Yes, of course we have a squadron of flying monkeys here at Atlas GT World HQ, ready at a moments notice to fly forth and do our bidding.

Well, really, they’re not monkeys.  That would be silly. They’re hardworking, bright young people with a commitment to project success. When they’re not working for us they’re out in the world helping other companies achieve extraordinary success. But when we need them, we have to but send out the word and the flying monkeys gather from the skies for a kickoff meeting.

This week, it was a long-anticipated litigation support effort that broke and, true to form, had essentially no time in which to complete some pretty complicated work. With only a few calls, and leveraging  goodwill that we banked several months or years ago, we were able to mobilize a great team for intense data analysis that allowed us to deliver Atlas-class customer service on a very compressed schedule.

Every company should invest in meeting and cultivating their squadron of flying monkeys. Whether it’s graduate students for summer field assignments or semi-retired engineers for tropical QC work, freelance, short-term working relationships are becoming the accepted, even the best, method of delivering technical services.

Our deadline is Monday. We and the squadron are  working through the weekend, and on Monday night after delivering our fact-saturated report we’ll be sharing a little appreciation with them for another job well done.