As De Lage Landen employees from the U.S. sail the grueling Clipper Round the World Yacht Race, colleagues back at the office will live the team-building metaphor with a Build-A-Bike benefit for local chapters of the Boys & Girls Clubs in Philadelphia, Story County, Iowa, and Metro Atlanta on June 6.
 
“We are bringing the teamwork metaphor to life — on sea with the clipper race, and on land with the Build-A-Bike event,” said Jeffrey Berg, U.S. Country Manager of De Lage Landen (DLL), a global provider of asset based financial solutions.  “This exercise is a tangible way to continue strengthening our ability to make connections throughout the business — developing from within so we can offer true partnerships with our customers and contribute to the local communities where we live and work.”
 
Four DLL employees from offices in Wayne, Pa., Duluth, Ga., and Des Moines, Iowa, are experiencing the Clipper journey first-hand.
 
“Our objective to participate in the Clipper race was driven by our ambition to grow into   a globally networked organization. Having one of our own members on each leg of the journey makes it very real and recognizable,” Berg explained. “In order for all U.S. employees to experience what the race stands for, they will take part in the original team-building exercise — Build-A-Bike.”
 
Eighty-six teams in Wayne, 22 in Des Moines and eight in Duluth will participate in the office event. Berg noted that each team represents a cross-functional section of the company, led by a leader they have never worked closely with, making teamwork a requirement to complete their tasks.
 
Nineteen of DLL’s 5,400 staff members in 36 countries were selected to train as amateur sailors for the Clipper race. The four Americans participating are: 

• Abdoulaye Tangara, inside sales executive with DLL’s Agco Finance office in Duluth, who sailed Leg 1 from London to Rio de Janeiro
• Karen Ballard, credit manager for DLL in Wayne, who sailed Leg 6 from Qingdao, China to San Francisco
• Eric Riesberg, credit underwriter with DLL’s Agricredit in Des Moines, who just completed Leg 7 from San Francisco to New York
• Corinne MacCarty, structured sales support analyst for DLL in Wayne, who will sail the final leg from New York to London (June 7th)

“I never heard the words ‘I can’t do this’ while being on board,” Ballard shared. “Instead it was, ‘I am struggling, can you help me?’ What makes this DLL initiative a competitive force is an environment that does not put limitations on its people but challenges and supports them to grow in new and surprising ways.”

Blog posts by crew members and information can be found on the One DLL website: www.one-dll.com.