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Achieving
Balance
Speakers
that strive to blend work and life
By
Diane Goodman
Get up. Go
to work. Come home.
Eat. Sleep.
Get up.
Sound familiar?
While this may be a daily routine for much of the nation’s
workforce, it is not conducive to a well-balanced lifestyle – one that
contributes to better health, better family lives, more time for creative
endeavors, and more personal satisfaction.
In today’s fast-paced work and
home environment, more and more professionals are seeking ways to improve
their lives by finding a better balance of work and “play.” From turning off cell phones at home to minimizing hours
worked overtime, people are realizing they need to carve time out to
fulfill personal goals as well as professional ones.
With each meeting, companies have a wonderful
opportunity to help attendees achieve balance in their lives. This can be
done through the use of professional speakers who address issues such as
how to balance work and “down time,” better time management, better
ways to handle or reduce stress in our lives, and learning about wellness
or health issues that all affect job performance.
When companies invest in speakers of this
nature, they are adding balance to the more informational-based meeting.
For the most part, attendees, in turn, feel a greater sense of
appreciation towards companies for bringing in helpful speakers.
Additionally, this approach most likely will keep meeting
participants more energetic, enthused, and attentive – which increases
the return on any investment in a company meeting or conference. And, when
balance is achieved in the workplace, productivity and job satisfaction
increase as well – to the benefit of all.
Planners should consult with a speakers bureau
to brainstorm the keynote speaker selection as well as different ways to
utilize the speaker. Planners
and the bureau should review the entire scope of the meeting, conference,
or retreat, as the bureau needs to understand the whole meeting, the
purpose, tone, role of speaker, time of day, if families are in
attendance, what free time is scheduled, etc.
From this, a bureau and/or a speaker may make recommendations to
create a more balanced meeting. This
could be anything from suggesting a speech topic, recommending the best
time of day to speak, adding networking exercises or workshops to the mix,
or having a speaker act as an MC for the whole meeting.
Speakers bureaus have been working with meeting
planners to show how speakers can have a more positive impact on meetings
– from improving the “flow” of a meeting, to providing better
networking opportunities, to addressing multiple audiences including
spouses and families who may attend a meeting.
Many professional speakers agree that when a meeting is structured
with balance in mind, attendees have more fun, are willing to attend more
sessions, and retain more information discussed at the content-oriented
parts of the meeting.
Amanda Gore has been a professional
motivational speaker for more than 15 years, speaking primarily about
“the balanced lifestyle.” She
notes, “When I started speaking, I was seen as a 'filler' in
conferences, and was never taken very seriously. Over the last 10
years, however, there has been an enormous shift and I’m now positioned
as a keynote speaker - as a 'serious' part of the general program.”
Bureaus and speakers
also can make recommendations concerning the meeting schedule to maximize
when and where the speaker addresses attendees.
Because of the nature of her topic and her presentation style, Gore
is usually scheduled to “kick start” a conference to pull the people
to a high-energy state which they maintain for the whole meeting, or to
close the meeting on a high. “It doesn’t make sense to have me
speak about motivation and inspiration before a 2-hour technical
debriefing,” she says. “In
those cases, my message can get lost or washed over, and the whole point
of my being there is slighted.”
John Powers, a
motivational and inspirational speaker who talks about achieving personal
goals and living a more passionate life, agrees about the importance of
letting speakers have input on meeting schedules.
“A client once asked me to speak just before
an afternoon golf outing, which is typically an ideal time for me to
deliver my message and for attendees to have some absorption time after I
speak,” Powers says. “Of
course, we fell behind schedule for the day, so I recommended shortening
my speech slightly to let the audience go out as planned.
But then, the company president insisted on getting up to speak
when I was done, which kept the audience in their seats for another 45
minutes.”
In reality, a lot more than 45 minutes was lost
from this one impromptu act. The
audience probably remembers being late for the golf course more so than
anything the professional speaker or the president said.
Additionally, by speaking after the professional speaker,
especially one who successfully built up the crowd’s energy and
enthusiasm, the president really minimized the speaker’s impact and
probably annoyed the audience.
Over recent years, Diane Robinson, an incentive
meeting planner for Lincoln Financial Advisors in Connecticut, has used
professional speakers to tweak the structure and format of her meetings
with an eye on achieving balance.
“I try to schedule speakers during the most
logical times of the meetings – typically mornings and early evenings
– to give attendees a break from the more serious parts of any
meeting,” she says. “Use
of speakers also makes a good segue to end or start a session after any
‘free time’ afternoon – helping attendees get back on track after
being outside or with family and spouses.”
Robinson works with bureaus to target speakers
who achieve balance as well as meet other goals of the event, including
attendance. “When you hire
a good keynote speaker, you more often than not get a higher attendance
for the entire meeting – beyond just for the required meetings,”
Robinson said. “I like to
utilized a draw speaker to address our general session, mingle with
executives and attendees, and host a Q&A session.
This keeps management engaged and maximizes the investment in a
professional speaker.”
In 2001, Robinson is utilizing speakers such as
Tommy Lasorda and Doris Kearns Goodwin, expecting them to be a draw.
They have good message, which is critical for balance and affects
attendance, and they appeal to the different audiences in the group.
Additionally, Robinson is scheduling her meetings at more
“family-friendly” locations and setting up recreational and leisure
events for spouses, children, and others who join attendees at weekend
retreats or week-long meetings. This all contributes to building a sense of respect for
achieving balance between work and home life.
Speakers can deliver tailored speeches to spouses, family
members, etc. Or, they can
act as an MC to tie the event together and make it more entertaining for
everyone in attendance. Gore thinks this is a great tactic, since MCs
really can get the flow going, keep the tone upbeat, get people physically
moving around, and inject humor in appropriate places.
In other words, they can “transform” a meeting from the regular
routine into something memorable.
Speakers bureaus that
are willing to invest time and resources getting to know a corporate
culture can work with planners to help “sell” the concept of balance
to internal executives and decision makers.
Based on the relationship the bureau and planner share, the bureau
should be able to illustrate the benefits of using speakers for different
roles in a specific meeting. This
strengthens the trust and relationship between the company executives, the
company meeting planner and the speakers bureau.
“I believe balance
in any meeting can, and should, be achieved on two levels – by the use
of humorous, professional speakers and by the actual structure of the
meeting,” Gore says. “When
work and free time is balanced – that is, early-morning and late-day
activities, indoor and outdoor programs, adding games, having music, and
utilizing a good MC - the delegates are more likely to be kept alert.
And when the learning and serious discussions are mixed with fun,
the meeting will have achieved a balance designed for success.”
Insurance Meetings Management
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