November 11, 2015 – Seminar 7, DAY 1
364 days ago, we started our leadership development journey with our MARL family. It was a bittersweet day as we kicked off the 2nd year in Moorhead. Excitement buzzed through the room as we reconnected with friends from across the state and caught up on each other’s lives since we were together in Duluth earlier this summer. It is a sobering thought that our MARL journey will conclude in just over 4 months with graduation in Brainerd.
Liepold measuring straw tower
Hagl and Jensen engaged in the straw tower competition
The November session will largely focus on communication, facilitating productive meetings and making decisions in critical situations. We kicked off the session with a group activity that challenged our communication skills. The objective was to construct the tallest structure using only drinking straws and masking tape. Our teams had five minutes to talk out our game plan followed by ten minutes to execute our plan without talking. It was a great exercise to remind us about how critical communication is. It is interesting to think about how similar our personal and professional lives are to the straw tower challenge. We often develop a plan with our families and teams for daily/weekly tasks and then divide to conquer with limited opportunities to reconnect as we focus on our own key areas.
MARL Class VIII in silent action
Class VIII building in silence
Mike then lead us through a discussion on how to best position the committees we serve on for success. With countless hours invested by volunteers, it is important to use the time of meeting participants as efficiently as possible. This starts with proactive meeting preparation that drives an agenda to communicate expectations to committee members. Facilitating the meeting to keep people on task while ensuring there is participation from all attendees can prove to be a challenge. We reviewed a couple of resource manuals that had great tips to balance various personality types to pursue a productive meeting conclusion.After a delicious meal of high quality pork loin (pig farmers across rural America thank you for the opportunity to provide your nutritional needs!), we capped off the night with an update from Mike and Olga on our Vietnam trip before we shared our personal and professional updates.
Cotterall and Hewitt, part of the winning team
Tomorrow is an exciting day with tours to Case-New Holland, NDSU, Appareo Systems and the evening banquet. Here’s to the second year of our MARL experience, Cheers!
Respectfully yours,
Daryl Timmerman
MARL Class VIII
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