Experience at Management Retreat

Was given opportunity to participate in the senior management retreat at Sentosa Golf Club the past 1.5 days (cos some of us 'normal officers' had to present a tiny thing); and got to witness first hand how these VIPs in HDB interact, behave etc etc. Most of these faces were very foreign to me; but perhaps it was a good thing that because I'm so new nobody even knows who I am. Most of these ppl in the same room were easily 2 decades older than me ;)

The purpose of the retreat was mainly to review our vision and mission... and though this was somewhat accomplished by the end of the session; the 2 facilitators had a really tough time trying get some 50 something ppl with diff views come to some consensus. The majority of the directors/deputy directors were alright, but a handful of these older folks weren't very open at all. We were divided into groups and tasked to brainstorm on ideas... and during the floor discussion, though we were all working for the good of the organisation, some individuals had such vested interests in their own proposals that it defeated the purpose of the sharing session... (In particular, one director at my table kept proposing and re-proposing my group's proposal for one of the mission statements, even though everyone kinda decided to drop it... I couldn't help but laugh at his amusing persistence) Nonetheless thanks to our 2 excellent facilitators I had quite a lot of fun and enjoyed myself. The most awkward experience though was perhaps meeting my DCEO in the toilet twice and not knowing what to say... :P.

After the session, also went with boss and some other young officers from another dept for some drinks at Tanjong Beach (like just 5 min drive away); during which amidst other "classic stories" they complained about how their director had cautioned them not to "anyhow saying things" ie, he was afraid that his young officers would say something inappropriate unwittingly offending senior management... Felt rather disturbed that there were still ppl with such mentality managing the organisation. And on hindsight I wondered if I had unwittingly offended anyone by being rather uninhibited in speaking my mind? (I usually very quiet, but recently have become slightly more courageous in speaking up :P) But I figured, if an individual is unable to tolerate someone challenging his/her view and gets offended as a result, then he/she isn't really worth my respect either... In any case, after their sharing, I realised that I'm still such a greenhorn in dealing with ppl..