How To Spark Creativity From That Conference You Have To Attend

Whether you are attending your first NAB as CEO or preparing to return to E3 in June for the tenth time, make the most of it. Many leaders fail to maximize the benefits of attending a trade show or event. Instead, they show up, walk the trade show floor, listen to a few presentations, hold a few meetings, and leave. Many of the inspiring talks, products, big ideas and thought-provoking discussions are left in the conference arena or shared with just a lucky few.

While you may have influenced which invitations you accepted and stage-managed your press event, consider how you can spark creative ideas that will benefit your customers and inspire your employees. How many of these can you try?

1. Don't hang around with the same people

While it may be tempting to use all of your time catching up with old industry friends and visiting your current vendors, remember to carve out some time to connect with newcomers to the industry, that CEO you admire, or someone you have asked for an introduction to.

2. Capture the excitement on film

Instead of sending an e-mail update to your team with your post-event insights, take lots of pictures or even record a short video live at the event on your phone. Share the photos and video with your team when you return.

3. Invite a rising star to shadow you

Most invitations to trade shows and conferences are as precious as Gollum's ring. Mix up the guest list by inviting one of your most successful team members to join you. Let him or her shadow you for all meetings and events and ask your team member to share his or her thoughts after the event with the rest of your company.

4. Pose provocative questions

What did you learn at the event, how will it change your business, products, or customer outlook? What provocative questions can you ask your team when you return?

5. Attend the awards evening

Even if your company didn't win, attend the awards ceremony to learn who is breaking new ground and who is leading the way in your field.

6. Don't dismiss the ridiculous too soon

While Silicon Valley may be trying to wow you with the next drone delivering kale smoothie company. Before dismissing crazy ideas as stupid, talk about how the sublime and ridiculous ideas could apply to your company and products.

7. Pay attention to your customer's reactions

While no business should blindly follow the competition, you should follow how customers are reacting to competitive offerings--especially at tradeshows and product launch events. Read customer forums and industry-influencer blogs; listen to what is resonating.

8. Make bold predictions

Use what you learn at the event to share with your team the key ideas, your own point of view, and where you stand on hot topics or what you think will be a hit or a flop.

9. Showcase failures

Don't forget to talk openly about the outtakes, whether it's a product demo gone bad, a speaker who lost his words, or a PR blunder. This isn't about ridiculing those involved but making it acceptable to make mistakes and learn from them. Ask your team these questions: "If that happened to you, what would you have done in the moment? How could you have prevented it from ever happening?"

10. Get your creative, technical, and business teams talking

Too often the recaps and debriefs take place on the plane ride home or in small teams after the event. If marketing only talks to marketing and developers only talk to developers, it will limit the ideas that come from your post-event discussions. Mix it up to encourage everyone to see the world through different viewpoints.

Hold breakfast discussion groups with a small group of employees and ask:

--What does this mean for our customers?

--What can we learn from what we have seen?

--What might we want to accelerate or slow down as a result?

11. Fill your feeds with innovation ideas, not parties and food pictures

Who cares what happened at the opening party or how much sleep you got? Share stories about innovation and cool new products or at least learn to set your social media privacy settings appropriately.

As you fly back from your trade show or conference this spring, consider how you can make the event work for you, your team, and your customers. Think about how you can maximize what you've learned and share it in a way that will inspire your team and improve your products and services.

Dedicated to growing your business,

Val

P.S. I hope you enjoyed this week's VAL-uable Insights, sign up here to get them in your inbox each Monday morning: http://valwrightconsulting.com/newsletter-sign-up/

Why Team Building Is A Waste Of Time

Most team building is eye-rollingly painful and a complete waste of time and money. It was my choice this morning to climb trees 200 feet high, attach myself to a zip line over a lake deep in Woburn Forest in England. I was with my husband and eldest daughter. Aged eight she fearlessly ran, jumped, and climbed her way across tightropes and chain ladders and we all had a marvelous time. But it was our choice and we did it for fun. It reminded me of the many times in my corporate life when I was forced to participate in such activities in the name of team building.

In my quarter of a century of corporate and consulting life, I must have experienced more than $5 million worth of team development activities. Some were painful, some hilarious, some pointless, some embarrassing, and some outrageously fun, but they all had one common trait: completely futile in their ability to actually improve how the team accelerated results.

I am not advising against fun—far from it. But fun cannot be the sole focus of your bringing your team together, and it cannot replace the fundamental foundation of a galvanized team. Many leaders hope that a team-building event will improve morale. But who wants to spend time bowling with their coworkers or learning about your preferred communication style if your strategy isn’t clear, you are missing opportunities to grow your business, or there is a toxic leader on your team not being dealt with?

Don’t waste your money. Your team will thank you for it.

Remember:

You don’t need an event to improve morale.

You don’t need a workshop to galvanize your team.

Contact me today if you want to discuss the real return on investment and effort you can get by galvanizing your organization.

Dedicated to growing your business,

Val

How To Increase Your Supporters All Around You

You will certainly feel it if you have supporters around you or when they are absent during your times of great celebration or extreme pressure. Take a moment now to consider, who are your top three strongest supporters in senior roles above you and do they have the context, knowledge, and frequent contact with you to be your supporter when those that matter start talking about you?
 
There is no better feeling than when you have a crowd of executive supporters cheering you on from the sideline. It increases your confidence, encourages you to take more risks, and allows you to focus your energy on building great products and services that your customers will love, rather than managing internal relationships and perceptions.
 
Yet, it is easy to forget to nurture and maintain those relationships. It only takes two of your strongest executive champions saying “I quit!” in quick succession and you can find yourself without your steadfast supporters. Before you know it, you are drifting out to sea alone in your boat without the necessary executive lifeguards keeping an eye out for your successful voyage and safe return. It is why you see a tidal wave of leadership changes when a top executive leaves.
 
When two of my Fortune 500 executive clients got promoted, both had their responsibilities either double or triple in size, and both had one of those giant executive leaps that included a prestigious letter change in their titles. We had been focusing on their circle of influence for rapidly gaining supporters and allies, and their work has paid off with improved results for their companies along with personal recognition. How intentional are you in gaining and maintaining executive support?
 
I developed The Influence Bullseye ™ as a fast way that you can develop an influence strategy to increase the probability that you will get promoted, have your projects run smoothly, and have an abundance of support appear all around you.
 
Take these three steps:
 
1. Identify who has the greatest impact on you and your team's success:

• Power Influencers, (PI’s): These are the top two - three senior executives who most impact your success and reputation.
• Amplifiers: These are the people who have the ear of the PI's and can have a positive, neutral, or negative impact on how the PI's perceive you.   
• Partners: These are the people you work with day to day and while important, it is easy to get distracted and absorbed with them.

2. Pick the top Power Influencer you need to most rapidly change the relationship with and determine how you can improve your relationship with them.
 
3. Focus on their amplifiers and identify ways you can use their influence to increase the support you get directly from the Power Influencer. For more tips how to do this you can download the Circle of Influence Bulls-eye here.
 
For additional ideas on how to increase your power of influence, read my Inc Article featuring a video by the master of influence, Robert Cialdini.
 
Dedicated to growing your business,

Val

P.S. I hope you enjoyed this week's VAL-uable Insights, sign up here to get them in your inbox each Monday morning:http://valwrightconsulting.com/newsletter-sign-up/