AAFF DEVELOPS TEAMWORK BY BUILDING COMMUNICATION STYLES

Each Friday at the Festival offices, our intern team gathers to work together on the upcoming Festival, make plans and discuss any pressing matters.

Last Friday, AAFF Board Member Robin Sober visited with our intern cadre and inspired them with her personal story. Sober conveyed how the AAFF is "challenging, emotional and different, and pushes the boundaries of what film is," as Graphic Design Assistant Cydne Robinson observed.

Sober brought her experience as a organizational development professional to the team, and introduced them to Straight Talk®, a program used to survey, analyze and draw conclusions about individual communication styles.

This system gives each team member perspective on how they as individuals, as well as their peers, best communicate. Knowing how to approach each type of communicator can be leveraged to enhance office synergy. This education will come in handy during the hectic pace of Festival week, when people tend to retreat into their very personalized communication styles!

(Robin Sober presents Straight Talk® to the intern team)

This activity really surprised the team, and led to some introspective discussion. Many of our interns had thoughts on the activity afterwards:

"Straight Talk® was nothing but helpful to get further insight to your team’s ways of communicating, and it’s critical to take into account other perspectives on how things should get done. Plus, I liked seeing how my own personal ways of working through problems and communicating sometimes fell in different ranges depending on what the issue at hand is (whether or not more creative effort/thought is put into the product/assignment, how much control I have over the situation, etc.) - Brooke Halsted, PR Assistant

"This was a great way to understand my primary style of communication! It also taught me how to enhance conversation with the diverse people on my team!"

- Nikole Davtyan, Operations Assistant

The presentation today with Robin was incredibly eye opening, and it was interesting learning about the styles of learning and communication of other interns and staff members. She opened up a lot of routes to communicate with others in the office in their most effective communicative style. I think that this will especially be effective for working with staff members and my job as the graphic design assistant in knowing how to ask others what they want of me."

- Cydne Robinson, Graphic Design Assistant

(Video Production Assistant Ethan Voyles puts the finishing touches to a visual representation of the "Thinker" communication style)

Many thanks to Robin from the entire Festival team for her amazing presentation and for giving us the tools to make this Festival season the most communicative one yet!