Plants poking their way up through the dirt, kids with scrapped knees, old people walking around the lake in sun hats—the world is FULL. These springtime blessings are right there, and yet, if we don’t stop and look, such blessings evaporate…
It’s that “being in the moment” stuff the self help folks talk about, and we all try. We try to balance it all, personally and professionally in the midst of strong messages on the business front.
“Cut back”,” take on more”, “make your meeting more meaningful”…these challenges are realities of the current meeting professional’s life, and some say these business imperatives are here to stay. We are all on that proverbial fast track, but not in the way that phrase is intended—well, some of us are—but many of us are running as fast as we can just to stay in the same place.
This is the talk of the industry meeting luncheon table, the venting cell call, even the rapid back and forth texting, and yet we wake every morning with a renewed energy to make it all work. In our world, there’s no room for mediocre, staying in one place, we are in the meetings industry because we have that energy, that drive to make every item we touch better because we are here, in this moment to step off the treadmill, turn around and actually look at that fast track. We see the workload, the next challenge, the long list of to-do’s, and we simply move, taking the first step.
…sometimes it’s moving into an area of the unknown when the need seems obvious—at least to us. On-site recently in San Francisco at a large association client meeting, I looked across the crowded registration floor, where we were all moving fast to get people in the correct line, and noticed one of our “Ask Me” © ‘s directing people as they streamed off the shuttles into North Lobby of Moscone Convention Center, welcoming them to the meeting, answering their questions -multi tasking BIG TIME. He had trusted his partner “Ask Me’s” © to handle the flow on the registration floor & he had stepped outside, expanding his world because he saw a need. He didn’t ask permission; he was alert to a service opportunity, and he jumped into it. Guess what”? His manager awarded him with a “Great Job”! © recognition sticker right then and there!
Serving the customer is what keeps us all going—no matter what we grumble about or worry about, we are committed to the ultimate goal of making a difference in the customer’s experience and we know we are part of what makes that difference.
Hope to share with many of you this summer in Montreal at PCMA’s Education Conference; it will be a great time to re-energize and start again…
Lee A. Nold-Lewis
President
