We’re excited that you will be joining us for the Gathering of Games. Often attendees go into this annual conference with a clearly defined goal in mind, whether it’s learning more about a specific topic, or gathering ideas to tackle a nagging issue. With that in mind, we have developed a series of tracks surrounding the three central themes of the Great Game as well as three topical tracks for a total of six tracks. Here, we offer a sneak peak of the first three tracks, and full details are below.

“A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.” -Herbert Simon, Nobel Prize winner in Economic Sciences Our current work environments seem to be on a trajectory for greater and greater distraction. We are constantly keeping up with shifting priorities and an explosion of goals, initiatives, projects and trends. Just as mindfulness practice can help you refocus in your personal life, integrating organizational mindfulness into the workplace will help the company advance towards its primary goals.

Co-authored by Mark Banks If there is one thing I’ve learned in an open-book business it’s that it takes the right attitude to succeed. Recruiting the right players can make or break your team’s performance. Often times when we look to hire folks into our organization or promote from within, we simply look at their skill set, but I believe we must challenge ourselves to look at their attitude.

We hear it over and over again in training – the best way to retain and use information we’ve learned is to practice. And although many participants appear to want to slink under the table when trainers suggest role-playing, it is one of the most effective ways to practice using new skills in a safe setting. To that end, in the Zingerman’s Facilitation class, a quarter of the 2-hour class is devoted to a facilitation role-playing. It’s a chance for facilitators to practice three specific tools they’ve just learned: • Active listening • Summarizing • Interjecting

Most organizations deal with change grudgingly. Change is something we rarely looked forward to, and it’s generally not considered part of the routine operational activity. Rather, it's an exception to it, often about as welcomed as a root canal. Most folks prefer to have as little change as possible, and when it comes up, they grind their teeth and do their best to work through it with minimal pain.

Thinking of attendingthe Gathering of Games Conference in September? Great! It promises to be a great one, as this year’s theme is “Harnessing the Wisdom of the Crowd.” Let’s see what else you have to look forward to at this year’s conference:

Tasty Catering began as a fast-food hot dog stand called Tasty Dawg more than 25 years ago. Founded by a trio of entrepreneurial brothers, Tom, Larry and Kevin Walter, the company, which is based in the Chicago suburb of Elk Grove Village, Illinois, now serves up tasty treats at weddings, corporate meetings and conferences, social events, residential parties, special events, holiday parties, outdoor picnics, and more. Beyond its great food, Tasty has also garnered dozens of awards for its outstanding company culture.

The Kiolbassa Provision Company is a 65-year-old family-owned manufacturer of handcrafted sausage based in San Antonio, Texas. Originally started as more of a pork and beef processor, the company shifted into making sausage fulltime under the guidance of president Michael Kiolbassa, whose grandfather started the company. The company’s sausages will soon be sold in all 50 states and in Mexico.

Argent Tape & Label (ATL) is a manufacturer in Plymouth, Michigan, which produces pressure-sensitive labels used by industrial customers in the automotive, pharmaceutical and consumer industries. Business Challenges Lynn Perenic was a teacher, where she taught elementary education and then special education at the high school level for a total of 20 years, before she ever contemplated becoming an entrepreneur. But after her husband talked about closing ATL, which he had purchased back in 1995, because of its poor performance, Perenic stepped in to try and save the business. But with just three associates and virtually no customers, she had a difficult task ahead of her.

O’Connells OBM is a progressive chartered accounting firm based in Brisbane, Australia, that specializes in providing its clients with proactive tax and business advisory services. The OBM in the firm’s name is short for open-book management, which the company first embraced some 15 years ago.