Reimagined leadership training focuses on attendees’ unique strengths to work with their peers and staff on advancing the accounts receivable management industry.
10/2/2019 10:15
ACA International’s leaders define the association.
Building on years of training conferences, ACA celebrated its emerging and current leaders during the reimagined LevelUp Leadership Experience Sept. 23-25 at the Minneapolis headquarters and nearby Hilton Minneapolis/Bloomington.
“You are a pioneer group. ACA has had leadership training for decades, but it’s never looked like this before,” Vice President of Member Experience Jessica Hartmann said to attendees at the start of the training. “Our goal is you will be able to go back to your organization with new skills.”
As part of the training conference, sponsored by Collectors Insurance Agency, Hartmann, ACA’s Board of Directors, Vice President of Operations Ted Smith and CEO Mark Neeb joined the leadership group for a networking reception Monday, Sept. 23.
New Board Member Stacy Willis said it was a great opportunity for face-to-face meetings with members. Leaders from member companies USCB America; Asset Discovery Corporation; Professional Credit Service; Aqua Finance Inc.; The Stark Collection Agency Inc.; State Collection Service Inc.; Capio Partners LLC; RevSolve Inc.; Collection Bureau Inc.; Accelerated Receivables Solutions; CAC Financial Corp.; Chapman Financial Services; Law Offices of Mitchell D. Bluhm; Universal Fidelity LP; Navient; and Southern Oregon Credit Service Inc.
This exclusive facilitated training provided attendees the opportunity to evaluate current leadership traits, uncover new leadership tools and learn how to immediately apply the lessons learned.
Finding Strengths
Targeting ACA leaders’ strengths, LevelUp attendees had an exclusive opportunity to work with StrengthsFinder Facilitators Julie Anderson and Keri Bischoff and their peers in an interactive meeting throughout the day Tuesday, Sept. 24.
Each leader completed the StrengthsFinder assessment before the conference and talked through their strengths and how to use the training at their individual companies.
Justin Watkins, director Q/A at Southern Oregon Credit Service Inc. in Medford, Oregon, said he learned to balance his personality traits with his coworkers and staff through the training.
For Melissa Espeseth, shift manager at Aqua Finance Inc. in Wausau, Wisconsin, StrengthsFinder presented ideas for personality assessments with her team and the opportunity to learn about her fellow leaders with ACA.
“It’s been really nice to hear that we’re all kind of the same, but different,” she said after the training.
Anderson and Bischoff guided the group through leadership exercises, presenting scenarios they might experience and the opportunity to share how they would respond based on strengths such as focus, deliberation, discipline and responsibility.
Building Best Ideas
Concluding the LevelUp Leadership Experience, members joined ACA President Roger Weiss, IFCCE, and ACA President-Elect G. Scott Purcell for the Industry Best Ideas & Burning Issues Open Forum Sept. 25 at ACA’s headquarters.
Members submitted a best idea and burning issue from their organization as a basis to discuss what their company has implemented, what has worked and what hasn’t in human resources, professional development, operations and technology, for example.
Discussions ranged from how to bolster employee engagement through team building exercises to mitigating conflicts using one-on-one meetings with staff or guiding employees to work through issues together.
“To me, anytime you can share best ideas it is a tremendous opportunity to collaborate and get creativity flowing. The ideas are so valuable in revenue creation, cost reduction, culture improvement and client experience all from one session,” Weiss said. “What’s even more valuable to me is the community that the session builds and the follow-up conversations that occur for years to come.”
Weiss and Purcell also shared leadership tips based on their experience in the accounts receivable management industry and with ACA’s Board of Directors.
“Hearing the best ideas at ACA’s LevelUp conference provides great insight into members’ expertise. I've always been and continue to be impressed with the quality effort participants put into this exercise,” Purcell said. “I always come home with pages of ideas to share with our teams—ideas that make money now, or that create a much stronger organization and real improvements to our culture. I can hardly wait to hear the ideas at next year’s LevelUp conference and hope you'll be there.”
Pictured above: StrengthsFinder Facilitators Keri Bischoff and Julie Anderson and Melissa Espeseth, front, left, and Rocio Dallman from Aqua Finance Inc.
See more photos from the LevelUp Leadership Experience here.