Niraj Balasaria
President & C.E.O / Anaya Steel
“I am the moderator for our group of 7 people for the year 2019-20 YPO Washington, DC.
I wanted to make sure the retreat experience for me and our forum would be nothing less than SUPER AWESOME. I wanted to make sure that a full day of working with a facilitator would really be worth it. I interviewed 5 other facilitators. All of them were great, but I needed someone who I could vibe with. Mitchel came across as someone who was not there to just please someone. He has a strong style and agenda. To me that was powerful.
I was happy to find someone who knew his space and was confident about it. We spent one full day with Mitchel at Ocean reef, Key Largo, FL. We a few calls before the retreat for both of us to get on same page. He was very mindful about making sure to get the most out or our whole day. Key highlights for me:
- Working lunch
- Zero time wasted
- Set the tone and expectation right in the beginning
- Powerful exercise and solid take-home value for the group
- Great tools for me to further build on
I had strong interest in the space of mindfulness. I brought in another resource to lead us through that part. Over the few months of back and forth, I learned Mitchel also had great background of mindfulness as someone who practices that aspect himself, but it was too late for me to change. If I could change something in that retreat; it would had been incorporating Mitchel in both days and integrating mindfulness aspect with his FORUM best practices.
In short I am glad to know Mitchel through this process and I continue to reach out to him for continued learning/wisdom.”
Cheque Montemayor
C.E.O / Harbar
“I had the pleasure of working with Mitchel for our more recent YPO forum retreat. He was instrumental in helping us to navigate through special transitions we had to make at our forum.
When interviewing different certified forum facilitators (CFFs) I became quickly interested in Mitchel because of his fresh new style. He brought an interesting background and lively passion to the discussion of how he could help us. We had a challenging situation as we had some unique topics and logistical considerations. However, Mitchel proved to be very good at listening to our needs as I conveyed them and highly creative to propose different options of programs to address the goals. In general, Mitchel was very flexible but at the same time resourceful and keen in helping balance the pros and cons of different options. Eventually, after a couple of iterations we came out with a great agenda for the meeting.
Later on, Mitchel prepared well for the meeting and interviewed all members to gain another layer of background on all of us prior to the meeting. During the meeting, Mitchel enabled us to get deep in the personal and emotional exploration of our feelings towards the topics in our agenda. He also allowed us to get closure on such topics and help us gain tools to get better at navigating thru the feelings of change. Throughout the event, Mitchel was not over-steering the discussion while still making good interventions.
Although our retreat was short, Mitchel was available to socialize with us and we got to share with him at the personal level too. In general, Mitchel was a great resource and I would visualize him again whenever we are seeking a change in pace and energy to help us get to new places of self-awareness and discovery of new paths ahead.”
Rhonda Overby
President & C.E.O / Camera Ready Inc.
“Having had the privilege of witnessing “experts” globally, I can say that Mitchel Groter is especially gifted. Not only does he prepare extensively for the company, organization, and individuals he is called to serve, Mitchel also brings a wealth of knowledge and exposure from which he is able to draw to customize each session in order to optimize the benefits of all involved. Mitchel’s talents extend beyond experience and preparation however, he also has the gift of intuition. He maintains astute presence such that he is able to alter his plan(s) spontaneously should the need arise in order to best serve in the moment. Many are not able to pivot in that manner. Their “spiel” is their spiel. Mitchel is a “next level” facilitator as a result. Mitchel is open, charming, knowledgeable across many disciplines, and adds value to any astute and fortunate enough to have him.”
Ambassador Stuart W. Holiday
President & CEO / Meridian International Center
“I have been in the YPO circle for a decade and have spend a lot of time with facilitators and resources. I must say that Mitchel is the most authentic and impactful of them.It is a hard task to wrangle CEOs and have them thank you for it. Mitchel is successful because he approaches his role from three vantage points — a mentor, a peer, and as a student of life.
Using a very perceptive and creative eye, Mitchel helped us get a tremendous amount of insight into our goals and each other. I was reminded of how special it is to have someone unburdened with preconceptions to point out the obvious and un-obvious opportunities we have if we let go and accept those gifts we are given.”
Roy Brittany Blacklidge
President / Blacklidge
“I had the opportunity to work with Mitchel when he facilitated forum training and discussions for a YPO Southern 7 South Mississippi Forum. Mitchel was very involved before and during the retreat. He spent considerable time up front with forum members to know our individual and group goals related to the retreat and ensured all our objectives of the meeting were clearly aligned. The forum members and I believe this process drove the effectiveness of the retreat to a very high level, ultimately taking our forum to a higher level of trust. I found during this entire process he was on-schedule, courteous, detailed orientated and displayed a high level of professionalism as he went above and beyond to facilitate to our group.
During the meeting, he successfully utilized his strong facilitation skills to navigate through a series of challenging personal and professional discussions and achieved outstanding admiration from all members of the forum. I was very impressed with his time management skills as he kept us on task throughout the day, helping us achieve our group objectives. All of those in attendance were in complete agreement that our meeting was very positive, productive and effective due to Mitchel’s engagement and involvement.”
Maxine Phillips
VP International Business / Phillips Foods
“A natural tension exists between emotionally wrought presentations and sharing, and with adhering to a structured sequence and time managed meeting. Mitchel was able to strike that balance throughout the training. Our forum ended in 100% buy-in to using this new process as a foundational element to our forum presentations. The equanimity, professionalism, humility and humanity of his training style resulted in his being the most popular facilitator that we have experienced individually, and as a group. Mitchel has a couple of unique qualities that distinguish him from other commonly used facilitators we have encountered in chapter retreats over the years.”