Today student Kristen Gilbert writes a blog post exploring her thoughts on comments from a guest speaker, Chip Neidigh of Catalyst OC. Kristen’s home base is in Dallas, TX, is in the school of Health Sciences and is a member of the Purdue swim team.
Okay, well maybe not (I’m not really a fan of red meat), but something raw, tasty, solid, and specific would be just fine.
While all of our guest speakers were beneficial in further explicating certain change topics, Chip Neidigh definitely stood out in my mind because of his methodology in explaining things and engaging us (which was actually his key point of that night). I thought his metaphor of food was particularly effective (especially for me since I thoroughly enjoy eating) because it was sticky and memorable. He talked about how to properly speak with your employees about upcoming changes in a way that allowed them to be a part of the change, and put
their “fingerprints” on it. He stressed the importance of moving from general (mushy) ideas to the specifics (solid), and from safe (bland) statements to riskier (tastier) ones. And then what do you get? STEAK. Omnomnom. When people are given the hard facts about what types of changes will be taking place, and are presented with the opportunity to discuss them, they can be confident in what lies before them. This can help to eliminate any insecurities or doubts that they may have, and create a more effective workplace.
Furthermore, he used tactics like the “5-finger method,” that proved to be a quick and easy way to see how involved each of us were in the discussion. This technique also ended up being implemented in other group presentations later on in the class, along with the concept of “fingerprints.”
So, all in all, you could definitely say Chip was engaging, and what he said did stick with us. Thanks for the food metaphors, Chip! 
