When Committee Bureaucracy Stymies Your Conference Potential

It is often said that an association’s board of directors is the brain of that organization.

Its committees serve as the central nervous system influencing all parts of the body. The conference planning committee is similar to our spinal cord, serving as the internal communication highway between the parts of the body and the brain.

When the brain, central nervous system and spinal cord operate well, they accurately sense the environment, process information and provide valuable insight to the brain so that the organization succeeds. However, if our spinal cord—the conference planning committee—is damaged, the entire association suffers. Unfortunately, many conference planning committees own bureaucracy, its own processes and systems, stymies your conference’s potential to transform lives.

Hat tips authors John F. Schlegel and Josh Packard.

When Conference Planning Processes Dominate

In the past few years, the most effective and successful conferences have recognized that their current structure of the conference planning committee hinders their ability to meet their participants’ needs.

Sure, no organization can exist without structure. It’s when that structure gets in the way that it seems counter to the original purpose.

More than a century of sociologists’ studies and research on organizations and organizational theory demonstrate that at some point, the organization’s structures prevent the association from success. Our structures including the traditional conference planning committee have limits.

When a conference is fully planned and executed by a centralized and top-down system—the conference planning committee—eventually the bureaucracy dominates and becomes ineffective. All conference planning efforts become inward focused, stifling change, collaboration, creativity, learning and any opposing ideas.

Eventually, in the name of the conference and the organization, the bureaucracy takes over. All conference planning activity becomes focused on the survival of that very committee.

Here Comes The Equipping Catalyst Conference Committee

Enter the Equipping Catalyst Changing Conference Committee. They plan conferences differently-

Join Sarah Michele on December 8 at 2 pm Central to discover how to minimize bureaucracy as you streamline and accelerate conference decision making that leads to effective participant transformational experiences.

Register now!