Leaders of the future

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.
  - John Quincy Adams 

I’m in a leadership class through the employee resource groups at my corporation and we’re studying a great book called “Leaders of the Future 2.” My team recently taught a chapter on leading through crisis and complexity. One of the sections talked about nonprofit leadership, another on Army leadership, and another on corporate leadership.

I was completely fascinated by the differences among the three, and the subsequent threads that can be woven through them. Army leadership (or armed forces, more accurately), promote their leaders 100% from within. They don’t put out job openings for commanders or generals. Therefore their entire culture is focused on teaching, training, mentoring, and teaching every person how to teach, train, and mentor. Amazing! I have seen very few organizations that have a good succession plan, even among the rank and file team members. I see groups that are shocked and totally unprepared when a team member finds a new role. The majority of corporations hire “important” roles from outside, believing that experience in a similar role in another company will bring wisdom far beyond anything learned within the walls of the company.  I don’t understand. I don’t disagree or dislike it because I’m sure one day I’ll be looking to leave and find a role based on that principle, but it got me thinking about my organization.

I confess that I don’t know how to mentor effectively. I can train. I can teach. But how do I mentor someone to take over my job? I honestly don’t know how I got my job myself, so how could I possibly mentor someone else to take it over? Are there training classes on how to be a good mentor? I should look into that...

One of the teachable moments about crisis for me was that corporate and nonprofits leaders spend their lives avoiding crisis, while the Army trains their leaders for a crisis, understanding that crisis are inevitable and you’re sure better know how to lead and manage through them if you want to survive.

Nonprofits also fascinate me, having worked at two of them and volunteered at many of them. Due to the unfortunate salary discrepancy, a lot of leaders in associations are very young, needing a lot of mentorship from their board of directors (many of whom are more experienced in their roles or have experience in corporations). Taking the lessons learned in the military and in corporations to the board of a nonprofit is a vital way to nurture nonprofit leadership.

From this, I took away the importance of fostering leaders, nurturing leaders, and mentoring leaders for the future. I was inspired to rejoin a nonprofit board I left about five years ago. I was inspired to seek out a mentor of my own and try to feel my way through this mentorship idea. My next challenge: learning how to take someone that I want to mentor and convince them that they need mentoring… where’s the book on that?

The zombie apocalypse and my skills

You're a great friend but if the zombies chase us, I'm tripping you.

  - Anonymous

So I’m reading this book about the zombie apocalypse (I know, completely silly… it’s called World War Z – TOTALLY recommend it), and it’s presented as a historical account of the zombie war. One chapter talks about the skills of the population in the face of this unique society-rebuilding challenge. It calls out the service providers versus the workers, and gives a fictitious example of a maid having to be the manager of her former employer because the maid has actual useful skills, as opposed to the former employer who was something like a marketing executive in a corporation.

The topic really piqued my interest as I’ve been thinking lately about how I really don’t produce anything anymore. I manage people and I manage projects, and I write words electronically, but I don’t MAKE anything. What useful skills do I have that would transfer into a post-apocalyptic world? I could maybe cook something. Or lightly mend the mildly wounded. Or nail some boards together, if asked. I learned to make a pillow in my 8^th grade Home Economics class.

Zombies, aside, what skill could I learn that would make me useful outside of the corporate and computerized world?

I am quite awesome, thankyouverymuch

I actually look forward to performance reviews. I did the youth beauty pageant circuit. And I enjoyed that quite a bit. I really enjoy being judged. I believe I hold up very well to even severe scrutiny. 

  - Angela, The Office

Great post on Harvard Business Review about eliminating the self assessment part of annual reviews.

The point of the post is that it turns the review into a negotiation, as most A-ranked employees are afraid of being Bs. Most Bs are scared they’ll get a C, and most Cs believe they are As.

I recall my husband helpfully advising me when I was trying to write my own self appraisal many years ago, “Why would you ever rate yourself a B or a C? Always put A! Even if your boss doesn’t agree with it, you have on record a positive spin on all the great things you’ve accomplished.”

As a recovering manager of a rather large team, I love the HBR suggestion to avoid asking employees to actually rate themselves, and instead ask them to send you their top 10 accomplishments for the year. This way, you as a manager can evaluate the value provided to the organization and/or the personal growth each team member achieved during the year.

Now to find some advice on writing a performance plan that is actually not a waste of time...

Is it worth the risk?

No power in the 'verse can stop me.
  - Kaylee (Firefly) 

Life is about choices. Do I want to fight my 3-year-old to get dressed faster, or do I want to play with him and have a really fun morning, but be 10 minutes late to work? Do I want to take that new job, or stay comfortably where I am? Do I want to be a keynote speaker at a conference, or say no and attend like my peers?

