May 7, 2007, Radiology Departmental Staff Retreat

All--or nearly all--of the Radiology staff gathered in the morning at the Arrillaga Alumni Center on the Stanford campus for a day of team-building and fun activities. Altogether, there were about 60 of us, which is almost twice the number of people (33) who attended our last retreat in 2003! We certainly are a growing department!

The day began with a lovely breakfast spread, followed by an inspirational address from Dr. Glazer, entreating us to participate directly in the growth of Radiology and challenging us to contribute our considerable talents to improve our processes.

Next, we reviewed the infamous DISC questionnaire, which we had all completed at one of our staff meetings! Dianne Faieta, of Faieta and Associates, spoke about how to interpret and learn about our different work styles from the questionnaire results. We learned about the history behind the DISC questionnaire, the meaning of the results, the interpretation our own results, and where we, as individuals, fell on the DISC framework of work styles. In addition to learning about the rewards and challenges of our own work styles, we discussed how to best engage with and appreciate the different ones of our colleagues. There are essentially four work styles or ways in which people interact with their work environment: (D)ominance, (I)nfluence, (S)teadiness, and (C)onscientiousness. We were grouped at tables in which at least one work style from each of the four types was represented. Rita Hernandez and Deitria Chapman are collating much of what we learned during our morning session on the DISC, and we should be hearing from them soon.

After a yummy gourmet BBQ, we trooped back into the meeting room to meet Dan Kleiber or "Mr. Treasure Hunt," the coordinator of the afternoon event. Mr. Kleiber explained that we would be working with the same teams from our morning session to solve fairly complicated puzzles--cryptograms, mathematics, scrambled words, history facts, etc.--to determine where on campus we needed to go to answer 13 location-specific questions.

For example, to find the answer to question #7, we had to analyze and identify two pictures in order to find the name of a campus building containing a plaque whose photo was partially depicted in question #7. The first picture was a photograph of player #19 from the San Jose Sharks, and the second picture was a cartoon caricature of a doorman. After figuring out the name of the player in the first picture (Joe Thornton) and the title of the profession of the man in the second picture (doorman), we had to find the names of two locations on a Stanford campus map that sounded similar to the names from the two pictures we had identified. Locating these places (Thornton Center and Dorhmann Grove Art Gallery) on the map, we were instructed to find the midpoint between these locations (Stanford Memorial Church). To complete question #7, we had to go to Stanford Memorial Church; find the plaque matching the partial-plaque picture we had been given; and count the number of words in the plaque. The first three groups who completed all 13 location-specific questions correctly in the least amount of time won Amazon.com gift certificates. The winning three teams were as follows:

Table 5: 1st place
Luis Alcazar
Gale Evans
Kathy Marsh
Teresa Newton
Susan Singh

Table 7: 2nd place
Silvia Arriaga
Sofia Gonzales
Jeslyn Rumbold
David Russel
Liliya Semernina
Jackie Walker

Table 1: 3rd place
Sandra Bowers
Jimmy Carrasco
Barbara Hargis
Shalyce Johns
Donna Niernberger
Mark Riesenberger

After enjoying a day filled with teamwork and socializing, we received a generous gift from the Department in honor of our dedication, commitment, energy, and support of the Department's faculty, researchers, and students. To access pictures from our retreat, please see http://www.flickr.com/photos/muninn99/sets/72157600193813160.