February 26, 2009. Chevy Chase, Md. Business Book Club.

The first meeting of our business book store was held Wednesday. This is a new venture in the office. Jeff Wilson, one of our very good agents has offered to lead the discussions. Our first book to read and discuss was "Shift" by Gary Keller. The discussion was lively and useful, although we have worked so hard in the office the past two years to try to change our actions along with the changing market that almost nothing in the book was new to us. But reminders are always helpful. The decision to form a business book club started at our Gold Team Lunch, held every Wednesday at noon. For the past twenty one years the top agents had lunch with me, the Manager, to discuss any topic that was pertinent to top agents. We met for one hour only, and is a brown bag lunch. For a Manager to have the opportunity to meet with top agents was a real treat. We called it 'Lunch With Ruth'. Then when we merged with the Metro office we called it ' Lunch with Carole and Ruth' and then when we had our third Manager Ned, we switched to 'Gold Team Lunch'. The purpose of the group has never changed but the impact on the rest of the agents has been enormous. We discuss a topic that is of concern to top agents, then Betty takes the notes and pulls together the information into a readable form and e mails to all the agents in the office all the information discussed at noon. That means that the top agents in the office are passing their wisdom through to all the other agents in the office, and all during the lunch hour.

At one of the Gold Team Lunch meetings, someone mentioned another book club being run by a Settlement Attorney. Everyone thought it a great idea, so we, just like a flash, made the necessary decisions, to designate the last Wednesday of the month the Book Club and that the Club would be open to any agent in the office, rather than only the top agents as is our usual Gold Team meeting. Jeff was at that noon discussion, and several days later, I asked Jeff if he would take the role of moderator, which he graciously agreed to do. The whole Training Team is made up of agents, which is a good thing, because these agents are on the firing line and really know what the needs of the agent is right now. Our system of training the agents has been hugely helpful to everyone. But the impact of the discussions coming from the Gold Team Lunch has been invaluable. Now I look forward to our discussions on the business books we will read over the next few years.

Next month the group decided to read the 1932 book 'How to win Friends and Influence People' by Dale Carnegie. Everyone has read it, but not recently so this will be a good review. Susan F. who has an MBA has given the book to each of her children when they went off to College, and she thought that we would enjoy the review. It is always fun to try something new in the office, at least I like new stuff!!