Staff training and leadership retreat in Las Vegas: a short report

44 members from different levels of their firms and from across the generations met at the Mandarin Oriental in Las Vegas from 17-20 June for three different events: the Firm Leadership Retreat, the Tools for Success Staff Training Bootcamp and the Future Leaders Program.

The three events continued the alliance’s theme of Building a Future-Proof Professional Firm and were crafted carefully to help member firms’ talent, irrespective of their level of experience, to develop the key personal skills and peer groups they will need to drive growth and ensure their firms prosper in the years ahead.

A range of keynote speakers including illusionist Anders Hansen, leadership and business coach Eddie Ross and strategy consultant David Chavez helped participants to open their minds, learn new concepts, challenge the status quo and develop greater understanding of themselves and others.

At the staff training bootcamp, participants were coached by Amy Ayoub on how to present more effectively and by Christine Nietzke of Rainfall Consulting on how to create a focused and manageable personal business development plan.

On day two of staff training, additional presentations were supplemented with the opportunity to engage in open discussion with participants from the Firm Leadership Retreat, ensuring a lively exchange of views across the generations. Both groups also engaged with management consultant Eddie Ross to discuss the findings of their Hallos Relationships Survey and how they can use the results to gain a better understanding of their personal style and working preferences to achieve more effective working relationships with others.

“Through programs such as those run in Las Vegas, Alliott Group supports its member firms to develop a strategically relevant tomorrow by enabling benchmarking and open peer-to-peer learning. We also expose our members to business leaders from outside of the professions - after all, accounting and law firms are businesses and should run themselves as such.”

John Jones of Linkenheimer and Eddie Ross of EPR Business International jointly facilitated a significant portion of another successful Firm Leadership Retreat which ensured effective peer group coaching and opportunities to brainstorm and identify the barriers to further success and the strategies required to overcome them.

As usual, plenty of time was built into the program for discussion and personal networking during the meeting sessions but also in the evenings at some of Las Vegas' best dining locations.