Thank all participants
Start the conversation on your assigned topic
Moderate questions from participants
Serve as a resource where appropriate
Communicate any necessary information to the ____ staff

Here’s where the rubber meets the road. The association wants and is content with me letting the session “go where it may.” Am I?

But there is a problem. Being an effective guide on the side isn’t easy. I once attended a workshop in which the speakers utilized great in-depth case studies to generate roundtable discussions. They had the groups discuss the cases, report out…and then they moved to the next case. Here were two individuals with combined 30+ years experience and they offered no opinion on how the cases could or should have been handled. They didn’t even identify if they agreed or disagreed with the solutions identified in the report-outs. We all had interesting discussions, but left feeling we still didn’t know how to handle the situations if presented to us. Anyone off the street could have “facilitated” that session. It was easy, but not effective.

If you have experts available, use them – I mean really use them. Don’t let them just organize table discussions; have them use their experience and expertise to facilitate meaningful discussions and learning. As one model, consider how the workshop I attended could be reworked:

• Experts shares enough information and context about the cases to enable a rich discussion
• In small groups, learners discuss case studies and generate ideas for how they would handle the situations
• Each group reports back ideas generated
• Experts debate, clarify and/or build upon the ideas/actions suggested (providing the rationale and/or evidence for their advice)
• Experts close the session by highlighting the key lessons to be taken from the each of the case studies
• Learners depart with knowledge they can use

Now, building a session like this is harder than assigning table topics and letting the session go where it may. Roundtables need a purpose and structure. So, choose your experts carefully and provide them guidance. Your learners will thank you.

I understand the benefit of having the same look/message displayed at the beginning and end of each presentation – and I even understand the value of having the last slide serve as a promotion for association services/events. However, I do not see the benefit of mandated template slides for the core presentation.

Another problem is that requiring the use of template slides also implies speakers should use slides! And that’s a dangerous implication given the widespread abysmal use of Powerpoint slides. Of course slides have the potential to enhance a presentation, but when is the last time you were moved by a slide deck?

If you really want to make an impact to your conference sessions, nix the slide template and instead provide guidance and tools to your speakers to help them deliver more effective presentations, with or without visuals. A few ideas:

• Be flexible in room set-up and AV requests; requiring classroom set-up and a podium mike is begging for a traditional lecture.
• Provide speakers with as much information about the audience and their needs as possible; don’t assume they’ll do the research on their own.
• Ask speakers to identify and provide to you their key points (you’d be surprised how many speakers can and will present without ever identifying key points!).
• Provide a guidance document that outlines principles of effective presentations (you can find several model documents online).
• Provide speaker training sessions virtually and at your events – these could be by invitation only or for all potential speakers.
• Hire a presentation coach to work with your speakers one-on-one.
• Establish an arrangement with a presentation coach to offer discounted coaching sessions to your speakers in exchange for your promoting his or her services to that target.

Can anyone guess what the scores were? Around 4. There was slight variation (down to maybe 3.5), as some groups were more or less impressed with the venue or the instructors or the content. I learned early on that the instructors derogatorily referred to these evaluation forms as “happy sheets.”

Flash forward fifteen years, and here I am speaking for the association community, anxiously waiting to get back my evaluations to see if I am staying above the magic 4.0 line.

Stop. Throw these forms away. Never use them again. Go back to the drawing board and ask again (or maybe for the first time?), WHY are you using these sheets? I am guessing that the standard answers are things like, we need to compare the quality of different speakers (or the same speaker over time), or we want to know if participants are satisfied with their experience.

Those are laudable goals, but are the happy sheets really getting you there?

Quality of speakers should be based on the impact they have on participants, which is not always measurable at the end of the session (or even a few days later). Some speakers (dare I say, some of my fellow authors!) design sessions specifically to provoke new thinking in the audience. This can be uncomfortable for the participant in the moment, but immensely valuable over the long term. Other speakers need to deliver specific content to help people accomplish a specific task. One person can get tremendous benefit from both sessions, but in the moment rate the provocative session lower than the “just what I needed” session, whose impact is more immediately apparent. Happy sheets don’t tell you who your good speakers are.

Happy sheets don’t tell you much about the participants’ real experience either. As Amy Smith wrote in the first edition of the book, there are critical questions you need to ask when designing your learning experience in the first place, like what are the business problems of your participants that you can help to solve. With those in place, you should design some research to see whether or not your event made progress against those goals. You may find that more qualitative tools will be more effective than happy sheets. Do interviews with participants. Sit in and observe the speakers. Have a session at the conference where a facilitator can have a back-and-forth conversation with participants about what is working or not working at the conference (entice them with some good break food!). Gather data six months later in addition to right after the meeting. If nothing else, you should at least experiment with some of these methods.

The happy sheets provide relatively instant feedback, so I know they are “satisfying” to an organizer. But that is about you. Your event evaluation should be about the event and the customer, and it should be focused on learning, not earning a score. Approach this as a research issue, and design your evaluation research so it will generate learning, which then leads to experimenting and changing the way you do things.

Repeat after me: If a piece of data can’t enable a decision to be made, it isn’t worth measuring. Using this simple rule will dramatically reduce your measurement efforts while simultaneously enabling you to take more action. What’s not to like?

This same approach can be invaluable for your Board of Directors and other leadership bodies. When you are pressed for more and more data, push back. Ask what decisions the requested data will support. If it doesn’t support any, it is in everyone’s best interest to not go through the labor of producing it nor the time of assessing and discussing it. You can move on to those metrics that really matter to your leaders making decisions about the future of the organization.

