Inspiration Hub

We need to rethink the idea of failure. It is time to stop viewing it as something negative. Successful failure is when we use it as fuel to improve ourselves, our businesses and our events. Failure helps us take that (at times) much needed step back to rethink, regroup and refocus. After which, we start up again and discipline ourselves to take one step at a time moving forward from the experience.

We’ve all had that one disastrous event where hardly anyone turned up. It’s an excruciating experience, especially if you have stakeholders to answer to. But there’s no reason you should give up.

Every successful leader knows ongoing professional and personal development is the pathway to continued success. Which is why people pay big bucks to attend leadership workshops. While it’s important that your workshop provides leaders with a new perspective on an old problem, there’s also fun to be had. Let these five leadership workshop activity ideas inspire you to strike the balance between strategy and play.

You do it all. As the owner of your own third-party planner business you are the captain of the ship—and the crew. To help you navigate the sometimes rough waters of running your own business, we put together this handy resource guide with tips for everything from marketing and taxes to technology and negotiating. Feel free to bookmark this page as we will continue to update it with new tools for managing and growing your company. Until then, we wish you fair winds, following seas and full agendas.

I define leadership as a person or organization that is always looking for ways to innovate, that is not afraid to push important and sometimes controversial issues ahead, that digs in to solve or build without waiting for others to do so, that doesn’t look for individual kudos, but rather for collective progress.

Fear has been described by the acronym FEAR: False Expectations Appearing Real. We know that change is often accompanied by fear, as well as a sense of risk, uncertainty, and excitement. It’s also true that if we change the way we see things, the things we see change. 

“Should I get a master’s degree or a certification?” It’s a question I’ve been asked a lot over the years. And my answer is usually an ironic, “Yes.” Asking, “Should I get a master’s degree or a certification?” is like asking, “Should I have an apple or should I have turkey and dressing with giblet gravy?”

Event planners are a special breed of hard-working, hyper-organized adrenaline junkies. Consistently named as one of the world’s most stressful jobs, the role of event organizer is uniquely challenging — yet equally rewarding for some. Think you were born to be an event planner? Check out these must-have event planning skills to see if you’ve got what it takes.

Have you ever noticed how you may be on your way to your dream job, body or relationship and somehow, you’ve sabotaged yourself? Why would we consciously or subconsciously derail efforts that are bringing us towards what we believe we want? While a few reasons may be that we’re afraid of change, afraid to put ourselves out there, and afraid to shine, there are many other reasons too.

There’s nothing more frustrating than when someone refuses to take responsibility for their behaviors and actions-especially when those behaviors and actions caused harm. While we’re often so willing to overlook and forgive an error in judgment or a transgression, we tend to hang onto it more tightly when the person who caused the harm refuses to own it. So, instead of blaming, making excuses, getting defensive, ignoring it or assuming the other person doesn’t need an explanation or apology, take responsibility for the part you played (whether it was intentional or unintentional) and own it.

Sometimes, you just need to look at leadership from a different angle. In Zoom Leadership: Change Your Focus, Change Your Insights, organizational consulting expert Janet Britcher urges readers to “zoom in and out” with a flexible, open mind when problem-solving, rather than looking at a situation from a single point of view.

At Convening Leaders 2018, Kelly Peacy, CAE, CMP, founder and CEO of Insight Event Strategy, and former senior vice president of education and events at PCMA, shared with student attendees five things she wished she had known when she was just starting out:

In the events and hospitality industry, dealing with clients on a regular basis is part of the job. Whether you are a planner, hotelier or supplier, your goal is to make clients happy and do your best to meet their demands. At times, however, the demands become excessive and difficult to manage. This is where it becomes important to maintain a positive client relationship (even if it seems impossible at times), and do your best to keep the client happy while being realistic.

When I began writing Intentional Event Design: Our Professional Opportunity, it was to delve into and provide information on designing events that are people-centric and purpose-driven. The more I wrote, the more I realized it came down to one thing: using meetings to build trust – in the organization, between teams, and between solution providers and their potential clients. To create environments that allow the time and space for conversations is part art and part (neuro) science, and deeply understanding how humans respond to live event environments is our new currency as we build the value of our industry.

That New Year’s resolution to increase your productivity might seem impossible, given never-ending emails to answer and phone calls to make. In his new book The Compass Solution: A Guide to Winning Your Career, pharmaceutical industry veteran, motivational speaker, and The Compass Alliance founder Tim Cole describes these distracting and often mindless tasks as “the storm,” capable of keeping us from true effectiveness at work. Here are three tips from Cole on how to lower your daily anxiety and focus on the tasks that matter most in 2018:

How many times have you heard this: “The business events industry is a relationships industry.”  And it’s true. Success in the meetings industry depends on an event organizer’s ability to understand the needs of both clients and attendees.

The U.S. celebrates Thanksgiving on Thursday, so it seems like a good time to talk about gratitude and the attention that it has been getting in a new context: at work. While the benefits of gratitude on personal well-being are well-known, there has been less research on the effects of gratitude in the workplace — until recently.

Have you ever had a client so difficult, you considered leaving the industry? If so, we’re glad you didn’t. It may have actually been a boost for your professional development. Here’s what you probably gained from the experience.

Here are two surprising things about high-trust organizations:

1. Employees are paid more, by an average of $6,450 dollars a year.

2. Employees are 29 percent happier with their lives outside of work.

These findings were published in a Harvard Business Review article on “The Neuroscience of Trust” by Paul J. Zak, director of the Center for Neuroeconomics Studies at Claremont Graduate University and a member of the neurology department at Loma Linda University Medical Center.

In the meetings and events industry, one of the key predictors of your success is your ability to build relationships with influential people who connect powerfully and create high-trust relationships fast. And just like them, you can learn to effortlessly create profitable, winning relationships with anyone you want. While industry events are ideal places to find potential customers and partners, often the results are disappointing. You do everything the experts say: shake hands confidently, look people in the eye, and give them a well-rehearsed pitch. The person shows interest so you hand them your business card. But then nothing comes of it.

The reason hearing the words “annual review” is often met with a collective groan may be because the idea of getting feedback is so closely associated feeling criticized. But in Influence Redefined: Be the Leader You Were Meant to Be, Monday to Monday, author and leadership mentor Stacey Hanke suggests that feedback is not something to fear, but something to actively seek. “Feedback presents opportunities to better yourself — opportunities you may not even be aware of,” Hanke writes.