I was a little apprehensive about inviting my colleague, Deb, to Leaders' Forum. For several years this has been my annual "personal retreat and renewal". And getting to be with people I don't know with wonderfully new and different ideas has been invigorating and recharged my enthusiasm for my work. But I thought Deb would really enjoy the networking and the style of the forum. She worked around some personal scheduling issues and that was all set.

Then I realized that my other colleague, Sheila, might also enjoy this type of "retreat", and my only hesitancy was asking Wayne and Eileen if another Omega Point person could be invited. Would it be too many people from one group? Wayne responded so warmly and reminded me that we were all individuals, that I asked Sheila and she enthusiastically said "Yes!".

So we met in Denver and enjoyed the beautiful (but long) ride to Crested Butte.

The few days we were all together sped by so fast. We had the honor of having Eileen and Wayne lead us through an organizational reconstruction, based on Virginia Satir's Family reconstruction process. What an experience! I really didn't know how each of us felt about how we worked together, and the underlying group dynamics that were shown to us through this process have really made me appreciate who I get to work with. We began to understand what worked and what didn't for our little consulting group, and it has helped me to be more thoughtful about how I work with each of these people.

What makes this forum work? Is it the format, the leader's, the setting, the people who are invited and who seem to easily move from strangers to friends? I think it's this magical combination of all of these things. How else can I explain why I make this grueling trip from upstate New York each June? Whatever it is....I'll be back!