Key highlights from our semi-annual US Summit in the Twin Cities

(or as we like to call it, the “Twin Cities
Center of Excellence”)

The last few years, our US team has been gathering semi-annually in one of our three office locations: New York City, San Francisco, or Minneapolis – with our most recent Summit taking place in Minneapolis. As we operate under a hybrid work model, or as we call it a “meaningful model”, our teams choose when they want to go into one of our offices – and there is always a clear and meaningful reason for doing so. These Summits offer an opportunity for managers and mentees to bond, for the team to expand its knowledge through training, and to discuss our plans for the next half of the year.

Here are a few highlights from our time together:

Empathy style training

We had a lot of fun with this one and it helped us to better understand how we each like to communicate. First, we completed a quick assessment that asked us to select a statement we agreed with. For example: orderly, logistical, fair, follows rules or active, sociable, outgoing, alert. Unsurprisingly, the results concluded that we are a creative, innovative, hardworking, detail-oriented, collaborative team.

More specifically, the training taught us how we decode the communication preferences of each empathy style including normal, hustler, mover, double checker, politician, and engineer. This session broke down how each empathy style prefers to communicate with certain language or key phrases, speed of delivery, and even preferred PowerPoint formats. The findings from this session will be applied to many day-to-day scenarios that include the way account leads communicate and provides instruction to their wider team.

Good strategy training

As a refresher, we reviewed our good strategy training that includes our LIFE framework which stands for Listen, Inspire, Focus and Execute. The LIFE framework is a proprietary approach to comms strategy, creativity, measurement, and delivery. We use data, insights, and best-in-category tools to bring brands to life through high impact, creative campaigns, and core programs.

Successful storytelling can be very challenging as it requires simplicity, memorability, and high impact, but through our LIFE framework there are clear and actionable steps to create compelling narratives for the brands transforming our world.

Company updates and account learnings

It’s important to look back and reflect on the great work our team has done in the first half of this year. We shared our findings so we may implement these practices or avoid the same challenges where we can.

In reviewing the results of our employee engagement survey, team members described working at Brands2Life as: fun, world-class, innovative, creative, and inspirational.

We discussed our goals and objectives for Q3 and Q4 that included expanding our team, marketing initiatives, future trainings, and more. We also reviewed our upcoming list of Book Club reads – which we will discuss in future blogs.

Overall, my first time visiting the Minneapolis office did not disappoint. In addition to the highlights above, we enjoyed a fabulous dinner, indulged in a rooftop happy hour, and ate lots of cheese curds (a Minneapolis staple).

I would be remised not to mention that our beautiful office is located in the North Loop, centered among tons of trendy coffee shops, bars and restaurants. Not to mention, our building seems to attract show-dogs like Golden Retrievers.

When our three days together came to an end, we hugged each other goodbye feeling slightly exhausted from all the fun we had. We left fulfilled with new knowledge and eager to apply it to our work. We are excited for our next US Summit in New York City in early 2024!