The Advancement of Strategic Meetings Management

My colleague Kari Schroeder-Bigot was recently interviewed for a feature article in the June issue of Corporate Incentive & Travel magazine. Kari provided her insight on the current state of strategic meetings management (SMM).

In the nearly ten years since the National Busiess Travel Association (NBTA) introduced it, the concept of strategic meetings management has yet to achieve widespread implementation.  But SMM is an idea whose time has come. The article documents two important ways in which the NBTA is moving to increase its support for SMM. First is the roll out of a new online toolkit. And second is the continued development of the SMM certification process.

Increased industry support for SMM will be crucial. Potential clients will need to be educated on the reasons why SMM is in their best interest. That requires the development of a high level of expertise. As the travel and meetings industries build out programs for their members, knowledge and understanding of key concepts will grow both deeper and wider in scope. This kind of support is crucial in the development of new disciplines. Of course, it still takes talented individuals to communicate the benefits to their clients.

People like Kari Schroeder-Bigot are in a unique position to advise clients, based on their understanding of the SMM concept and their knowledge of clients’ meeting and travel patterns and policies. Once clients “get it,” the adoption of strategic meetings management programs can move to the next level.

There’s nothing like an educated client to take an idea and put it into action.

Managers Key to Employee Engagement

Employee engagement continues to be a hot topic. And engagement scores continue to drop.

Why is it that with so much focus on the issue, the results are so disappointing? One reason: many employees feel ignored.

This point is made in an interview appearing in the online Gallup Management Journal (titled “It’s Always About the Boss”) with Gallup Consultant Marco Nink, who discusses his take on a Gallup study of German workers. Apparently even the famously industrious Germans have issues when it comes to employee engagement. Nink states,

Quitting is almost always a statement against the immediate superior. It is a deadening process: Many employees are highly motivated when joining a company but then become increasingly disillusioned. And when continuously neglected, they will switch off at some point. They will resign inwardly, so to speak. This doesn’t happen overnight, but occurs rather as a process, due to experiences during the routine workday.

While some people thrive in a self-directed work environment, many need ongoing guidance. When that guidance is missing, some employees struggle. If these employees receive little or no coaching or feedback for long periods of time, and then get hit with bad news at the annual performance review, resentment can set in. The result: disengagement.

Companies who are serious about employee engagement need to understand this fundamental dynamic. Here are some things senior managers can do to help:

• Ask their managers to identify concerns they have about staff engagement—and use the information to provide concrete solutions
• Train managers on ways to engage and develop their people, making sure that the training aligns with corporate values and strategies
• Encourage managers to recognize and reward employees for desirable behaviors and results
• Reward managers for developing high-performing, loyal employees
• Model desired management practices by spending adequate time with the managers who report to them

Employees look to their managers for a wide range of support. And every employee is different. That puts a pretty heavy burden on the manager. The question managers have to ask themselves is: Do I accept that burden?

If they want to drive engagement within their organizations, they must answer affirmatively.

Meetings, Events and Incentive Programs Need Creative Themes

One of the most important responsibilities of a marketer is to get peoples’ attention. To influence behavior, you must first create awareness. Your audience needs to know what you want them to do, how they can do it, why they should do it, where they can do it, when they can do it and, most importantly, what’s in it for them.

That’s a lot of information to convey in a short period of time.

When it comes to meetings and incentive programs, the way to draw people in quickly is with a creative theme. When people see a good theme for the first time, it piques their interest and makes them want to learn more. If the information they learn is valuable, they will respond to subsequent messages more readily. The theme acts like a code: it quickly positions a message so the audience understands what it’s about before they read it.

Calling your meeting the “2010 Sales Training Meeting” may be descriptive, but it’s not inspirational or even interesting.  A creative theme will influence the way people think about that meeting.  A theme like “Winning with Wisdom” will surely do more to create a positive first impression—and help people see how they will benefit from attending.

A good theme provides a platform for the look and feel of the meeting or incentive communications materials. It can also suggest content. Using the example above, a theme based on the concepts of winning and wisdom could lead to the creation of competitions based on mastering training concepts, with awards for the winners.  It could lead to the presentation of case studies of successful companies who have used training to create a strategic advantage over their rivals. Or it could lead to the selection of a speaker whose bio aligns with the theme.

A good theme will help you create awareness of your meeting or incentive program—and help you generate great ideas for its execution. In addition, the theme will make the meeting or program memorable well into the future.

Work with your marketing agency to help you create your theme and weave it into your meeting, event or program. You’ll get a different perspective on your challenge. And you’ll wind up with a better, more focused value proposition which in turn will lead to higher levels of attendance and participation.

Get your theme on!