Yes, it arose out of a need, first of all, in Owen Sound when the one plant closed down. I was fortunate at that time. It was a small community and I had about a 10-year history with these companies when I was working for the college system and had developed a relationship with each of the manufacturers and then with the people in those buildings.
For an organization like ours to be successful, we're in the plant, we're on the floor. We're not up here; we're not in the boardroom, but where the money is being made and where the problems are. How it started really was by building one relationship at a time and then getting those relationships working together and really adopting the philosophy that sharing and borrowing ideas were okay.
When we were first asked to expand into another community, for example, I took what we were doing in Owen Sound and I failed. I failed three months in a row with what we were doing to get them working together. I found out through a friend of mine, after the third month of failing, that this whole thing of expecting people to share and help each other out is a learned behaviour.
We have adopted some philosophies, if you will, of how to teach people to give themselves permission to behave that way. The fundamental success or why it works is about the relationship-building and having them understand that it's okay to behave this way.