I need to throw in some context before I present an example illustrating the point I’m trying to make. Lithuania has been a great supporter to Ukraine in its war against the aggressor. One of recent examples of such organized support attempts named #Radarom was the campaign organized in collaboration by the key influential and trusted names in the journalism skies of Lithuania. Aim of the campaign was to collect donations in order to buy radars for Ukraine from Israeli manufacturer costing 1 million euros each. The hype around the campaign was sky-high – lots of media attention, influencers’ community support was all there and lasted for a full month. Anyone could participate and donate 5 EUR by making a call to the dedicated phone number. Indeed it was seen as a privilege to donate.
Quite a few well known businesses in Lithuania joined the efforts and constructed their own donation campaigns of various forms ranging from significant fixed amount donations to time-frame based initiatives. For instance Tesonet promised to double the amount donated during the ‘golden hour’ announced on Friday morning and kept their promise by… adding another million euros to a million euros people managed to donate within an hour. Imagine the unity!
All in all, campaign month came to an end and by the time host of the closing event announced the finish of the countdown at the nicely organized live broadcasted concert in which famous Lithuanian artists performed, 12.5mEUR were collected.
However there was another giant promise to be kept, this one made my Teltonika (vehicle telematics for fleet management, 283mEUR global turnover) which had promised to add 10% on top of whichever amount would be donated throughout the month.
So as the closing event goes on with the final 12.5 mEUR collected, founder and CEO of Teltonika Mr Arvydas Paukštys comes up to the stage. Wearing slightly oversized suit and overall clearly stage is not his first choice of space to be at. Both him and the host of the event pull out the calculators in their attempt to calculate the exact amounts. Only quite soon Mr. A.Paukštys puts his calculator away, takes the mic and in his completely ordinary speaking manner tells ‘let’s round up’ and make it 14 mEUR. This enables purchasing 14 radars.
10 percent added to 12.5 mEUR is somewhat 250k EUR short to 14 mEUR. And this is what happens when the decision maker is in place – he is in the position to change the rules exactly when needed- at that broadcasting moment and on that stage.
Was this delegated to someone with a lower seniority, person would not be authorized and circumstances were not right for any additional steps in order to obtain additional mandates.
This was exactly the time for the decision maker to be in place and make that move. The move which not only made us all Lithuanians proud, the move which will allow one more radar to be bought and potentially save lives in Ukraine. #slavaukraini !
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