Have a set agenda for the meeting.Having the topics sent prior to the meeting to have those ideas ready to go before meeting. Collaborating, being supportive, and working together as a team for specific purpose. Promotes team collaboration and that you are all working towards a common goal. Know your employee's mental model, sensing (concrete, real, factual, structured, and tangible) vs. intuitive (possibilities, theories, invention and the new) or the "ideal" employee behavior vs. an employee that promotes learning. This helps with communication and builds better relationships.

As an event coordinator for over 18 years, I led a team with every upcoming event. I knew the dynamics of how hotels operated and the steps to take before each event, during, and after an event. Knowledge of the steps was key to my success and then continually communicating to the team any updates with numbers of individuals registered, the amount of seating needed for each room set up, the amount of vendor tables needing to be set or taken down at the end of each day, and etc. all being communicated to the hotel staff and those on my team. Collaborating with the information technology person who would have to know the names of the different sessions, presenters, room name etc. for the website to have all the information prior to registration going live. All members of the organization were monitors for each track based on their knowledge of each track. One person, CFO, led the finance track, another person was Medicaid Consultant, which led the regulatory track, and etc. All of us collaborated and communicated our expectations of individuals duties for each track and this worked well every time.

However, the associate director, although he likes collaboration, he always wanted everyone to side in his favor of any idea he had. Such as continually changing the set up and changing the menus for lunches. I am all in for changing the types of foods at conferences but the majority, based on the evaluations, did not. Every time a menu changed, there were negative evaluation responses.

So, everyone in the organization met and we came up with another alternative. We gave participants an option to opt out or opt in for lunch and provide them with the menu prior to the event. Those who opted out could go out and get whatever they wanted to eat for lunch. This worked amazingly well and saved a lot of money and had a lot less wasted food.

What I would have done differently would have been to survey the participants prior changing the menus every time, to see what their preference would be, whether to opt in or opt out based on what the menu was. Thus, promoting that we are serving the customers and we heard what you were saying. Had this been done years prior, there would have been better evaluations on the food for many years vs. having negative evaluations based on the food served for almost every event. Food preferences are different for everyone and cooking good, quality food for large numbers is a task itself.

(READ THE ABOVE and ANSWER THE QUESTIONS BELOW)

Which ideas or thoughts did you read that you found interesting or insightful? How did these ideas or thoughts inform your own thinking?

Are there any sections that you think you read that could expound upon? (e.g. "I'd really like to hear more about how you think political corruption is a primary factor in this case.")

What thoughts or questions does your reading response trigger for you?