In the Bakken,
asking to be told By Karen Grosz, CPC blogger for www.synergystation.com
You are going to utter 16,000 words today. So is everyone else. On a daily basis, the average American will hear the words spoken, directly or indirectly, of well over 900 people and will be bombarded roughly by 5,000+ advertisements. The question is, out of all of the words that compete for our attention, how many do we really hear? Unfortunately, at both the corporate and personal level, probably very few; yet it is no secret that productive two-way communication is the single-most fundamental component of prosperous and lasting relationships. Conversely the absence of productive communication is an almost certain guarantee of dysfunctional and ineffective interaction. Left unchecked, the breaches created by the lack of communication at the corporate and community level could suppress every facet of productivity, including continued growth and prosperity. In a world where communication occurs at the speed of bits and bytes, the absence of productive communication is amplified. Why does that matter? But more importantly, how does this topic of productive, relatable communication translate to the Bakken? For most of us, we frequently hear the replays of parent tapes in the recesses of our memories. For me, of all the things my father told me, “People won’t listen unless they asked to be told” is probably the one that has made the most difference in my world. My dad, with his quiet wisdom, offered both the problem and the solution in that nine-word utterance. People won’t listen, a problem that plagues us all. And upon review of the Bakken microcosm, a dilemma magnified by the shear level of economic activity. Raising your voice, pounding your fist or spitting sentences of venom in a blog won’t fix the problem either. Getting folks to ask to be told is the solution, and it is the one the TRAC Team decided to tackle when designing 104
BAKKEN OIL REPORT – SPRING 2013
the 2013 Convergence Session at the upcoming TRAC Regional Energy Convergence and Trade Show in Billings, Montana. Imagine, if you will, community members, business representatives, and civic leaders each as a stream of people, with problems and solutions, ideas and beliefs, all flowing into the Billings Hotel and Convention Center on August 1st. Many of them, the ones who want to listen, the ones who want to be heard, will join together for four hours of conversation. The kind of conversation that makes people ask to be told. The kind of conversation that shapes community. We call this coming together “Convergence.” An initiative inspired by Synergy Station co-founder Kendall McRae, keynoted by Dr. Lydia Pugh, and facilitated by Karen Grosz, CPC, and a team of willing volunteers, the Convergence is a different way to hear and to be heard. Utilizing the latest in technology, the best trends in communication and the energy that only a crowd can bring, Convergence is designed with unique interactions, powerful conversations, and new opportunities to shape an amazing future as we harvest these vast energy resources. Convergence at TRAC is not a PR campaign or retrofitted marketing ploy. It is a rare opportunity to come together with individuals from all areas of community, business and the energy industry to build rapport, establish relationships, and lay the groundwork for solving tough industry challenges. Together, these efforts will be used to take deliberate action in the development of pragmatic strategies for success. Convergence offers the solution dad’s statement begged for; people listening because they have asked to be told and people who have something to say because they have listened. w