Building Community with the Source Media Properties Team

Despite all the talk of businesses as families in the last decade, I’m beginning to think that the real secret to success for most organizations is to nurture their sense of community.

If you’ve read Bowling Alone or any of the other books on the importance and subsequent loss of community in our society, this probably comes as no surprise to you. After all, how can we expect an organization to solve the wold’s most complex problems or introduce society’s most innovative solutions if the people who work there, do not have a common goal, feeling of connection, or understanding of themselves and the world around them?

For these reasons, I was absolutely delighted to lead the crew from Source Media Properties at their annual team retreat. Here was a team intentionally making time to build community among it’s members. And I got to help! This, folks, is literally my dream job.

As luck would have it, the weather was beautiful on this late summer day as we grabbed our hiking boots, left our to-do lists in the office, and stepped under the towering pines at Malabar Farm’s Pugh Cabin. Surrounded by ancient trees and dappled in sunlight, we practiced giving and receiving feedback, explored our natural communication styles, compared notes on generational workplace preferences, and built our emotional intelligence (EQ) muscles through a number of fun activities (note to self: don’t bet against a team of journalists in a charades competition). We wrapped up the day considering the trail this group hoped to blaze together in the coming year.

While we started with individual preferences and tendencies, we gradually uncovered how each of the unique individuals that make up this creative, caring, and reflective group contribute to an even stronger, more impressive whole team.

I was probably most impressed with the way they all jumped right into the day’s activities with curiosity, open minds, and interest in one another’s thoughts. I also appreciated their willingness to try new things both during the retreat and back at the office.

This group truly is “stronger together”, and I can’t wait to see how they continue to grow and develop this year as a business, and as a team, but most importantly as a community.

Thank you, Amy Rehbein for managing all of the logistics for this amazing event, Jay Allred for running an insightful feedback activity, and the entire team for being such a great group to work with.