I remember it all too well
“It was rare, I was there, I remember it all too well.” Listening to Taylor Swift’s lament in her beautiful and evocative “All Too Well: The Short Film” I feel my own grief well up. My last in-person engagement was […]
Search Results for: facilitating change
The fairest rules for meetings
What are the fairest rules to use when running meetings? This might seem like an odd question. You might ask, “Fair to whom?” or, “What do you mean by fair?” I think it’s reasonable to concentrate on fairness to participants: […]
Can you hear me now?
I do not have a magnetic personality. I would never have been cast as the lead in the classic ad series “When E.F. Hutton talks, people listen“. Yes, I’m a recovering academic, so I love to talk. But that doesn’t […]
Are in-person events COVID safe?
September 2021 — Are in-person events COVID safe? The worldwide meeting industry is desperately, and understandably, waiting for the answer to this question to be “Yes”. Well, Freeman, the largest global event management firm, has just announced “the truth is, in-person events are […]
How to provide new experiences at meetings
How can we provide new experiences at meetings? Not new F&B, decor, or glitz. Something deeper. Here’s a story… A memorial service Last month, I staffed an online memorial service for E, a friend who died tragically, at age 42, of […]
Achieve success one small step at a time
I’ve written frequently about facilitating change. Despite attempting to practice what I preach, I still sometimes fail to create a desired change in my life. Here are two recent examples that led me to realize that I need to achieve success one […]
The loneliness of the long distance facilitator
Right now, I am a long distance facilitator. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I only facilitate meetings of people who are not in the same room. Often, they are thousands of miles away. And, like Colin Smith, the protagonist (played […]
Successful change requires integration and practice
I find Virginia Satir’s change model to be the most useful of the many models of change. There’s a crucial fifth stage in Satir’s model that people often neglect: the integration and practice phase. The hero’s journey shortchanges change Why do people […]
No, I do not hate in-person meetings
I’d like to be clear that I don’t hate in-person meetings, despite what some have been posting recently on a Facebook group for meeting professionals: “Often wondered why so many on this feed hate live events.” “It is my opinion […]
Work on *what* to change, not just managing change
It’s tempting and understandable to concentrate on trying to manage change. After all, we are constantly experiencing change, and attempting to manage it is often unavoidable. But never lose sight of the importance of working on what to change.