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Saturdays at the Annual Meeting are traditionally full of committee and council meetings. Depending on their experience, volunteers can leave those meetings feeling energized and excited for the year ahead or they can feel confused, disengaged, or even left out.

Aaron Wolowiec, chair of the recently-renamed Young Association Executive Committee, wanted to try some new approaches during Saturday's YAEC meeting. He and Jamie Notter of Management Solutions Plus, who facilitated the meeting, spoke to me about what they tried and how it worked.

1. Aaron told me, "I have a strong belief that people can't be successful and connected to the goals of a committee without being connected to each other." His major goal for the day was for the group to get to know each other better and build strong connections to sustain their engagement throughout the year. Jamie noted that during the two-and-a-half hours of the meeting that he facilitated, he only spoke for about 30 minutes--primarily to put "exclamation points" on the discoveries the committee members were making by talking with each other.

2. Rather than presenting his thoughts on leadership to the committee, Jamie asked key questions so they could build a model of leadership as a group. "I grow weary of traditional messages on leadership as if it's something that's present 'out there,'" says Jamie. "Leadership is everywhere in the system." He began by asking committee members to pair up and discuss what being on the YAEC means to them. I found it striking that six out of the 10 pairs reported that a major motivation behind their joining the YAEC was "wanting a voice."

3. Leadership, Jamie says, is all about translating "passion into action," so he asked committee members, "If you could put your passion behind one thing in the coming year, what would it be?" Some of the committee members posted the question to Twitter, and it was picked up by members of other councils as well. Aaron was pleased to see that the ideas YAEC members found inspiring were impacting conversations going on in other councils and committees.

Aaron and Jamie agreed that the YAEC's approach to its meeting Saturday has built a very strong foundation for a successful year, but, even more important, it's built a foundation for ongoing learning among the committee. They left the meeting with a homework assignment: How will they know during the year if something isn't working anymore? As Aaron noted, a mechanism for that kind of feedback is critical so they can correct course if need be.