Meeting of the minds

Each year, Yard-Nique hosts a management retreat where structured brainstorming and future planning is the agenda.

“We talk about the positives and negatives of the previous year, what we are going to do differently, and what we want to be,” says Brian DuMont, president and CEO of the Raleigh, N.C.-based firm.

“We talk about our vision and mission statement – and are we in line with that?”

Fourteen employees attended the 2014 brainstorming meeting, including all department heads, the human resources director, CFO and six employees who are “key assets” to the company. He will also identify a “rising star” or two.

Here’s how Yard-Nique pulls of a successful brainstorming event:

• Draft an agenda. While the idea is to hold an open forum for ideas, DuMont makes sure the event stays on track by creating an agenda that is distributed in advance.
• Keep an open mind. Listen. Soak in the feedback from participants. The purpose is to gain many different perspectives.
• Take action. DuMont’s managers are responsible for communicating what goals were set at the meeting to their teams. “Once we get back, we make sure that information is translated to all levels,” he says.