Three Reasons to Take Your Team to Conferences
A common (if somewhat short sighted) belief in the business world is that sending your team to a conference takes away precious hours from office work, costing the employer time and money. Yet on the contrary to this misconception, everyone benefits from conferences: attendees come home with an expanded business network; renewed energy; and tangible, viable ideas to help innovation flourish in the workplace. As the CATLab team looks forward tomorrow to attending Lead Where You Stand, a world-class leadership conference at Westmont College featuring David Brooks, Erin Meyers and John Meacham, the benefits seem all too tangible. So why take your team to a conference? Here are three great reasons.
Your Team Learns Together
When your team attends a conference together, they participate in relationship-building experiences. Since the team is away from the office, interpersonal interactions become more natural and uninhibited; your team members get to know each other outside of a formal workplace setting. On top of traveling and eating meals together, your team will additionally be engaging with the same panels, speakers, and discussions. Team members will learn about each other by learning together. Multifaceted, deep relationships are oil to your team’s gears.
Innovation Thrives at Conferences
Conferences are creativity hotbeds. Caught up in a whirl of high-profile executives, experts in your field, and diverse peers from all over, your team will spend the duration of the conference surrounded by ideas from all directions. Especially when coupled with the change of setting, the minds of your team members will be turning in fresh, inventive ways. Those newly generated ideas will come back from the conference with your team. Inspiring speakers create inspired attendees—your team will leave the conference excited about the work they do, the team they’re working with, and what they can accomplish together.
Networking Opportunities
Company, institution, or CATLab notwithstanding, networking gives both you, your team, and your place of employment visibility in your field. An enthusiastic, accomplished, and engaged presence at conferences establishes your team in the community as people that future employers and business partners will want to work with. Both individuals and larger groups will come away from conferences with exciting opportunities and connections for future endeavors.
Convinced yet? Stay tuned for the rest of this week as the CATLab team reports on their experiences at Lead Where You Stand. Get an inside look at the conference by following the CATLab team on social media:
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