PROCEEDINGS May 15, 16, 17, 18, 2005 - Casualty Actuarial Society

154 ADDRESS TO NEW MEMBERStired, or dirty. With enough love and respect and patience youcan, together, solve their problems.Second, never compare your employees or clients, at least notwhile they are listening. Everyone is unique. Everyone should beyour best or favorite of that type. If you want them to understandwhat you are telling them, it needs to be presented to them asindividuals, not related to how they differ from their colleaguesor competitors.Rule #7:Let Them Speak–They’ll Think You’re BrilliantIt sounds backwards, but it is true.The best way to engage an audience, of one or many, is to letthem speak. The best way to run a conference is to be sure thatthe audience is encouraged, and has plenty of time, to speak.I learned this rule from CAS program planners and then I triedit in meetings that I have run. The best parts of this meeting foryou will probably be when you have a chance to speak up. Ifthere are enough chances for you to participate, you will thinkthe program was brilliant.There are dangers in overusing this principle. First, the introvertsamong you might abuse it as an excuse to simply be silent.Second, you are an important person now and sometimes yousimply need to just tell others what to do and have them get onwith it.Rule #8:Know Yourself–Even if Learning is PainfulYou are the only tool you have for life.You are all good at acquiring technical knowledge–that’show you got here. But do you know yourself? You might thinkof yourself as having strengths and weaknesses. Actually, wesimply are who we are. Your traits might be strengths or weaknessesdepending on how and when you use those traits. Youneed to know when your normal ways of doing things are a