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On Thursday I had the opportunity to attend the 2015 Administrative Professionals Conference at WinMock in Bermuda Run, NC. WinMock is a beautiful old barn that has been renovated to hold conferences, weddings, etc. Our audience was made up of Administrative Professionals from WFU, WF-Health Sciences, WSSU, UNC School of the Arts and Forsyth Technical Community College. We had 226 attendees.

I have been on the Administrative Professionals Committee, which plans the conference, for 12 years. This year, each attendee at the conference was able to win a door prize!

We had 3 great speakers!

Speaker 1 was Denise Ryan

Program Description “How to Get Along with Everyone Who Is Not Me?”

Who are you?

Controller/Director

Celebrate their action leadership and honest

  • Commander
  • Values getting the job done
  • Decisive risk taker
  • Good at delegating work to others
  • Results oriented

Promoter/Socializer

Celebrate their enthusiasm and joy

  • Entertainer
  • Values enjoyment and helping others with the same
  • Full of ideas and impulsive in trying them
  • Wants work to be fun for everyone
  • Optimist; nothing is beyond hope

Supporter/Relater

Celebrate their gentleness and mediation qualities

  • Harmonizer
  • Values acceptance and stability in circumstances
  • Slow with big decisions; dislikes change
  • Builds networks of friends to help do work
  • Easy-going; like slow, steady pace

Analyzer/Thinker

Celebrate their sensitivity and depth

  • Assessor
  • Values accuracy in details & being right
  • Plans thoroughly before deciding to act
  • Prefers to work alone
  • Introverted; quick to think and slow to speak; closed about personal matters

Speaker 2 was Susanne Gaddis – The Communications Doctor!

Program Description: “All Stressed Up, and No Place to Go”

Definition of what stress is: what occurs when the demands that are placed upon you exceed your capability for meeting those demands

We took an interactive stress quiz for instant health risk results!

Short-term stress, such as difficult meetings, sporting or other performances, or confrontational situations. Here, the emphasis is on short-term management of adrenaline to maximize performance.

Long-term stress, where fatigue and high adrenaline levels over a long period can lead to degraded performances. Here optimizing stress concentrates on management of fatigue, health, energy and morale.

Speaker 3 was Lisa Withers

Program Description “Building YOUR Brand”

The attendees all did the Logo Game, where you name which logo goes with which brand.

We learned about having positive emotions at work:

  • More productive
  • More focused
  • Higher satisfaction
  • Higher engagement

Results Pyramid

  • Results
  • Actions
  • Beliefs
  • Experiences

We also learned about wells and drains!

Wells: positive, look for the good, energetic, actions, refreshing, encouraging

Drains: dishonest, they don’t follow through, negative, point out everything you do wrong

It was a great day of learning! It is also a pleasure to help provide a great conference to a wonderful group of people!