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Monday, August 09, 2004 Valley woman helps organizations reach their potential Ruth Urban encourages teamwork, improves problem-solving skills
By MONIQUE FRIGARD
Ruth Urban has a knack for seeing the good in everyone, and she gets paid for it. Urban, 55, was accredited by the International Association of Facilitators as a certified professional facilitator at the group's annual conference in Scottsdale, Ariz., in June. She is one of 313 worldwide, and the only one certified in Nevada. "The accreditation process was done during the annual conference," Urban said. "I had to fill out an ambitious application, (go through) two interviews, and create a half-hour workshop and present it to a group of international evaluators and peers." Urban said her job is to help a group use its knowledge and abilities to work together better and solve problems more efficiently. Her background is in mediation and dispute and she has a master's degree in counseling. She worked in Clark County's first court-connected mediation program that began in 1985, specializing in family mediation. Urban retired from the county in 1998 and that same year began her own company called the Urban Group LLC. "When I started my company, I wanted to do the things I enjoyed most in my area of professional facilitators," she said. Urban noted that before she was certified, she received more than 1,000 hours of training over six years, primarily at conferences and specialized workshops. One project she is working on is team-building at Creative Cooking School in Las Vegas. The goal is to enable participants to bring their own experiences to a group effort. In this case, the group was split up into three teams to create ravioli. One team created stars, one created round raviolis and the third created the traditional squares. They learned to roll out the dough in a small area, where timing was crucial. After the project was finished, the groups sat down to taste their creations. "No one picked out their own ravioli," Urban said. "They just ate the dish, because it was a team effort." Urban noted that not only was it essential for everyone to join in the group, but also to try to identify everyone's strengths and bring them to the table -- in this case the kitchen table. "So many people think that team-building is about ropes or white-water rafting, but it's not," Urban said. "And in this case, (we are) in the kitchen, a place where conversations always take place. In the end, we break bread together. ... That is such a great analogy." If you know of a
worthy candidate for the Newsmakers column, mail information to: Monique
Frigard, Las Vegas Review-Journal, P.O. Box 70, Las Vegas, NV 89125-0070.
Send faxes to 383-4676 or send e-mail to:
mfrigard@reviewjournal.com. |
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©Copyright
2005 The
Urban Group LLC. |
