with the ot stated: we are not or sale
principle. Others still interpret the Living
Company as a covenant or social contract
between the dierent generations o
people in Urban Systems to strengthenthe company on all bottom
lines and to
pass the company orward stronger and
healthier than when we became part o
it.
The notion o succeeding over
generations, while sometimes dicult
to grasp conceptually, is incredibly
liberating rom more conventional or
traditional approaches. It allows us
to think more holistically and over alonger time period when we
consider
investments in our people, our clients
and our company. We arent bound by
trying to report a successul month or
quarter. Instead, the Living Company
provides us with a lens that requires us
to consider the inter-play between our
ve bottom lines: our people, our clients,
our organization, our nances, and our
2012 AGM - Board of Directors
7/31/2019 The Que - AGM Edition 2012
2/2
communities. We are nding when our strategies
and directions result in mutually reinorcing
bottom lines, our business and practice thrive.
When any o the bottom lines are overweight, we
tend to see consequences on other ronts.
The Living Company ethic was rst endorsed
as a key piece o our company vision in 2002.
Ten years on, we think it is important or all 350o us to go deep
on what this means to us. It is
interesting to note that about 40 out o 59 o our
partners were not yet partners in 2002! This is the
Living Company in action - continuous growth,
succession and transition. We believe it is very
important that our Living Company vision be
well understood and strongly held by all o our
people. We cant take it or granted and it needs
to be revisited, discussed and well understood by
everyone or us to achieve sustained success.
Lots o great observations were shared at the AGM
and the partners commitment and enthusiasm
or the Living Company are high. Interestingly, the
most widely held sentiment expressed was that
our senior colleagues invested in us and helped
us to be better than we ever thought we could be
and we want to pay that orward to grow others
and enable them to achieve their ull potential.
Our commitment to people and our commitment
to spirit in service or vibrant communities reallyorm the core o
this notion.
The Living Company is an exciting and uniying
approach and it orms an over-arching part o
our vision or Urban Systems. It really infuences
our thinking, our decision making and our
investments. We look orward to meeting with sta
across the company later this spring to urther our
discussions on the networked organization and to
unpack the larger story on Our Living Company.
For those who care to learn more about the tenets
o a Living Company, we have attached an HBR
article that provides an excellent overview o the
Living Company book written by Arie de Geus.
Martin Bell Steve Frith
The Living Company
in action - continuous
growth, succession
and transition
