Video: Managers Need Better Time Management

So managers, let me ask you this question, if only twenty percent of your time is spent actually managing, who is it that really needs a Time Management course? The truth is that Time Management is never about time. It's about having clearly defined priorities. And it is the manager's job to ensure that the clear priorities have been communicated to the staff. So how can the manager make that happen?

The State of Meetings Post-Recession

I spend two to three hours a day in research. Including weekends, that's about twenty hours a week just keeping up with blogs and articles on what's happening in the marketplace. I read, then read some more and then I open a book to read some more. But I suppose it's what you expect anyone to do whose knowledge you pay for. For anyone who is going to bring a message that makes your organization different in some way, you expect that person to speak from either a depth of experience or a depth of knowledge - preferably both. But given the choice, knowledge is the most important - especially current knowledge. That's why I read and research.

So a question on a speaking industry bulletin board saddened me recently. The questioner asked who he could turn to to promote a man who has a mild form of cerebral palsy and whose wife has a rare form of joint disease because he believed it would make a great story for people to hear. I don't get how that story would help businesses hire better people. I don't see how that story helps organizations adapt to a changing workplace and marketplace, how it helps them make more sales, how it helps them manage better or how it builds a strong workplace culture. It doesn't smack of building better relationships with customers, providing better management in turbulent times or talent management that is transitioning the generations.

It is, however, a nice story for Chicken Soup For The Soul - a story of getting back up after being knocked down. But isn't that the point of being knocked down: to get back up? That's what you're supposed to do. And that story should take about 15 minutes to tell - the equivalent of a chapter. It would be a good inspirational YouTube video. It is not a presentation to build a conference around. Conferences are not a forum for victims of hardship to tell their story.

Then there are the former sports celebrities (heavy on the "former"), of which only a handful have been able to transition from sports to the platform to bring something to the table that every former sports celebrity hasn't said before. Former sports celebrities who take to the platform successfully, and have staying power, are the ones who continue to learn and research for their audiences. They are the ones who have transitioned their "education" into real takeaways that today's organizations can learn from. Why would you pay thousands of dollars for a message of the glory days of yesteryear when you can see it all on YouTube for nothing?

Then there are the television personalities, news anchors and reporters who read from a teleprompter for a living (OK, maybe it's not as easy as it looks). Yet, by the very fact that they are on TV makes them an expert in what exactly? Interviewing tips to make politicians squirm? Making that perfect "concerned-face" on cue? Sure their faces are recognizable, but ask yourself, how will your organization be different, make that better, by their message?

That should be the criteria before you part with thousands of dollars in appearance fees and travel dollars. A reporter who did a tour in a war zone is not the person I want to hear from necessarily. I want to hear from the person, the soldier, who stood in front of the reporter and kept his ass out of danger. That would be a great story to hear - but probably not one that would make your organization any different. I'll watch it on YouTube too.

Hollywood celebrities, musicians and actors are great at what they do - entertain. But entertainment is not really the point of a conference or corporate meeting is it? No, learning, networking and a collective sharing of ideas is the reason you're at the meeting. So when I hear meeting planners say that they need a marquee celebrity to get people to attend their event, that's when I know that even the attendees don't place a lot of value in the meeting or they would already be registered. If you need a big name then you've got other problems.

Hmmm, perhaps that's how we got into this mess in the first place - by hiring people who had not much to add to the conversation that was supposed to be taking place. But we were entertained.

"Nobody walked out" has become the gauge of a successful session. People walk out when they feel they are wasting their time. Today, people stay in the room and can still walk out by trashing the session on the back-channel on Twitter. People stay in the room when they are engaged or, unfortunately, when they are too afraid that they will hurt someone's feelings by walking out. And you may never find out which of the two is the reason they stayed until you read their Twitter posts.