This Harvard Business Review blog post got me thinking about risk... and I don't think I take enough of them. I have definately taken a few, and they have all worked out perfectly. Some ended in massive failure, but what I learned from that failure prepared me for another task later.

My first big risk was college. Upon graduating high school, I left my home state of Georgia and moved over to Texas, finding a roommate from the university's off-campus housing department (because all the dorms were full). Best risk ever.

About a year out of college, I quit my high tech marketing job to work at a high tech recruiting firm. It was a blast! Then the economy tanked and there weren't any jobs to recruit for. So they asked if I would like to spend a week in Boca Raton getting trained on how to become an account executive and recruit jobs (instead of people). I'm no salesman. I couldn't sell girl scout cookies to my own mother. But I figured it would be interesting to take the class, so I did. I made sales calls for about a month after that, to no avail. The company closed about 3 months later. FAIL. But what did I learn? Well, I definately reinforced to myself that I'm no salesman. :-) I also learned that I enjoy solving problems. When the problem was no jobs to recruit for, I decided to try and solve it by learning how to get more jobs for the company to help with. I learned that as a salesperson, marketing is vitally important. Even the basics! If I didn't have any collateral to give my prospect, there was no way they'd ever think of me when they needed to hire someone. Actually spending a couple months in sales was really the best marketing experience I could have gotten.

I've been at my current company for more than 6 years now, and have taken relatively few risks, but have been fortunate to have opportunity find me. I did take a professional presenting course through our Executive Briefing Center, and was encouraged to go take an improv comedy class. That was a spectacular risk! Standing in a class with 15 other people being spontaneous for 2 hours a week, enouraged to fail. We were taught that "there is no such thing as failure, just unexpected results." Most fun I've had in the last 5 years!

Recently, I was asked to keynote at a user conference. It's only 50-75 people, but it will be my first time truly in the spotlight telling a story. It's a risk. I'm SUPER excited about it... but this time, failure is not an option!

As the article I referenced above mentions, the key to risk is preparation. So I've hired my professional presentation instructor to help me prepare for my keynote, and my improv training will undoubtedly prove very valuable. In this instance, there should be minimal risk of failure. I'm ready!

How to not work

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
  - George Bernard Shaw, Maxims for Revolutionists

I love the book The Four-Hour Workweek. I love The Energy Project. And I love this Harvard Business Review blog post.

The gist of these grand tales is that we should stop working so much, and start prioritizing our lives to be what we want them to be. The risk inherent in this, of course, is that a) we fail to meet deadlines, b) we fail to look like we're working as hard as other people, c) we fail to get as much stuff done. So I think we're seeing that it's a fear of failure here (at least it is in my world).

But I like the principles and I am learning from my new manager (of about 6 weeks now) that this is actually possible. If you ignore the chatter of the silly, you can focus on the challenges that matter. One more book for you: Long Fuse, Big Bang. This one has a great quote that really stuck with me - "Don't let the tyranny of the urgent stifle the pursuit of the important."

Set aside time to think. Prioritize prioritization. Calm your mind and reflect on the day behind you. Then calm your mind and prepare your head for the day in front of you.

Now, to get to that 4-hour workweek... (though I'm fairly certain I could never really just work just four hours a week as I would be bored out of my mind...)

I hate seeing things like this

"More than meets the eye."

 - Transformers


I absolutely hate reading posts like this one about event managers. Yes, we are problem solvers. Yes, we are friendly. Yes, we can give you ideas on your next vacation.

A colleague popped by my cube area today and said something similar - that the first people he learned to befriend when he started working for our company were the admins and the event people. Admins know everything, and event people can get you the good shift for booth duty and upgrade your room for you.

Yes, those are great personality features of event managers.

But NO, that is NOT what event managers do. Event managers are partners in strategic planning and inserting the appropriate event opportunities that match marketing campaign goals. Event managers understand the business and the business messages. Event managers are experience designers for those messages. Event managers are financial geniuses. Event managers are forward-thinking. Event managers are confident and reliant upon their partners and vendors. Event managers are strong communicators.  Event managers are expert project managers. Event managers are professional facilitators between multiple internal clients. Event managers drive the planning process. Event managers are customer service gurus. Event managers are brand ambassadors.

I'm sure the blog post that ruffled my feathers meant its tone to be complimentary and friendly and cute, as did my colleague with his comments, but I'm so tired of having my team put in a menial position doing other people's work, rather than driving the message and managing the experience.

Stepping off my soap box now. Thanks. :-)

Hotel Point Donation

True charity is the desire to be useful to others without thought of recompense.

