We Needed It... More Than Just a Meeting

This week's travels took me to Las Vegas as part of our team Train the Trainer Meeting for our entire program. Over 60 of us from around the country descended on Las Vegas to come together to learn, laugh and build a stronger team. We needed it.

Many would say, "Hey you are going to Vegas, remember what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas". Well, this was not our situation, what happened in Vegas will travel with us and allowed us to become closer as a team and helped us to visualize the strategy of the business unit together.

Being able to hear each other's full-throated thoughts and ideas in full was inspiring. It has become common placed to have team meetings on whatever virtual meeting app you prefer, but when we do, everyone is attempting to speak in sound bites like politicians. I don't feel that everyone on "the call" is truly able to express themselves and ideas as they would like. With that, there is something lost and many great ideas and words of wisdom fade.

Being together, sharing ideas, best practices and being able to feel the emotions behind what a person is offering, strengthens the foundation of the collective. Those words and passion harden the bedrock on which everyone stands and devotes a part of their lives to a mission that will go on without them in years to come. Yet, the time and energy that they invest in the early stages are what helps to make the vision clear and sustainable for years to come.

Being able to walk up to leadership and voice an opinion or share an idea in the flesh without twenty people being CC'ed on an email is empowering. The feeling of "being heard and not read" is truly a remarkable feeling. Personally, I dread that feeling of sending an email with your next great ideas and waiting to hear a response about it is like watching paint dry. Yet, that in person interaction is priceless and enables you to receive an instant response good, bad or indifferent immediately.

The biggest part of this for me is that I serve on five different teams in our organization, yet the ability to meet with these people I have worked with over phone calls, text and video is important. Being able to meet them in person creates a bond and allows you to add the true human element to your future interactions. With the changes in the way we do business, I believe the true human element has been removed and makes our interactions bland and sterile. The word "Team" is still relevant, but those of us that existed before all of these new ways of collaborating (texting, group messaging and video calls), being a team meant knowing your fellow team members beyond their title, roles and their last win or loss status in the weekly report call.

This is my takeaway from this Train the Trainer meeting. Nope, I didn't hit a monetary jackpot in Vegas. What I did take away from this meeting was more than the talk of strategy and best practices. What I walked away with was a sense of comradery, connection to people doing the same job in a different part of the country and the human connection that could never be accomplished via a 24-hour Webex call. That is something technology has not improved upon and probably never will.

Vernon "Longhorn" Davis