Essential Skills for a Meeting Planner’s Toolkit
Professional planners who organize, strategize, design and manage meetings and events have a large array of tools at their fingertips. Technology solutions, old-fashioned checklists, relationships with vendors, industry knowledge and expertise are among the top components. But to be a truly great planner, especially during this time of uncertainty, there are a few “soft” skills that are essential as well. Let’s explore some of these.
Flexibility
Flexibility has always been a hallmark of a strong meeting planner, but since the pandemic started, it has become absolutely crucial. Dealing with last minute adjustments, making on-site tweaks and coordinating ad hoc requests are typical in the ordinary life of a planner. However, the pandemic has taken the need for flexibility to a whole new level. We now face last-minute cancellations, pivots to virtual and adding hybrid elements, often planning for all - live, virtual and hybrid - at the same time. The best planners handle change with grace.
Patience
With the progress of pandemic recovery unclear, new variants arising and vaccination resistance slowing the pace, it can be difficult to plan for dinner with the family next week let alone a meeting of 500 in 3 months. Planning for larger gatherings requires patience with the moving target of COVID restrictions and safety requirements. Collecting information from health agencies, company COVID planning teams and event stakeholders takes time but is well worth it! Contingency planning while we wait-and-see has become the norm. Shortened planning time-frames can be a result. Planners with reserves of patience and who practice self-care will be able to ride this roller-coaster successfully.
Empathy
Empathy can be described as perspective taking. In event design, this requires planners to view the event from the perspective of everyone involved, figuratively walking the event in each person’s shoes. Understanding each stakeholder’s goals and perspective allows us to create an event that meets their needs.
Especially with hybrid meetings, often the focus is on making the event valuable for the virtual attendee, but we must also evaluate how removing a segment of the audience changes the experience of the in-person attendee. Enhancing the experience of each without sacrificing the other is a challenge best faced by empathic perspective taking. The final step is to ensure that each stakeholder understands the event format so that they are able to take advantage of new offerings and features.
Compassion
Planning team - In today’s environment, extending compassion for all parties involved in making an event come to fruition is a must! Let’s be honest, even as the pandemic situation begins to improve, the effects - both physical and mental - linger and continue to bring stress to all of us. We must approach the planning team and our vendor partners with respect and compassion for their personal situations as well as their professional situation. The belief that everyone is doing their best can guide our interactions and help set expectations. Practicing mutual respect brings comfort and cohesion to the team.
Attendees - We can help attendees feel comfortable and safe by drafting our communications with compassion and care for their potential concerns. Explicitly communicating the safety measures being implemented by the planning team and the expectations for the attendee community helps to set minds at ease before leaving home.
Resourcefulness
At Lead Dog, we love to figure out puzzles and solve problems. Novel solutions are necessary for many of today’s event challenges, so for planners and strategic designers, resourcefulness is key. We bring our unique perspective and skill-set to your team, listening to your goals, dreams, and ideas, helping to refine them and make them reality.
Omniscience
Alright, no one actually has this, but it sure would be nice! Although we can’t actually know everything that WILL happen, we do need to plan for everything that MIGHT happen!
As professional planners, we at Lead Dog want to contribute to the economic recovery and the safe return to face-to-face meetings. We value the elevated quality of interaction, idea production and relationship building that meeting in-person provides, and we know our clients do, too. There is an exciting energy that fills the air and spurs collaboration and creativity that is difficult to reproduce in a virtual format. During this time of transition back to live, in-person events, we continue to support our clients with flexibility, patience, empathy, compassion and resourcefulness.
Lead Dog Meeting & Event Management is ready to support your team through this challenging phase. Whether you have an event that you are committed to holding, or you’d like to talk about possibilities, we look forward to meeting you and helping you to unleash the potential of your ideas. Contact us at CRCaporale@LeadDogOnline.com or 856 429-4018 to schedule a free 30-minute consultation.