In its second year, the NTCA Key Employee Conference is a bit different from so many of today’s conferences as it short on hype and long on learning practical skills. One of the distinguishing features is that it provides a variety of courses that expose industry personnel to facets of the business that they might otherwise ignore or dismiss as not being part of their job description. Read on to see why a wide spectrum of people, from General Managers to Accounting to Central Officer Supervisors, traveled from as far away as the Artic Circle to attend this unique event.

Paul McMurray of Insight Management Consulting kicked off this two-day event with an interactive discussion of the role of customer service. He suggested that the strength of an independent telco is its ability to, “keep its customers connected.” He involved the audience by having them examine their, “moments of truth.”That is, those times when they touch the customer and have the opportunity to provide a positive or negative experience.He also talked of the importance of internal customer service and that ultimately all of the staff’s work touches the end customer either in a direct or indirect way.

McMurray’s comments on customer service were a perfect segue to his later discussion regarding the importance of communications. Again, through stories and participation, McMurray demonstrated the challenge of effective communications and provided some good tips for improving communications, such as creating a safe environment for discourse.

His sessions were very complementary to John Reddish of Advent Management International. Reddish provided a high-level view of project management. He stressed the importance of effective communications in successful project management. Trust, a cornerstone of effective communications, is also critical to successful projects. (simple rewards, such as the gummy bear eggs, shown above, that Reddish gave out to standout participants, work wonders in boosting team morale). He also pointed out that a good project manager really is a good sales person, as they identify what is important to the various stakeholders and constituents.

McMurray’s and Reddish’s themes of trust, effective communications and identifying what’s in it for stakeholders is also important to effective negotiations. Reddish discussed various techniques for negotiation and looked at the various possible outcomes of a win-win, win-lose, win-not cure, compromise and acquiescence. One of the key measures of a serious negotiation is that both parties act in good faith; otherwise, the parties are just wasting time (or acting nefariously).

To this last point, Kimberly Nunnerly, HR Manager for NTCA, gave a very heart-felt and well-researched presentation on the topic of time-management. Her honesty, humbleness and real-world experience in presenting this topic, gave her a credibility that full-time, time-management experts do not have. She really downplayed her accomplishments, as she is involved in her Church, local HR association, works for NTCA and has three kids under six. She did point out that one of the areas she need to improve is learning how to, “Just say no.” Her humorous and engaging presentation delivered a myriad number of good tips, as well as interesting trivia (such as there is 16 square feet of mall space for every women, man and child in the U.S.).

Interestingly, Bob Gnapp of NECA gave the only presentation at the Key Employee Conference that dealt with the jargon of the telephone industry. His presentation was very informative and explained where the various sources of telco revenue come from and how a decision in Engineering can have a much bigger impact on revenues than would be expected in a non-telco environment. Gnapp also provided straightforward explanations of terms such as Phantom Traffic and Access Avoidance.

The fun thing about this rather quick two-day event is that it involved a variety of people in various roles in their companies. For those participants who had been through these types of courses, they had a good refresher. For others, these courses were a good introduction to topics that may have only been in their periphery. One of the most valuable take-aways, however, was the interaction and networking among the participants.

[Note, the picture at the beginning of this article is of "gummy-bear" eggs that were one of the prizes given out by the always entertaining as well as informative John Reddish.]