Do You Have What it Takes?
Top 10 critical skills and traits that every good planner must have.
By Kate Burton
Wanted: A self-starter with good communication, budgeting and organizational skills. Creative and enthusiastic problem-solver capable of managing multiple projects and functions simultaneously. The ideal candidate is high-energy, detail-oriented, and an independent worker. Must have excellent writing and verbal skills. Ability to travel a must.
Sound interesting? Ready to apply? Well, don’t e-mail your resume just yet, because that ad is for the job you probably already have.
Whether your official title is meeting planner, event coordinator, executive director, administrative assistant, or a myriad of other title possibilities, there are common characteristics, traits, and skills that stand out in all people who excel at planning meetings.
Do you have what it takes to be a meeting planner extraordinaire? Read on to see what real-life planners think are the top 10 most important skills and traits, and how you can enhance your weaker areas.
1. Sense of Humor and Perspective: Inevitably, something will go wrong. How you deal with it can mean the difference between looking like a pro or an amateur. “Our motto is ‘Don’t panic,’” says Jerry Mapstone, executive director of Life Impact Ministries in Lancaster, Pa. “We had a keynote speaker who didn’t show at an event last week. We found someone to step in. You can’t panic and you can’t overreact-but you do have to do damage control no matter what.”
“A positive attitude is key,” adds Bonnie Wallsh, CMP, CMM, chief strategist of Charlotte, N.C.-based Bonnie Wallsh Associates LLC, a meeting management consulting and training firm. “When something comes up, a good planner will view it as a challenge, not a problem. And you have to be able to laugh at yourself and any absurd situation that arises.”
Barry Jones, manager of conference planning for FamilyLife, based in Little Rock, Ark., puts it yet another way: “It’s best to be cool under pressure. And I learned how to do that as a parent of teenagers-if you can teach your teenagers to drive, you can stay cool as a meeting planner.”
2. Innovation and Creativity: Whether it’s an annual meeting where you want to wow thousands of people or an ongoing meeting of the same dozen people, all planners essentially start with a blank slate. “You have to be able to look at a blank wall and see what it will look like you’re done,” Mapstone advises. And that’s just the beginning: There are locations to choose, speakers to hire, themes to create, communications to attract attention, breaks to ramp energy back up, and so on. So many options can be exhilarating, but also a little frightening. The best planners have a vision of what they want, but remain open to new ideas along the way.
3. Inquisitive and Curious: “Nothing is ever what it seems,” says Joan Eisenstodt, chief strategist of Eisenstodt and Associates, a Washington, D.C.-based company specializing in meeting consulting, training, and facilitation. She notes that top-notch planners always need to “ask questions, delve deeper into answers provided, and always look at issues in a different way.” Don’t accept that the audience is “the same people we always have.” Ask for specifics about the group instead. Don’t let a hotel tell you they can’t set the room that way. First, ask why not. Second, ask what they can do to help achieve your goals.
4. Multitasker: No doubt about it, any good planner is juggling a million things at once, balancing out the larger issues of where and when to hold a meeting against smaller questions like the exact shade of red for a mailer and if the banana smoothie is better than the granola bars for the midmorning break.
“You juggle a lot of things as a planner, so we need to understand which things are made of glass and which things will just bounce when you drop them,” says Jones, paraphrasing inspirational author Dennis Rainey.
5. Integrity: “Ultimately, if you don’t have integrity, you have nothing,” says Charlene Johnson Ugwu, CMP, president of Nashville, Tenn.-based Liaisons Meetings Management Services, whose faith-based clients include the United Methodist Church. “It’s critical to be fair and honest when dealing with other people. Not only because it’s the right thing to do, but because none of us can afford to lose credibility or have our name or the name of the organization smeared.”
Sherry Eschenberg, meeting planner for the Presbyterian Church in America, works from a home office in Chicago. “When it comes to vendor interactions, of course you want to get the best deal,” she says, “but you also have to always be mindful that you’re representing a religious organization and you need to do that in a godly manner.”
6. A Big Picture View: Any planner faces the challenge of dealing with the minutiae of a meeting while striving towards a larger goal. But for planners working for religious organizations, the big picture is absolutely crucial to their objectives.
“We always have to keep in mind what the intent of the event is,” says Mapstone. “It’s easy to get caught up in the details and the budget, but we have to constantly balance the cost of the function against the mission and impact of the programs. It’s not just about getting the event done, but making sure it has the spiritual impact we want.”
7. Relationship Building: “It’s critical to develop good relationships with vendors-and possible vendors,” says Eschenberg. “These are people at hotels, convention centers, etc., who you can work with repeatedly and regularly. If you have good relationships, you can continue to call on them time and again through the years.”
8. Self-Evaluation: “You need to be aware of your own strengths and weaknesses,” says Wallsh. “In the areas where you’re weak, you can delegate to others, take courses to bolster your skills, or surround yourself with those who balance out your weaknesses.” And while Wallsh counts being a Renaissance man or woman among the necessary traits for a good planner, she’s realistic: “You can’t know everything,” she says, “but you need to know what you don’t know-and have the resources and skills to get the answers when necessary.”
9. Cultural Awareness: Wallsh, who is an independent planner who works with religious organizations as well as secular ones, notes that with a religious organization, it’s even more critical to “be aware of the nuances and small differences within the organization.” She advises listening carefully and asking lots of questions, even if you’re a member of the group’s religion or denomination. “We need to be respectful of how members of even the same religion might differ in observance,” she says.
By the same token, planners must be aware of how the group wants to present itself to outsiders. “We have to be sensitive about perceptions,” she says, “and sometimes to the political realities of certain situations. For example, I would not put ‘Council of Jewish Federations’ on a public sign; instead I would have it read ‘CJF.’” Similar constraints might apply when choosing an appropriate location for a religious group: Is this a site that the group wants to be associated with? Planner Eisestodt adds: “When contracting, religious planners also need to be aware of potential conflicts with other groups that will be in the facility at the same time.”
10. Technical Skills: Meeting planning encompasses numerous different arenas. Planners must be familiar with the foundations of and developments within hotel and airline industries, foundations of how a hotel or convention center operates, food and beverage trends, adult learning modalities, emergency planning and crisis management, technology from computers to AV, contracts, and budgeting. It all goes back to Wallsh’s Renaissance man or woman concept: A good planner really does need to know at least a little bit about everything!
