You Don't Have To Prove You Belong in This Room

Most conferences leave connection to chance. You get a name tag, a coffee break, and the hope that the person next to you starts talking first. Some of us are good at that. Most of us are tired by three o’clock and end up eating lunch with the person we already knew. 

WiOPM opens differently. The first thing on the agenda after check-in is a guided networking experience called ICU - I See You, and it runs before a single session begins. 

The premise is straightforward. For two days, nobody in the room has to explain what she does or defend why she is there. Everyone is running some version of the same job, with the same staffing calls, the same payer pressure, the same 6 pm inbox. Take that off the table on day one and the rest of the conference gets better. 

This is not a card exchange. It is a set of guided conversations designed to get past the introductions people repeat at every event. You will talk about the work, but also about the parts of the job that rarely come up until the second glass of wine. By the time the first session starts, you will know people in the room by more than their practice name. 

What attendees take away: connections that hold after the drive home, a few practical ways to build trust in a conversation you have not had before, and the sense of belonging that shapes the next two days. 

The experience is hosted by Dr. Lisa Patierne, leadership consultant and founder of Rising to Greatness. Her background is not the one you would expect at an orthopedic conference, which is exactly why it works. Lisa spent more than 30 years in education, including serving as a high school principal, and earned her doctorate with a dissertation on school safety. She has since built leadership programs for more than 3,500 police officers, along with thousands of leaders across healthcare, government, and public safety. Her view is that the hardest leadership problems are almost never technical ones. They are human. Her forthcoming book, The Meatball Mindset, carries a foreword by Jack Canfield. 

She also does not lecture. Every experience she runs is built around the people actually in the room, which is workable at this size. WiOPM caps at 100. 

It also sets up everything after it. The two days run through a panel on patient experience, an improv workshop that is exactly as uncomfortable and useful as it sounds, four short talks, a reception, and a closing exercise on day two that asks you to commit to one thing. All of that goes better in a room where you already know people. 

Because sometimes one conversation is the thing you take home. 

Welcome and Networking Experience: ICU - I See You runs Wednesday, September 9 at 1:00 pm CT at Fifth Third Center in Rosemont, just outside Chicago and minutes from O’Hare.