REthink Wine Blog

Have you ever been in a really great meeting? The kind where parties from multiple sides are effectively working together to meet common goals? Last week I had the pleasure of participating in one of these. I didn’t even realize how impressed I was until afterwards.

One of our clients invited us to participate in a planning meeting for 2007. They shared their very concrete goals for the growth they expect to see and asked us to help get them there. Simple. But not inherently easy.

I’ve often noticed that people can have a difficult time asking for help, especially in our society. A common fear is that you will be perceived as weak, or in a work environment as not knowing your job and therefore are expendable. My experience has shown me, however, that the opposite is much more true. Seeking assistance can bring tremendous rewards and as someone who is not naturally inclined to ask for help, I have found this to apply both personally and professionally.

I recently read a post on Collective Intelligence and recognized that happening in our meeting on a smaller scale: individuals with varying strengths and areas of expertise contributing to propose solutions to a set of challenges.

It’s easy to sit in a room with the same group of people with whom you’re familiar and discuss the same issues you’ve rehashed over and over, you just may not get very far from where you’ve been. While it can be unnerving to invite in “outsiders”, the leaps you may make by challenging your usual ways of thinking can be inspiring.

For our winery client partners, I offer the following steps:

1. Review 2006, successes and areas for improvement.
2. Brainstorm where you want to go. Take the risk and write down some big dreams.
3. Identify measurable goals. Stretch yourself and make them impressive.
4. Share your goals, concerns, and expectations with your IBG account manager and together form a plan to achieve your objectives.

This process will foster a great partnership going forward, one of mutual trust, accountability, and collaboration.

In any arena, I encourage you to solicit opinions from unexpected places, even from people who have little direct knowledge of your industry.That business-savvy sister-in-law may surprise you. Go outside your comfort zone and be open to a whole new approach. There are major gains to be made with virtually nothing to lose.

So while we didn’t solve the world’s problems in our 2 hour meeting last week, we did set the stage for a terrific year ahead, one of partnership and understanding. We’re all set up to succeed!

This entry was posted by Natalie Douvos on Tuesday, January 9th, 2007 at 3:24 pm and is filed under Inertia Buzz. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.