Earlier this week I attended a dinner function with 16 others, to hear a well-regarded Director and Chairman share his thoughts and experiences about leading the Board of a high-growth company. Amongst some great insights, he suggested three areas that Boards of high-growth companies need to focus on closely:

• Capital: Boards need to ensure the company has sufficient capital to fund its growth plan. Otherwise, growth will be limited by available funds, and that inevitably means slower growth, and may mean important market opportunities are missed.
• Capability: Boards need to ensure the company has sufficient people capability to execute its growth plans. That means recruiting a CEO capable of leading the company effectively, both now and in the future. It also means encouraging the CEO to recruit high capability people into key roles, lest the growth of the company outstrip the manager's ability to execute.
• Culture: Driving growth is often hard work, so everyone needs to be on-board. The Board needs to ensure (through the CEO), that everyone is working to the same goal, and that they are signed up to an agreed set of brand/company values. People who can't sign up should be given the opportunity to "get off the bus".

Sounds easy on paper! What do you think?

We live in a busy world. Most of us have a lot going on in our lives, particularly our work lives. Daily, we seem to have more to see and more to do. And through our wireless devices, we are "always on" and constantly checking in—even when we are not at work. Superficially, this commitment to cause sounds good. But is it as good as we think?

As life speeds by, we are all at risk of  being swept along with it. But an excessive focus on work and success can lead to significant compromises in other areas, particularly in our personal lives. And that can be unhealthy.

Leslie Perlow, Harvard Professor and author of Sleeping with your Smartphone, recently wrote a great article on how to overcome this addiction to success which is played out through our mobile devices. She offers some practical tips that will enable you to devote more time to your personal life and become more productive in your work life. I commend this article to you. It'll only take 5 minutes to read. If you are game enough to try Leslie's suggestions, I'd love to hear how you get on—and I'm sure she would be as well!

Three significant events happened this week.

• On Tuesday, we proudly witnessed our son graduate from the University of Canterbury with a Bachelor of Engineering with Honours. Tim is a member of the cohort of 2011, the so-called earthquake cohort. He has endured the trials and tribulations of the Christchurch earthquakes, and we are convinced he and many others are stronger for the experience.
• On Wednesday, ANZAC Day, we remembered those New Zealanders and Australians that fought for freedom in wars in faraway places. Many returned, but many young lives were lost. Lest we forget.
• On Friday, we received a large package of information relating to our daughter's AFS student exchange. Megan leaves in mid-August to live in Belgium Flanders for 12 months. The experience will change her life, as it changed mine when I participated on an AFS exchange to USA in 1979-80.

Together, these events reminded me of our responsibility as parents and adults to prepare the next generation, and to provide them with space to make their contribution in life. We all owe it to our kids and those that follow to give our best to this task. How will you prepare those you influence to become significant contributors in the world?

Ever wondered about the sacrifices people around you make as they pursue their goals? Some people are motivated by quite selfish goals. They'll go without in one area to potentially win big later on. These people often get ahead, but equally often these people stand on toes and some are despised because of the selfishness. Others however are motivated by making sacrifices in order to make the world a better place. Simon is someone that fits in this latter category. I want to tell you about the work he is doing to help children who live in some of the poorest areas of our city.

Simon runs the Shoes Project at our local church. He decided one of the ways we could help our neighbours was provide shoes to every child (yes, every single one, that's thousands of kids) that attends a decile one primary school in our city. He negotiated a deal with a sports shoe company and put the word out there. He asked people to make a sacrifice, to give money, to help a child. And guess what? They did. His workmates gave. So did local businesses, and so did people at our local church. Even other kids. People were moved by not wanting these children to go through winter without decent shoes. You see, with good shoes they'd stay healthier, and learn more at school. People took up the opportunity to forgo some of their own hard-earned money in order to put shoes on the feet of a child who either didn't have any or whose shoes were quite simply falling apart. 

And do you think the kids appreciated the gesture? You bet! The project made the front page. Simon started with one school. When the sacrificial donations made by many were added up, there was enough money to give every child in two schools a new pair of shoes. All this has happened in the last four weeks. It's exciting! There's nearly enough money to do the third school, but there are so many more children still missing out. 

Would you like to be part of this? Can you sacrifice $26 to fund a pair of new high-quality sports shoes for a child? If so, please contact me by email or Twitter and I'll connect you.

This weekend, Easter, is when Christians the world over look to the core of their faith and the sacrifice God made. Dying for the sake of others is the ultimate sacrifice anyone can make—Jesus did this. Funding a pair of shoes for a growing child in a poor suburb is a much smaller sacrifice, but one with huge upsides.

Why is Simon doing this? It's all about improving the wellbeing of our community and the society we live in. Simple as that.