Road Trips

by Mark McClanahan

“Sometimes what you’re looking for comes when you’re not looking at all.” I came across this quote recently, and it reminded me of a recent leadership development workshop I attended with my management team.

Training is a big deal at Mosby Building Arts. From hard skills to soft skills, we regularly invest time, money and energy into personnel development. In March, my management team and I kicked off a two-year leadership training program with a company called Aileron, based in Dayton, Ohio. This is an intensive program that involves meetings every three weeks over the course of the two years. My goals for this training are to elevate our individual and collective leadership abilities and, through the process, to become a more cohesive team.

Most of the training is to occur in our office in St. Louis; however, our first session was at Aileron, which involved a trip to Dayton. I debated between flying and driving, and after researching the different options, it made more sense to drive. So, one Wednesday morning in March, we rented a 15-passenger van and began our six-hour journey to the campus.

To my surprise and pleasure, the road trip ended up being one of the best parts of the experience. We had a chance to discuss assorted topics ranging from personal to business. There were both group discussions and side conversations that went wide and deep. The character of the conversations changed from serious to lighthearted to caring to comical. Everyone engaged!
By the end of the trip, all the managers had commented on the high value of us spending this time together—so much so that I intend to plan other road trips in the future.

Mark McClanahan (mmcclanahan@callmosb.com or 314.909.1800) is the president at Mosby Building Arts.