Why Join a Roundtable for Executives?
Executive roundtables are designed to overcome the shortcomings of traditional professional development.
- Roundtables address complex issues of management and leadership. Most professional development activities deal with elementary concepts and skills. This may be appropriate for learning a specific skill, such as a computer application. It may also be useful for entry-level employees. However, for senior professionals "training" is often a waste of time and money.
- Roundtables provide continuous, sustained support for your efforts to improve yourself and your organization. Most professional development consists of either a workshop or seminar, lasting one or a few days; or attendance at an association meeting for 3 or 4 days. You go, you sit and listen, and you leave, without any opportunity for continued dialogue and follow-up. Back at the office you pick up your "to do" list and your good intentions slip away. A Roundtable keeps you engaged in the process of improvement.
- Roundtables are a forum for dialogue about real and immediate concerns. Usually professional development occurs in large groups, which offer little opportunity for participants to talk about and grapple with their real challenges. Instead they work on hypothetical cases, which are devoid of the complexities and multiple dimensions of reality. Participants are left on their own, after they return to work, to apply the theoretical concepts to their actual circumstances.
- Roundtables create a supportive and confidential environment where you can be honest. Even when a professional development activity is designed to address real-life problems, participants usually are reluctant to be completely open. In public settings people want to put a positive face on themselves and their organizations. This seriously hampers the ability to really understand and address the causes of problems.
By bringing together a small group of high-level professionals, in a supportive and confidential environment, over a period of years, Roundtables for Executives have a real impact on the participants and their organizations.
Some entities go by the label "roundtable," but fail to deliver the benefits described above. A recurring meeting of executives, whatever it is called, will not in itself lead to new perspectives and practical solutions to real problems. A roundtable must be designed and managed with care, to enable members to build trusting relationships, and to bring "out of the box" thinking to the group. This requires a skilled facilitator. Without careful steering, a round table will lose its energy and direction. Either it will wither, as members lose interest, or it will evolve into a pleasant, but not very effective social gathering.
The Value of Roundtables for Executives
The fact that most roundtable members continue to participate year after year attests to the value. If it were not worth it, they would drop out. Here are comments from members of roundtables for museum directors which have been operating since 1996.
In my years of participation in the Museum Director's Round Table, I have come to depend upon it as a crucial resource, fulfilling a large part of my professional development and networking needs. On the one hand, it has constantly challenged my assumptions and procedures by exposing me to a range of best practices in both the museum and corporate worlds and by alerting me to threats on the near and far horizons. Equally important, it has brought me close to a true peer group of fellow museum directors. Our sharing of our professional and personal trials and triumphs has placed my own life in richer context while refreshing by soul.
Michael Zuckerman
Executive Director
Mid-Atlantic Center for the Arts
Roundtable member since 1996
This roundtable is a real highlight for me - both in my professional and personal life. My employees always look forward to my "newest tricks" and have come to appreciate the value of the many rich benefits we all receive.
Julia Bland
Executive Director
Louisiana Children's Museum
Roundtable member since 1999
The roundtable offers you a confidential, non-competitive support group that understands your problems and can help you get through your next board or staff meeting with a smile on your face.
Bruce Katsiff
Executive Director
James A. Michener Art Museum
Roundtable Member since 1998
I have found the Director's Round Tables to be intellectually stimulating,very friendly, highly informative, and practically helpful in providing a host of specific ideas for improving the operation of my museum.
Dr. Jeremy A. Sabloff
The Williams Director
University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
Roundtable Member since 1996
I consider the roundtable to be "a room with a view." It's an essentially private space, not because I am alone in it but because none of my familiar distractions are there. I am alone with my own thoughts-no personalities or baggage-and my own ability to take new ideas on board or change existing ones... The energy of the group is stronger than the insight or energy I would have by myself. It's a true think tank and I go home not only with ideas but with-even better-new analytical tools by which to judge current ideas.
Madeleine Burnside
Executive Director
Mel Fisher Maritime Heritage Society
Roundtable member since 1998
To learn how you can join a Roundtable for Executives, contact us.
