Nearly everyone in the AV industry has fallen into the industry by accident and learnt the ropes of the business from these serendipitous moments. Of that, there is no doubt. However, many organizations in the industry are trying to change this by bringing in fresh, young talent from schools, universities, training programs and focusing on retaining this talent for future leadership positions. NSCA happens to be one such organization that aims to retain this talent while preparing them to take the industry forward. From November 12 to 13, 2024, NSCA held a two-day event titled the “NSCA XBO Experience” for the upcoming AV professionals where they could learn from several thought leaders and innovators while also getting the opportunity to bounce off ideas from their peers in an energized setting.
To gain more insight on the NSCA XBO Experience, Commercial Integrator sat down with Tom LeBlanc, executive director, NSCA, and Laura Janssen, director of workforce development, NSCA. During the conversation, the two discussed the inspiration behind the NSCA XBO Experience and how they aim to inspire the next generation of professionals by providing them the resources and guidance to propel the AV industry.
Addressing the Business Challenges
According to LeBlanc, one of the biggest business challenges in the AV industry is retaining talent and establishing a leadership pipeline. He explains, “It’s an important topic right now because of how quickly the industries, customers and integrators themselves are evolving, and it is a risk if companies do not have a good plan when it comes to [bringing in] the leadership.” With this in mind, NSCA launched the Next-Gen Academy where they focused on putting together topics that reflected the needs of different company leaders. “However, we realized we wanted to have open-ended conversations about these group of topics identified and what we didn’t have was a platform for how we were going to resolve [these issues],” adds LeBlanc. As a result, NSCA founded the XBO Experience event.
NSCA XBO Experience: Setting Up the Framework
For Janssen, the aim of the XBO Experience is to provide sessions with interactive features so that attendees could “…have a chance to step away from what they’re used to.” She then adds, “These are people who do not necessarily get to attend these events. Usually, they are people who are either just stepping into leadership [roles] or they just got started with the company.” By providing the interactive sessions, the attendees thus could network and collaborate in a personalized environment, Janssen underscores. “A lot of people really liked that it wasn’t just information being presented to them; rather, they actually could participate in these activities,” she says.
Janssen also highlights the sponsor booths at NSCA XBO Experience where attendees could interact with the manufacturers directly. “They could ask [the sponsors] about their products if they wished to, or they could simply ask questions to network or get their contact information for future opportunities,” she adds.
Indeed, the attendees got to drive business conversations to strengthen their current partnerships and build new ones.
NSCA XBO Experience: Notable Sessions
Photo credits: Amala Reddie/Emerald.
The association ensured that the NSCA XBO Experience included a considerable number of sessions tailored to improving business and management skills of attendees who are new to leadership along with those who are new to leadership positions while also incorporating proper training for those who have been in leadership positions for a considerable amount of time.
For instance, Janssen and Maura Fitzgerald of ADI led the opening session which focused on the importance of building emotional intelligence (EQ) skills to make better decisions, solve decisions and foster strong relationships with team members and stakeholders.
The keynote address, “Becoming a Globally Competent Leader to Boost Organizational Culture,” from Jay Rogina, Mark Fenner and Justin Bailey also received a hearty reception. All three advocated for acknowledging and adapting to failures. Indeed, one of the key takeaways they emphasized was: “Learning what you’re good at and learning what you’re not good at from the failure is completely okay.”
By talking about accepting failure, the speakers underscored the importance of building confidence and what one can learn from each venture in life. In terms of culture, all three speakers emphasized understanding and emphasizing different cultures to foster inclusive action and improve cross-culture collaboration.
Interactive Sessions Bolster Audience
The event also included breakout sessions on various topics. These included financial literacy, organizational behaviors, task delegation, trust in the workplace, etc. Many of these sessions, as Janssen indicated earlier, comprised interactive activities as a way of exploring the topics further.
For example, in the session, “Trust in the Workplace: Leadership Can Make or Break It,” by Karen Castaño of Exertis Almo and Katie Mitchell of Vitel Communications, the participants had to form teams with members having a special role designated to them. They then had to build a LEGO set together. In the activity, each member had to trust each other in order to achieve the task at hand. After the conclusion of the session, all participants expressed their enthusiasm for the interactive sessions as it allowed them to gain a hands-on experience while also connecting with one another.
The NSCA XBO Experience concluded with Bose’s Xzavia Killikelly leading a talk on finding your ‘Why.’ Here, he emphasized that the first step to becoming a leader is deciding to be a leader and understanding what it means. He stated, “You don’t need to have a fancy degree to be a leader, but you have to have a purpose.” Killikelly then pointed to a quote to drive his point home: Leadership is not about being perfect, it is about being present.
“Carry your ‘why’ over to your work where you embrace it and let it guide you in every decision you make and any challenge you may face,” he stated.
Bringing in the Playbook
The spiral notebook provided to attendees i.e., the ‘playbook’ emerged as another popular feature at NSCA XBO Experience.
As Janssen attests, “The decision to add the notebook pages really resonated with the audience because it is an opportunity to look for the corresponding article to the session and then take notes right there.” She also notes that attendees stayed engaged with the playbook and the QR codes with the sessions’ information provided additional access to the presentations. “It allowed them to actually go through their sessions instead of being checked out!” she says.
NSCA XBO Experience: Final Thoughts
Both LeBlanc and Janssen look forward to scaling up the XBO Experience for the next iteration. Here, Janssen noted that a lot of the feedback included requests for topics not covered at the two-day event. “I think it’s a good problem to have!” she states. “And we’re hoping to cover them for the next year’s XBO Experience event.”
LeBlanc chimes in, noting that NSCA will continue working closely with the Next-Gen Committee to add more sessions for next year. “The Next-Gen Committee played a significant role in identifying what we ought to be talking about at this event, and we are going to do so in the future as well!” he concludes.
In summation, the NSCA XBO Experience emerged as a great success and has paved the way as a must-attend event for the next generation of leaders in the AV industry.
