This week the partners and consultants of Corrigan Consulting had the rare opportunity to all be in one place at the same time. We carved out time from our busy (hectic!) schedules and spent two days together learning, strategizing, synergizing and, well, bonding.
Michael Massari, Caesars Entertainment Senior Vice President of Meetings and Events and a national voice in nearly every meeting trade publication, recently shared in Forbes, “No matter what industry you work in, we are all in the people business. Regardless of how tech-savvy you may be, face-to-face meetings are still the most effective way to capture the attention of participants, engage them in the conversation, and drive productive collaboration.”
Productive collaboration really resonates with our groups’ face-to-face experience. Sure we discussed general housekeeping topics like templates, time tracking, Survey Monkey passwords and business expense reporting. But the conversations around who we are as consultants, our strengths, who our clients and potential clients are, and our unique position to help our clients were invaluable.
We came out of the day and a half of meetings energized, motivated and eager. We better understand each other and each other’s strengths…and that will translate into better serving our healthcare clients and partners in the long run.
Do a simple search on in-person meetings and you’ll find the benefits to be:
- Captures attention
- Increases focus
- Builds relationships
- Builds trust
- Creates deeper insights
- Encourages participation
- Allows the reading of body language
- Often eliminates technical glitches.
Technology to connect us continues to evolve: text, email, Web Ex and the like, social media platforms, apps and cell phones. Technology makes it so easy to connect with each other; but to truly connect, nothing beats face-to-face, in-person, good old-fashioned conversation. You can’t build much rapport over an email but you sure can over a cup of coffee.
Consider Massari’s closing advice, “If it’s not that important, send an email. If it’s important but not mission critical, pick up the phone. If it’s critically important to the success of your organization, go see someone.” We got to “go see someone” this week and the benefits are immeasurable.