|
The Management Team
This all came about through the subtle but important leadership changes brought about over the last few years by the Academy’s Executive Committee. While the Executive Committee’s name change to the Management Team might have appeared as a modernized window dressing, a very specific difference between the two concepts is real. Though many of the effects of the Management Team are the same as the previous Executive Committee, the practical difference is that the Executive Committee was a hierarchy of officers with the President taking the lead in assigning and doing the major workload. Now the “Team” concept, which has been used for the last few years, encompasses all the officers jointly discussing the issues as equals, sharing the workload, and executing their parts of the decisions together.
We have seen excellent examples in the modernization of our documents—the Constitution, the Bylaws, the Policy Manual, and Financial Planning. But many of these decisions do not seem to be a glaring impact to the general membership, though in reality they are.
This year, a more practical example of the impact the Management Team is having is evidenced by all the officers sharing in the visitations to attend more Section events throughout the PFA World.
An early example of this was sending past PFA President Gary Lowder to the Anniversary Meeting of the Mexican Dental Association where he was able to address the Convention in their native tongue—Spanish. This was very well received by the Mexican Dental Association. In the past, the current President would have attended, spoken in English, only to be later translated into Spanish. That result would have highlighted our language differences, perhaps even our cultural ones, between neighboring Sections.
Dr. Lowder’s speech in Spanish had the effect of bringing our Academy closer together. It implied that PFA cared enough about the Mexican Section’s important event to send an international dignitary to speak to them directly in their own language. This further demonstrated the internationality of our global Academy.
That similar, though perhaps not as obvious, policy has continued through the past years of international officers. While the positions rotate and the titles change, the thought processing of the Management Team has remained a unifying force in the leadership of the Academy. It provides for agreed continuity in foresight, planning, and execution of policy for more than one year.
This year was another excellent example of the tremendous impact that this policy is having on our world relationships. President Mike Perpich, with his many professional and family duties, has handled many in-country trips to various Section events. Normally, he would have attended the biannual visit to Europe. But the Management Team discussed how to make the best impact with this trip and selected President-elect Howard Mark to make the voyage.
|
|
Dr. Howard Mark is the incoming President in October of this year. Thus, this trip gave him the opportunity to meet with the always-exciting Belgium/Luxembourg Chairman Jose Dahan, on his own home turf, to discuss Dr. Dahan’s many ambitious ideas for his Section. This was also an opportunity for the incoming PFA President to hear ideas firsthand, while Dr. Mark had time to plan his year’s agenda.
Dr. Mark had the chance to review the European scene with retiring European Trustee Pierre Marois, get to know socially and fraternally the new incoming Trustee for Europe, Dr. Hubert Ouvrard, and for all of us to meet the dynamic new French Section Chair, Dean Marie-Laure Boy-Lefevre. Installing the new Wall of Fame plaques at the Hall of Fame venue in a ceremony at the headquarters of Le Conseil de l’Ordre des Chirurgiens Dentistes in Paris, further provided Dr. Mark the opportunity to enjoy the company of our friend, former Conseil President Dr. Andrè Robert, and open new relations with the Conseil’s current President Yves Mahe. During this time, both were able to update our President-elect on the effectiveness of their mobile dental clinic that the PFA Foundation has helped to fund, which serves the dental needs of the indigent in and around Paris. Our hosted PFA Section reception with many French Fellows at their headquarters renewed the close relationship that former Trustee Pierre Marois had established over the decades.
The Foundation-funded mobile dental clinic had been servicing the dentally indigent in a Paris suburb when it returned in the late afternoon to the Conseil headquarters, but most of the Fellows had left the reception due to its late return.
Both in Belgium and in France, the ever-gracious Dr. Mark personally met and discussed PFA with many of our Fellows there who would probably never have been able to make that contact otherwise. And Dr. Mark’s wife, Sheila, made friends everywhere with her ability to discuss issues in their native French.
Thus, we have an incoming PFA President meeting and greeting our Fellows in their own countries to discuss mutual goals for PFA for the coming year. Dr. Mark listened intently while enjoying their company. It was love at first sight for them all. And at no time could we have been prouder to have such a caring, concerned President-elect in Dr. Mark, who was so well received everywhere. The relationship for the coming year was cemented in shared laughter and good times spent together. PFA was not just a magazine, not just a local project to get involved in, not merely a dues notice. PFA was epitomized by a gracious, personable President who listened and conversed about the values we all share as professionals and what we could do together about them.
Conseil past President Andre Robert with the Association Bus Social Dentaire outside the Conseil headquarters
|
|
