Support

Trust Makes All the Difference

Most of us will not allow, much less ask for, support, especially with the things we hold most dear to us. We just don’t trust other people with our priceless creations. We may in serious need of a night out, but leaving our first child with a babysitter that first time is a huge challenge. Turning the project that you just worked on for a couple years over to the folks your company deemed as vital to its success may also result in sleepless nights even though you know that you don’t have the expertise to provide what they will bring to the table and move it to the next level.

So here you are with your “event baby” in hand. The seminar, workshop, training or other live event you have labored over for such a long time needs more support than you can provide. Still, it belongs to you, and you want to prevent anyone else from messing it up. It doesn’t dawn on you that you might be the one messing it up by holding on so tightly that you squeeze the life out of it. You might be sitting on top of your baby rather than allowing it to learn to walk and permitting others to also help it learn and evolve. As the sole cog in the machinery, you may have become a huge clog in the machinery.

This sounds crazy, but it’s what we humans tend to do. We believe that we know best about everything, especially when it comes to the things we create. As a writer, I know this to be true of my writing. It took me years to finally realize that allowing other eyes and minds to provide me with feedback was extremely valuable. I can’t tell you how many times I read the same typo or bad idea over and over until an editor finally pointed out my error.

On some level, we all believe that we are the only one who can successfully oversee all aspects of our creation’s evolution, and nowhere is that more evident than with seminars, workshops, trainings and other live events. We are certain that we have all the tools to make it fly and succeed when nothing could be farther from the truth. Our events eventually require the synergy of a team.

In fact, large events simply cannot be produced and presented by a single individual. People are constantly trying to save money by producing and presenting their smaller events on their own, but they, too, generally fail or burn out. And if they are fortunate enough to succeed, they are so used to doing and managing every aspect of the event that they become micromanagers who won't delegate and allow themselves and their events to be supported. They can’t be team players because they don’t trust anyone else to do things for them. Generally, they got into that mindset when they started out on a shoestring, but they never made the transition from the person doing everything to the person responsible for making sure that everything gets done in a way that makes the event appear seamless and impeccable to the participants.

I can’t tell you how many times I have watched as the first thing that a best-selling author or speaker does upon arriving at a presentation is to check with the sound guy or tell the head of production to make sure that the front seats are filled or any of the other logistics tasks that should not even cross his or her mind. The presenter’s job is to be with people and to make an extraordinary presentation. If she is worried about sound systems or the seating or the lighting, she will never make a truly outstanding presentation.

This is where the issue of trust arises. In their early days, most presenters believed that they had to check on these things or they might not get done, and they did not want to wind up standing in front of their audience looking like a fool because the sound system did not work. In truth, they didn’t have to operate like that, but they chose to operate as a rugged individualist rather than creating a context of support. a context of support. It would have been easy to put together a volunteer team, but they chose not to. So there she is, a famous author with several thousand people on the edge of their chairs waiting for her first words, and she is preoccupied checking on the sound or the lights or how the plants are positioned.

This may sound crazy, but it’s very usual behavior. In this business, presenters and producers (often one in the same – another bad idea) just don’t trust other people to get the job done. They also don’t know how to select and build a supportive team (be they volunteers or paid) that can create the magic of synergy. And once that team is built, they don’t know how to reward and support its members so that they will continue to be loyal followers (it does not necessarily require cash to generate such loyalty).

Once you have built a support team for both your home base and your on-the-road events, you need to train and support them until they become a well-oiled machine that you can count on NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS. Again, this is not something that can be done easily or overnight. It will, however, be very rewarding and result in success well beyond what you imagine.

Presenters who have worked with me over time after doing it on their own for years are amazed at how wonderful it feels to walk into a room full of eagerly participants knowing that everything is handled. They feel fully supported, because they trust that both the team and myself have done our job as promised.

That’s not to say that unexpected things don’t come up. Cords become mysteriously unplugged, lights burn out, handouts get misplaced or mixed up, people sitting in the front row get up and walk out in the middle of the presentation, etc., etc., etc. The real issue is having the presenter(s) confident that everything is under control. Whatever the issue, everyone (especially the presenter) recognizes that it’s being handled by the producer and the production team as quickly as is humanly possible. Or at least it appears to the presenter and audience that it’s being handled quickly and efficiently.

For example, there is almost always a woman (in my thirty plus years producing events, I have never had a man do this) who publicly demands that the heat be turned up. She feels cold, and she believes that everyone else feels exactly as she does.

When a presenter is working with me (or an experienced producer and team), he or she simply turns the problem over to me in a very public way by asking that it be remedied. I nod or wave my acknowledgement, and I immediately move. Usually, I calmly walk to the thermostat (which is almost always locked and under the control of the hotel maintenance people) and pretend to fiddle with it. Or I walk over to a house phone, pick it up and begin talking (even if there is no answer on the other end). What is important about either of these actions is that everyone sees that immediate action is being taken to remedy the “problem.”

In reality, there is usually not a problem. I have at least two thermostats positioned around the room (buy some digital remote thermometers), and I know the exact temperature as well as the temperature that we want the room (which is generally a bit under 70 degrees to keep everyone from falling asleep). Still, having participants witness quick action allows them to remain focused on the reason that they are there – to take the actions that the producer and / or presenter wants them to take. So, we continue to keep them very involved. They trust that they are being taken care of. Because they feel that way, they quickly feel the room temperature warm up even if I made no change.

As the producer I am constantly monitoring the temperature of the room because I know that most venues take time to warm up or cool down. So if the room is actually too cold, I have probably already contacted the hotel’s maintenance people and had them make an adjustment. The woman who felt moved to speak on behalf of all the cold people in the room did however, not see that action.

In our logistics letter, we warned participants that the room might be chilly and that they should bring a jacket or sweater, but some folks just don’t pay attention. As an aside, the reason I keep the room cooler rather than warmer (other than the fact that cooler keeps people awake) is that everyone has a different comfort level, and it’s much easier to add a layer to get warm than it is to remove a layer to cool off.

I reiterate, your support team is extremely important to your success. A while ago the phrase “it takes a village to raise a child” was in vogue. Well, it takes a team to create and raise an event. Even the most skilled, charismatic and energetic person can’t do it alone. I’ve tried to do with without support, and the results have been less than glorious.

Either the event has failed to produce the planned results and / or I have gotten burned out. Neither outcome is what you want. That’s why I am now doing all that I can to persuade you to get support. Create a team. Do whatever it takes so that you are not out there on your own. My mentor Bucky Fuller was constantly building teams to support his global work. Even the Lone Ranger had the support of his trustworthy companion Tonto and his amazing horse Silver. If he didn’t try to save the world on his own, why should you?

Producing and / or presenting an event on your own is a bad decision. Let me say it one more time with a bit more conviction – IT’S A TERRIBLE DECISION!!! You just can’t expect to succeed doing it all on your own. And, if you do succeed a few times, you will soon be so burned out that you won’t care about your event (you might even come to hate it) or it would fall flat because you can’t continue to put that amount of effort into it. This is especially true if you are both the producer and presenter (another BAD idea even though you may have to initially do just that because of budget concerns).

So, be a team player. Be the supportive, inspirational leader / coach for your team, and they will support you and your event beyond what you can imagine. Empower them to get the job done at a level that few people have every witnessed, and they will in turn pass that attitude on to your audience. Then, you will have attained the level of synergetic success that so many people talk about but so few achieve.