I’m sitting in our medical lab, about to host our monthly team meeting. Twenty faculty members are cramming in between their classes for this meeting. I’m the dean of education, and we have no proper meeting room, so here we are. This is 18 years ago.

This is the same lab where I have been asked to do things not in my job description, like give blood for phlebotomy students learning to use needles and urine to test. Thank goodness they never gave me a surprise pregnancy announcement. And I did so with joy because, well, students were learning.

So I had 30 minutes with this group once per month, and I had so much to share.

A typical meeting looked like this: Here’s the agenda, including the 45 things I wanted to cover. It was efficient, fast-paced, to the point, and high return on investment for this small block of time. At the time, I thought that the best meeting was when no one was talking but me.

And there were always these 2 eager-to-share people.

They would raise their hand, or just interject, like this: I have an idea! What if we… Or why do we need to do that?

They clearly didn’t know that I would secretly seethe it every time. Didn’t they know that decisions were made? I don’t have time to explain. Now just get on board!

Since then, I’ve learned a thing or 2. Now, when I work with groups, I have a chance to use my own lived experience to share, firsthand, that how we once operated does not need to be our forever-state. Even though I still like a fast pace, I am now collaborative. I seek to hear others’ perspectives. I report information with a pre-recorded video instead of in a meeting, and I try my best to use time together for creativity and dialogue.

What have you learned along the way?