One of the Inspiration Stage workshops at INTIX 2025 that drew a large array of ticketing professionals, and probably a few Trekkies and Marvel Comics fans, was "Mind-Meld Your Team: Unleashing Your Team’s Hidden Superpowers." Moderated by Sonja Baker, Assistant Director of Ticketing and Patron Services for the Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan, the session’s main goal was to teach optimal team development in order to unlock employees’ hidden potential.
Baker says, “The biggest mistake I see leaders making is trying to do everything on their own and not trusting their team. Some also don’t train their team in a systematic manner, and that can lead to distrust because they’re not sure what the team knows. The basic philosophy of the system that I use, which I call the Empowerment Engine, is that it all boils down to you know what your trainee knows and your trainee knows what you know. That really does empower staff to take action and take responsibility in a way that allows you to let them do that. If you’re not trained right and trained systematically, then a month down the line, you’re saying things like, ‘Wait, no one ever told me that!’”
Sonja Baker
Baker’s main points had to do with learning how to close knowledge gaps, boost employee confidence and increase productivity. In terms of identifying knowledge gaps, her advice was basic: “Ask your team members! Ask them where they are struggling. Ask them where you can help them. If you’ve given them a project and it’s clear they won’t be meeting the deadline, ask why that is. It’s almost never because they are lazy or putting tasks off.”
She continues, “There is probably some deficiency in that they don’t have something they need. They might need certain permissions. You may have to go up the ladder and cut some red tape for them. Maybe they just need some extra training or more clarification from you. A lot of times, you give someone a task, but you haven’t clarified it well enough. You don’t want to be the one paralyzing your team. Have at least one sit-down meeting with them a week.”
The best team leaders know how to tap hidden skills in existing staff rather than going out and recruiting new talent. Baker says, “You have to let employees fully do a project and see what they will do. You’ll be surprised. Almost every time, they will come back with something that is better than what you could have imagined or what you would have done yourself.”
For example, Baker placed a team of staffers in charge of putting together step-by-step training videos for everything having to do with Interlochen’s ticketing system. They ended up producing a series of YouTube-style videos, starting right from how to log in, that were three minutes long or less.
“They put them on a Google site,” she notes, “and it was absolutely beautiful. The videos went along with manuals that they had also edited for me. I told them, ‘Here, this is your project. I want you to take ownership of it.’ Because I did that, it came back better than what I could have pulled together of if they had been given more specific orders.”
Still, there’ll be times where team leaders will give staffers an assignment, and they’ll notice an almost immediate “deer in the headlights” look. That is the look of fear and uncertainty. Baker advises, “Get to the root of why they have that look in their eyes. There’s something wrong. Ask them open-ended questions to get them talking about it. You will eventually come to a point where you understand why they are paralyzed starting the project or moving it along further when needed. It’s about communication. But more than anything, it’s about listening to them and not trying to tell them.”
After that, build them up. “You need to tell them, ‘I believe in you. I believe you can do this. I wouldn’t have given this assignment to you otherwise, and I am here to support you every step of the way.’”
In this regard, an effective leader doesn’t just turn a team member loose on a big show or event on their own. “First, they shadow us, and then they are shadowed by us to make sure everyone is on the same page,” Baker says. “That way you can see where they need help or additional training. You can say, ‘OK, I like what you did here, but next time I’d like you to do X, Y and Z a little bit different.’ Giving them that kind of feedback along the way will build up their confidence.”
Attendees left the “Mind-Meld Your Team” workshop with new tools and techniques they could use right away in team development. For Baker, the urgency is in making sure employees “take ownership. If you don’t have that, then you’re going to have huge staff turnover. You don’t want people there who are just checking off boxes each day. If they feel they have ownership in their work, that they have things that they are personally responsible for, then they’re going to stick around a whole lot longer. They’re also going to enjoy their job a whole lot more!”
Baker concludes, “Train them well. It’s funny to me that we look at so many other things in life — things like cooking where you must do A, B and C in order to get the meals you want at the end — but we don’t do that for training. You can’t just expect talented people to know what they are doing. Even if they’ve worked in box offices before, they haven’t worked in your ticket office!”
You May Also Like
Want news like this delivered to your inbox weekly? Subscribe to the Access Weekly newsletter, your ticket to industry excellence.