Do not allow your measurement efforts to crunch you and your leadership.

Try something different. For those products that aren’t selling well, cut your promotions budget in half. Then apply those resources to product concept (or re-concept). Why? It may be your product that is the problem, rather than the promotions. You can promote the heck out of a mediocre product but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s a mediocre product. So, most of those promotional dollars are wasted. Even if you’ve created a gem of a promotional campaign and gotten buyers for that mediocre product, will they be satisfied buyers? Repeat buyers?

Consider this real case. An association has been offering a certificate of training program for the past six years. It spends very little on promotion – a listing on its website, occasional e-blasts, and a simple printed flier included in select mailings. Yet, almost all programs have sold out – many with a long waiting list. How? They spent their time wisely and generously on program concept and design. The program meets a real need, and exceeds participant expectations. Now, they don’t have to promote the program; it sells itself. Well, actually, graduates of the program sell it for them. Evaluations data show that over 95% of participants would recommend it to a colleague…and they do. Word-of-mouth marketing at its best.

Consider which of your products, services or programs aren’t selling well regardless of how much you promote them. Then, delve into the product’s concept. Who is the target? What are their needs? Is this product meeting a need? If not, can it be redesigned to meet a need? Is it a mediocre product or a remarkable one? Is it so remarkable that your buyers will “sell” it for you through word-of-mouth? Can you make it so? (Of course, remember that not all products are worthy of a redesign; some may need to be retired.)

A place to start: the product of membership. Do you really need to promote membership more…or do you need to work on making it worth buying?

While I agree wholeheartedly that action is critical, I think the association community is underestimating the power of language. Dee Hock, the founder of VISA International, has said, “Language is only secondarily the means by which we communicate. It is primarily the means by which we think.” The words we choose can actively change the way we see the world, and this can then change the way we behave. We are frequently not aware of the impact it has, so it is important that the association community pay more attention to the language it uses. Better execution is fundamentally about different action, and this requires careful attention to the words we use.

Michael Roberto is an expert in decision making, and he has done research that demonstrates the power of simple word choice. For example, at a hospital in Minnesota, a manager was trying to address the issue of medical accidents. She noticed that the language that was used in the official reporting of these incidents was focused on “accusing, blaming, and criticizing” individuals. The leader changed the language that was used in reporting so that it emphasized both the systemic causes and the importance of learning from mistakes that were made. When they changed the language, the hospital actually started reporting MORE accidents, but was also able to learn from them and make improvements.

It is rarely a case of changing a single word, like director to trustee. But if you wanted to change the behavior of your board away from individuals who seek to control and direct the operations, towards a group that worked to protect the interests of the enterprise, changing that word (and a host of other words) could be critical. You would also have to change some processes and have some important conversation with the Board members, but attempting to make the change without addressing issues of language can slow you down. The same is true if you want your staff to think more strategically on a regular basis, and the same is true if you want your people to place more attention to quality control.

Language matters.

Phrases Preceptors Shouldn’t Use
That’s not the way we do things here.
I don’t think that will work.
We don’t have the resources to do that.
Don’t you think that’s more trouble than it is worth?
Please just stick to your responsibilities; I’ll worry about everything else.
The way we’re doing it now is working just fine.
Because I said so.

I began my career in association management at the age of 23. Through a fortunate series of events, I landed a great association continuing education job for which I was (on paper anyway) under qualified. I should have had 5-10 years of experience and a master’s degree. I had neither. But, in true GenX style, that didn’t stop me. I set out to transform my little corner of the association world. I had ideas and was ready to make an impact. Sadly, however, I hit roadblocks at every turn – many of them in the form of the statements above. Indeed I was young and inexperienced (naive, as I was reminded more than once). I didn’t know how it was supposed to be done in associations. My boss at the time did not see that maybe that was a good thing, maybe that allowed me to see the possibilities. My boss just saw my youth and asserted that I just needed to “stick with the program” and not try to change anything until I had more experience (until I was fully entrenched into the way they’d always done it?). Well, the status quo isn’t really my thing, and I would not have lasted long under those conditions. Luckily for me, a consultant came in to lead the department during a time of transition and she supported and even mentored me in making significant changes. I will never forget the contrast of the WHADITW and “you are too young to know” attitude of the boss versus the consultant’s value of ideas and change and her ability to see beyond my age. (BTW, they were approximately the same age.)

I’ve now been in the field 17 years — yes, I’m 40, the eldest of the Independent Thinkers, I might add. — and I am ashamed to say that every once in a while I catch myself starting to question the merit of ideas based on the age of the idea holder. To be honest, I more often jump to the conclusion that a Boomer or beyond is of the WHADITW mindset than I conclude youth equals ill-informed idea. But when that happens, so far I’ve been quick to catch and scold myself not to make any conclusions until I hear them out. Do you?

Do you let preconceived notions about people hamper your ability to hear them? Are you so entrenched in the ways you do things that you close yourself off to the possibilities? Are you stifling the creativity of those around you?

The next time someone approaches you with an idea, just stop right there. Don’t judge; don’t react. Pause. Say, “Tell me more.” Then, really listen (not listening with the intent to respond, but listening with the intent to understand – which is very different). Then, even if you are not convinced about the idea’s merit, consider the risk of idea failure relative to the potential learning and empowerment opportunity for the individual. What do you really have to lose?

And, by the way, if you ever hear me utter the words, “Because I said so.’, just shoot me.