And so a new day dawns on the Leadership Development Conference. As I prepare to head down to the breakfast buffet, the lessons of yesterday still echo in my head. Here’s the most important thing I took away from Monday’s classes.

• Embrace diversity in the workplace. “Diversity” in our workplace used to mean hiring lots of minorities and women. But the word can apply to just about anything that makes one person different from another–age, religion, height, education, or even financial status. It’s important to diversify in order to drawn talent and insight from a broad spectrum of thought. Personally, I’m very happy to see the diverse selection of people who are attending this conference, and I’m learning a lot through my interactions with each and every one of these folks.

Following our first class yesterday, at which roughly 250 people were in attendance, our speaker attempted to give us directions to our next session. The conference center is quite elaborate and has a rather confusing layout, so here’s how that went.

Instructor: Do you all know where the Red Commons is?

Class: (in unison) No.

Instructor: Okay, do you know where the Yellow Commons is?

Class: (in unison) No.

Instructor: All right. Do you all know where the bar is?

Class: (in unison) YES!

Instructor: It’s just down the hall from there.