Every year, organizations spend thousands of dollars to attend conferences, trade shows, annual meetings; organizers spend even more.
Why?
To share ideas, to learn about new products and services, to reconnect with colleagues and connect with industry leaders. In theory and in popular opinion, the answer would obviously be yes.
If this is true, what is the purpose of this learning and connection? Simply to learn, or should it be to create applied change?
Applied change transforms simply learning from information to transformation. Notes taken into action and, perhaps most importantly, inspired learning to practical implementation.
The Problem
As an organizational leader, I have attended many conferences, tradeshows, annual meetings and I have always appreciated attending. What I find frustrating is that most of what we learn never changes anything. Notes that were taken get buried on dusty shelves with previous years’ notes. PowerPoint slide decks get saved, rarely to ever be looked at again, and the inspiration energy fades within days as the flow of normal activities intercedes and overtakes plans for change.
The real failure isn’t the conference, trade show, or meeting; the real problem lies with those who attend. We waste much of these resources and opportunities because we do not have any systems or processes to turn learning, inspiration, and desire for change into action.
Taking Action – Step 1 Redefine Success
If nothing changes in your work within 30 days of attending a conference, trade show, or meeting, then everything you did was strictly entertainment.
We have to expect more. Simply defining success as “I attended, I learned a lot, and it was inspiring,” is weak and does not justify the time and costs involved.
More means that at the minimum, real success is within 30 days, having 1–3 ideas actually implemented, 1 behavior noticeably changed, and 1 conversation that alters direction for the team.
These measures are the minimum you and your organization should expect; they define the return on investment just as your organization would for anything else.
Taking Action – Step 2 – Using the 3-Phase Model for Before, During, After the event
Phase 1: BEFORE – Design your Outcome.
Most people skip this entirely. Your focus should be intentionality. When you are anyone else from your organization goes to these events, don’t attend broadly; attend selectively and collectively work out what you want to accomplish. Define what matters before you arrive.
Do this by deciding collaboratively what problem(s) I am trying to solve. What decision do we need clarity on? And what skill(s)/insight(s) would actually change my/our work?
Narrow these objectives by focusing on actionable items. For example, pick 1 theme for the event, and write at least 3 questions you want answered.
If you don’t define value before you arrive, you’ll accept whatever is presented, whether it helps your team or not.
Phase 2: DURING – Filter, Don’t Collect, work towards your defined definition of success.
Events change all the time; the senses are purposely overloaded by the exhibitors and messages coming at you. Most people get overwhelmed here. The fix is simple.
Our focus needs to shift from “try to capture everything” to disciplined attention so you can “capture what matters” to accomplish your goals for the event.
Apply three simple filters to everything you encounter. For every idea or session, ask these questions:
- Is this useful now, or just interesting?
- Where would this actually apply in our organization?
- What would I stop doing if I used this?
The key takeaway for anything presented is “If it doesn’t connect to action, it’s just noise.”
My advice is to limit your notes to 3–5 key ideas per day and, as part of your notes, begin with the statement, This matters because…”
Phase 3: AFTER – Conversion of Insight into real change
There is no shortage of incredible ideas in our world; the shortage we experience is in our ability to execute those ideas. Every new idea, procedure, or concept either wins or dies at this point.
Taking Action – Step 3 – To execute, break the conversion into 3 steps.
1. Reduce – Within 24–48 hours, cut all your notes down to the best and most actionable 3 ideas at a maximum. Why only three? More ideas and concepts means overall less action. If you think this is not enough, recall the previous events attended and take a critical look at what, if anything, changed, and you may find implementing 3 new ideas will be a dramatic improvement over previous events.
2. Translate – Turning broad ideas and concepts into actual processes and behaviors; for example, if one of your ideas is to “Improve onboarding,” the translation will be one or a series of actions such as “Adding a daily 15-minute check-in at the beginning and ending of each training day to review expectations, actions, and issues.”
3. Schedule – to implement change and to take action, organizations and team members have to make time to discuss and implement change, regardless of how busy they are. Remember, if it’s not scheduled, it’s not real.
Put actions into the calendar or workflow and assign ownership to what you want to accomplish, even if it’s just you. The truth is “Unscheduled insight, concepts, ideas, and actions are just well-written memories.”
Taking Action – Step 4 – The Organizational Layer
Most organizations fail at this step. New concepts and ideas will be championed by the event attendee; however, without the support of those who did not attend, or without the support of those in authority, nothing will happen.
If your organization funds learning through events, but not implementation, not only is it simply investing in appearances, it’s wasting that money, resources, and time.
Organizations fail here because they have no follow-up structure for event attendance and attendees, no expectation of application, and no accountability for the resources used or their people’s time.
What should happen, at the organizational level, there should be a formal process and expectation of at least a 1-page action summary, not simply notes. An expectation of at least 1 implemented change per attendee, and a share-back session focused on application, not just a recap; there must be a planned and collaborative action plan.
Taking Action – Step 5 – Making Success Tangible
Don’t just define success; show what it turns into.
At an individual level, success means applying the lessons, ideas, and concepts to make clearer and better decisions, consistently demonstrate the ability to execute new lessons, and to be more focused.
At the team level, success means developing a shared language for identifying the need for solutions, finding solutions, making them better, and everyone using a shared language. Additionally, an organization that can align its priorities and engage in better conversations will achieve success faster.
The victory is that learning moves from being an event to a system for growth. Conferences, trade shows, and annual meetings become the input, not the outcome.
Success isn’t what you learned. It’s what’s different now because you were there.
Taking Action – Step 6. Aim to be different.
Events can be overwhelming; there are so many elements, all competing for your attention, and so many potential things you and your team could use. To be successful though, don’t try to use everything. Don’t aim to be inspired. Aim to be different when you come back.
Create your plan using an “on purpose” strategy for before, during, and after the event, make your choices, and convert them from “some thing interesting” to “noticeable and timely action,” on your return.
The Edge
I have been to many of these events and have seen essentially two types of attendees. Both kinds attend the event with the best of intentions; they try to see everything, listen to everyone, make notes, and justify their experience and the costs by saying what they learned.
One group collects ideas, but the effects of the events are short-lived because, although the ideas are potentially useful, they have no mechanism to take action on those ideas.
The second, smaller group, is the one that learns, uses these steps, and creates change.
Which group are you?
The difference isn’t what you learned. It’s what you chose to do with it.
Paul