Back around the turn of the century (HAH! That seemed to fun to write, but now just makes me sound … ancient), I spent a few semesters teaching a college level “Introduction to Meeting Planning” class, required for students in the Travel & Tourism degree/certificate program. One of the not-in-the-book lessons was an overview of the psychographic qualities required to be a truly successful meeting & events professional. I spoke candidly about the fact that great meetings professionals need be very comfortable with the idea of failing dramatically in a very public way (1000 people will be in the ballroom for dinner at 7pm: ready-or-not, here they come!)
Today on ‘tax day’ (in the US), I’m reminded that in the meetings & events business, there is no option to “file for an extension if you don’t get everything done on time” – they are immobile deadlines. 500 people are heading to San Diego on the 26th for a three day conference, 20 people land at the airport in Coeur d’Alene Thursday night to start their executive retreat weekend. The planning timeline starts from those immobile deadlines and works backwards. There’s no calling attendees to say, “gosh, could we just shift that 2 days later, we’re not quite done.” These immobile deadlines force prioritization decisions about what’s “good enough” – decisions that we may not have the discipline to make if deadlines are flexible.
Need to make a personal or professional change in your life? Launch a project? Some of the best advice I’ve ever heard is “put it on the calendar” (a variation on the “ship it” philosophy from Seth Godin.) When something is on the calendar, you think differently about it. It’s integrated into the work plan. You marshal resources accordingly (bring in subcontractors, outsource what you can’t do yourself,) delegate better, waste less time, and prioritize more smartly.
Talking to a client yesterday, he quipped, “GOAL is a four-letter word.” He has a project that launches in 15 months. It’s on the calendar: everything works backwards from there. In areas beyond meetings (and daily publishing,) there is a pervasive culture of comfort with deadline slippage: “Just a few more weeks won’t hurt.” “The programmer ran into a technical issue.”
Nonprofit organizations can be among the worst offenders with nebulous goals (“we’d like to launch XYZ, but we don’t have the resources right now.”) An additional layer of decisionmaking (The Board) can be a convenient excuse for inefficiencies or management’s failure to prioritize. Expectations plummet. Time is wasted. XYZ goes ‘on hold’ while the can just keeps getting kicked down the road. The next Board meeting looms, and the tyranny of the urgent takes over. Soon, customers – both internal and external – don’t know what to expect. Or rather, they know that “whenever” (or never) seems to be just fine with the powers that be.
They’re not ‘goals,’ they’re deadlines for specific things that you will accomplish.
Stop cheating yourself, and your customers: Put it on the calendar.
Real external pressure is motivating, but imaginary or arbitrary deadlines are easy to ignore. Put it on someone else’s calendar.
Art: That’s a great point! Getting someone to hold you accountable is a powerful key to success. I’ll put ‘building the right team’ into the editorial calendar for a future post. Really nice to see you here, my friend – thank you for all your support, provocative thinking & encouragement through the years.