Defining Our Many Roles

Not long ago, an e-mail popped up in my in-box with the time, date and place of a staff retreat for my organization. Of all the cheesy office events that we can expect to encounter in our professional careers, I think one of the most groan-worthy is the staff retreat. Images of team-building exercises, power point presentations and sharing our visions for the organization flooded my mind. Would we have to do those games where people fall back into each other's arms to prove we trust our coworkers? I let my imagination run amok with one cornball possibility after another.

Soon after that e-mail arrived, my boss came back from a meeting and announced that each department had to prepare a presentation for the retreat that explained the three most important contributions made by its members. What began as a competitive endeavor to have the best presentation quickly proved itself to be a great way to actually tell people what we do. My department is comprised of three people, and together we make up the marketing and communications staff. As we planned our tongue-in-cheek video, we quickly realized that very few people know the difference between our three contributions: marketing, public relations and communications. In fact, we had to stop ourselves a few times to make sure we weren't confusing the three.

While the finer, educational details of our video may only stay in the minds of our coworkers for a limited time, the project was a great refresher for us. I think we all could benefit from taking a step back and actually thinking about the basic, specific functions our jobs entail.

(And in case you were wondering, the retreat was actually enjoyable. Our presentation was a favorite, too!)