Giving people something to think about, to work with, to make their respective organizations better is never a waste of time, money or effort. And for those who want to come to the meeting only to rub shoulders with a once-famous sports star, news anchor or celebrity, well, they probably don't have much to add to the conversation anyway. Maybe it's better that they stay home.
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Kevin Burns - Excellence Attitude/Culture Strategist
Speaking Web Site http://www.kevburns.com

Creator of Filter-Free Fridays™
Creator of the 90-Day System To A Greatness Culture™

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Die, Conference Dinner

I ran across this article recently in Meeting Planners International magazine. I thought it was brilliant, so much so that I felt compelled to share it with you. If you are a Meeting Planner, pay attention. If you have attended one of these events, well, enjoy. It was written by Tony Carey, CMP.

It would be difficult to invent an occasion better designed for social discomfort than the end-of-convention dinner with its incompatible mix of stale etiquette, corporate protocol, culinary sensitivities, age, gender and cultural frictions all squeezed into a few short hours that, for many participants, seem like an eternity.

Pity the poor association meeting planner (for it is in this field that the tradition survives in its purest form), required to devise a social activity in which the preordained ingredients leave scope for nothing more creative than changing the colour of the table linen.

The evening’s schedule must include a drinks reception, a dinner of at least four courses, a speech by the chairman, another by the principal guest, a series of toasts, the presentation of awards, dancing and then—to show that the organisation isn’t as old-fashioned as the previous four hours have conclusively proved—a disco.

Given the diversity of delegates at most association conventions, few of them will enjoy all these ingredients. For the younger attendees, the reception and the disco fail to compensate for the dinner discomfort and the tedium of the speeches. For the older ones, failing digestion, hearing and prostate glands make the meal an ordeal. Women (who are promoted to “ladies” for the occasion) are invariably disappointed by the men whom they are placed next to, but at least they have the pleasure of putting on a party frock. Generally speaking, men do not share women’s enthusiasm for dressing up. This may be because dress shirts shrink two sizes between uses.

Protocol demands that men and women should be seated alternately at the dinner table. This is arguably the most ridiculous piece of social etiquette since the invention of the fish knife and, fortunately, is increasingly ignored. Any good host will tell you that compatibility and mutual interests should determine a seating plan—not gender.

Would any half-professional meeting planner dare to inflict on delegates, in an auditorium, the levels of discomfort that are deemed acceptable at a banquet? No. Ten guests to a round table ensures that some can’t see the speakers and, as if the room wasn’t hot enough, everyone stokes up on calorific food eaten off warm plates. To further challenge the air conditioning, each table has a candle.

It is a physiological fact that women feel the cold more than men, so, of course, the ladies appear in backless, strapless, insubstantial little numbers (invariably black) which attract welcome attention and an unwelcome chill—while conformity demands that the gentlemen perspire in tuxedos. But I digress.

So the meal has ground to an indigestible conclusion, toasts have been drunk and the awards presented. The chairman has finally sat down to lethargic applause, so it is time for the band to strike up with a tune that only 25 percent of those present will recognise as music and to which no one will dance.

By this time (midnight), the ambient noise has reached battlefield level ensuring that conversations with foreigners—especially Virginians—have become impossible.

Most of the men would rather talk than dance, and most of the women would rather dance than talk. But the single girls have a problem: since most of the younger generation is propping up the bar, their choice of dancing partners is limited. They can choose from another woman, a septuagenarian, a drunk, their own handbag or the Greek they were sitting next to at dinner. (It’s a particularly bad evening if all they can find is a drunk old Greek with a handbag.)

But it is at this point that the group—which has been held together all evening by the glue of conformity—really splits up. The very old and the married couples go to bed, the very young escape to joust, sweatily, in the disco, while the middle-aged singles bribe the barman to remain at his post so they can rearrange the world.

Ironically, because everyone ends the evening doing what they enjoy, the event will be regarded as a considerable success. Such is the amnesic power of alcohol.

TONY CAREY, CMP, CMM, is a speaker and consultant. He can be reached at tonycarey@psilink.co.je or via his Web site, www.tonycarey.info.