Taking my own medicine and not before time!
In the lead up to Christmas I was really excited to be starting a new Delegation4Results Programme with the leadership team of a national contractor though at the same time I was feeling quite stressed. I had had a chesty cough for about six weeks and just couldn’t seem to shift it. The day before, feeling under the weather and stressed I rang Sarah one of my assistants and said Sarah can you do me a big favour, will you make sure the room and equipment are all ready so I can rock up at 08:45 and have a cup of tea with the participants before the start.
Let me digress a little and give some background here. Over the last 16 years my organisation has handled over one thousand leadership team workshops. At the end of each we always get feedback and much of that has to do with the venue: room size and set up, ventilation, lighting, seating, food, facilities and lots more. I learnt long ago that the physical environment in which these sessions take place is crucial to the success of the event.
Learning from all this feedback we now have a five page checklist that we go through with the venue to make sure everything is right. Most venues can’t believe the detail we go into though some actually say ‘thank goodness, at last, someone who really knows what they need’.
Tracey my strategic assistant is talking with the venue in the fortnight leading up to each event to make sure everything is sorted though in spite of her amazing effort quite often it’s not. Frequently things don’t get communicated from “conference booking” people to “conference operations” people and the person I end up glaring at, at 07:00 says “I don’t know anything about that, though I will speak with conference booking when they come in at 09:00”. And I say “that’s no good we start at 08:30”
Usually, the hour leading up to the start of a team session is the most stressful for me – will the venue be sorted or am I going to have to change things round to suit. Once everything is sorted and we start I am in my element; though if things are not right and I am edgy the participants feel that and we all get edgy and that is not good for creative thinking and relationship building, believe me!
So back to the day before the start of this new delegation programme, I’m thinking I don’t feel well and I am stressed, I need a holiday though I am really looking forward to this new work. The last thing I need is to turn up at 07:00 and the room is all wrong and I can feel my stress rising at the thought of it. Feeling fragile, the thought of making a bad start to the day and the programme was beginning to overwhelm my excitement and I caught myself and asked “right Dave what are you going to do here?” After a moment I suddenly thought “it would be great if Sarah just handled the room so I am not exposed to the blank looks, panics for missing items or the lap top not ‘talking’ to the projector”. So I asked her and she said “no problem Dave, that’s what I am here for”.
On the day I turned up at 08:45 made myself a cup of tea and had a great chat with John one of the participants and a few laughs with Simon my customer. Everything good to go we started at 9 on the dot and had a great session.
Christmas behind me and feeling much better it struck me this morning – why didn’t I do that years ago. All of my assistants know exactly what’s needed of the venue and they have Tracey’s five page check list, in fact setting up the room is part of their job, what I pay them for, though all these years I have been turning up at 07:00 and dabbling and doing it myself and getting in their way. Seems like I have taken some of my own delegation medicine and not before time!
From now on I am going to rock up twenty minutes before the start and chat with my customers. One more small step towards my Unique Ability. www.delegate4results.com