Meet to Change the World
The Energy of Many
By Trey Feiler
WE EACH HAVE TIMES IN OUR LIVES WHEN WE’RE PART OF LIFE-ALTERING EXPERIENCES, both personally and professionally. These include things such as finding your true love, the birth of a child, an inspirational speech that changed a behavior and many more. While these can be few and far between, the question that each of us has to answer is, “Did I play an active role in making this happen, or was I simply on the receiving end?”
We are at a crossroads in the meeting and event industry. The global financial meltdown—while forcing change on many things around us—created an opportunity for us to truly exhibit our value and be indisputable business leaders in our organizations. Everywhere around us, people are looking to justify expenses and prove ROI/ROO, and meetings and events are no exception. The beauty for us is that when done correctly, meetings and events truly do change the world.
The key is to understand that conducting strategically sound business meetings and events is possible and then be able to articulate it with facts to the decision makers. We’ve all heard “gone are the days of boondoggles,” but should they be? If I can prove the business case that the top 20 percent of our sales team is responsible for 50 percent of our sales and by bringing them together for a meeting they will be able to increase their productivity by 20 percent while reducing costs by 5 percent, would you be able to say no to the meeting?
It is critical that we lead these discussions in our organizations—the ones connected to results. I will suggest that gone are the days of framing meetings in terms of just hospitality. While hospitality certainly can’t be overlooked, it is only a piece of the equation. With a focus on the meeting’s outputs, the inputs become supporting items that enable the outputs, not the sole purpose of the discussion. When properly framed, cost discussions are a component of “value” and used to enhance the productivity of the results.
The window of time we’re currently in to truly lead these discussions won’t last forever. As meeting professionals, we have a unique opportunity to fill this need within our organization and, if we don’t, someone else will.
To quote John Maxwell from his book Leadership 101,
Leaders
• Initiate
• Lead; pick up the phone and make contact
• Spend time planning; anticipate problems
• Invest time with people
• Fill the calendar by priorities
Followers
• React
• Listen; wait for the phone to ring
• Spend time living day-to-day reacting to problems
• Spend time with people
• Fill the calendar by requests
In this issue, you will learn about MPI’s Knowledge Plan. This is an incredible opportunity to take control of your own success through continued education and personal development. It will also provide you the opportunity to prove your own worth in your organization, arming you with the skills, training and resources to speak the language of business on your own career path. When we meet, we change the world—make sure it can’t happen without you.
TREY FEILER is MPI’s chief operating officer. E-mail him at tfeiler@mpiweb.org.