Are You Using Your Headlights Effectively To Guide Your Future Meetings?

When you drive on a road at night, you depend upon your headlights to help you see.

Without those headlights, you would depend upon the light of the moon or street lights to guide you. Frequently, neither of those is available and without headlights you would crash.

With low beams, you can see a little ahead of you and move forward without having an accident. As you increase the speed of your car, you need to see further ahead to anticipate any obstacles, curves and changes. That’s when you start using your high beams.

High beams illuminate the road by a few seconds. But those few seconds make a huge difference.

What if your high beams could allow you to see a mile down the road? You would be prepared to respond to any changes. You would be able to feel safer knowing you were being proactive.

How Do You Use Your Headlights?

Many meeting professionals completely forget to turn on their headlights as they plan their meetings. Often, their conferences run amuck without that illumination. They are doing nothing but responding to the situation.

Some meeting professionals only use low beam lights. They cannot spot upcoming trends or react to them quickly enough. They are only focused on the details for today. They are concerned with getting through the minutiae and fine points of the meeting. All of their time is spent on the logistics and particulars. They rarely adapt to changes quickly and their planning becomes a hamstring that keeps them from being innovative. They may plan for a couple of years but it is nothing but a copycat of last year’s programs.

The meeting professionals that adopt a high-beam strategy are the ones that can see the farthest in the future. They are able to anticipate what’s ahead and push their organizations in the right direction at fast speeds. They are the big-picture strategic thinkers. They are the ones your organization needs! They embrace and welcome change. They can predict changes and plan proactively.

Speaker Scott Klososky has written much about low beam and high beam leadership. He uses the following criteria to differentiate the two.

Low Beam Leaders

• Concentrate on monthly results.
• Are execution and implementation focused.
• Ignore trends and where the industry is headed.
• Replicate last year’s program and avoid change.
• Do not invest in the future at all; it’s only about today.
• Are 12-month focused

High Beam Leaders

• Use high vision intelligence. They are able to interpret business intelligence and trends and how they relate to their meetings.
• Constantly evaluate trend analysis and are willing to adapt quickly to trends and projections.
• Are willing to experiment.
• Apply predictive analysis. They are able to look at the current world’s trends and predict how they will impact their meetings as well as their customers.

The Beam Required Today

In today’s high speed ever-changing environment, low beam leadership is not enough. Actually, low beam meeting professionals can stall the growth of conferences and meetings.

Every organization needs a meeting professional that has adopted a high beam strategy in order to compete today.

Which type of meeting professional do you think most organizations would prefer to have? How can low beam meeting professionals transition into high beam meeting professionals?