  - Emmanuel Swedenborg
 
I am super excited to announce on behalf of my team the Dell Events Hotel Point Donation Program.

We realized last year that we had no official program or governance for Hotel Planner Points, so our official rule was to decline them. Then we had the idea to actually accept them, but develop guidelines around who we should donate them to!

So the official rule now is this:

Option 1: If we can get any discount to the master with the points.
Option 2: If the hotel has a charity of choice (For example: Marriott has Children's Miracle Network), then points should go there.
Option 3: If the hotel does not, the point should go to Dell's selected charity of choice, like Boys & Girls Club of America or Wounded Warriors.

We're so excited to launch this program and hope that others will follow suit!

In praise of quitting

As long as I'm having fun, I'm not quitting.

  - Sue Johanson

I have a couple of friends and colleagues in a tough situation right now, and I wanted to share these wise thoughts: Ben Pieratt's Blog in Praise of Quitting.

How do you scale yourself and your team?

A bee is never as busy as it seems; it's just that it can't buzz any slower.
  - Kin Hubbard

I have 9 event managers on my team (more team members, but 9 that manage events). Last quarter (that's THREE months), we did 46 events. And that doesn't even include the little 10x10s that one team member managed. Those are full-on EVENTS. So at first blush, I like to brag that we scale like crazy.

But as I dig deeper, we're spinning our wheels. We're working nights. We're working weekends. We're doing things that our vendors should be doing for us. Next quarter, we may not have that many events (only 35!) but they are HUGE, mega events. High visibility, high manpower, big events.

So how we do we effectively scale to ensure that we can maintain our SLAs?

Love this article from Fast Company about scaling.

If I knew then what I know now...

The only source of knowledge is experience.

  - Albert Einstein

I was just reading Dave Egan's blog post by the same title about what I wish I knew about events when I began my career. It's a thought-provoking question!

I wish I'd had a better understanding of budgeting... more importantly tracking and reporting to my stakeholders.

I wish I'd had the ability to ask for help. I did way too many things on my own, causing other people last-minute churn to fix my mistakes.

I wish I'd had coaching on how to not take things personally when a team member suggested I do something a different way.

Ah youth... it's wasted on the young!

The Truth About Event Marketing

All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.


- Galileo

“Because I love people.” “Because I love to travel.” “I’ve always been really good at planning parties.” These are common responses I hear when I ask people why they are interested in events. While these are fabulous attributes to have in an event planner, the responses have prompted me to spend a little time on The Truth About Event Marketing. In a truly well-planned and integrated marketing program, events can play a pivotal role in the sales funnel.

An industry tradeshow like VMWorld or Oracle Open World can drive basic brand awareness, can generate targeted leads, and/or can be used to capture dedicated time with a particular target account. Not only can they provide a hands-on demonstration of technology, they can also drive thought leadership through keynote session opportunities. The objectives for participation should be determined based on the timing of the event and the message that needs to hit the marketing at that time.

A customer advisory council can not only allow customers to feel engaged in the product or marketing strategies of one of their key strategic business partners, but it can provide valuable insight into real concerns and opportunities in our customers’ environments. It can foster trust and even turn around a strained customer relationship.

A user group or user conference can unite IT operators who manage datacenters with Dell and partner solutions. It can create an ongoing community of advisors, content generators, and advocates for Dell in the IT and business world.

Executive hospitality events (golf, wine tastings, sporting events) provide dedicated time with targeted accounts, their account teams and partners, but also allow for the free-flow of information among colleagues and general relationship building for future business meetings. Trite but true, sometimes more work gets done on the golf course than in a week’s worth of meetings.

As business units create their marketing plans and campaign timelines, industry events with set dates can be used as launch pads for products or solution sets or marketing message initiatives.

As assets become ready for market and you move to a demand generation phase, webinars, roadshows and lunch and learns become part of the marketing mix.

When we need to shift perception and convey thought leadership, we strategically target keynote speaking opportunities and executive-level forum and networking events.

I want to stress that event strategies should not be stand-alone creations. They should be part of the annual planning process when mapping out a truly integrated marketing plan.

I also want to stress that everyone loves events. Everyone thinks they can plan events (and maybe they can!). But not everyone can create a truly great brand immersion experience. That's the key.

Time to Move On?

If you wish to achieve worthwhile things in your personal and career life, you must become a worthwhile person in your own self-development.
- Brian Tracy

Have you ever heard of the Dead Sea Effect? The article referenced is talking about the IT industry, but I believe the same can be said for the event industry. It's a little cruel to think that a tenured, experienced event person might just have no other place to go, but without turnover, new ideas tend to get squashed. Moving on can be a good thing.