My daughter called this afternoon after class and on her way to work at the library to tell me about how here teacher decided to dress down the class after they had all done small teaching sessions at a summer camp. She was bummed out by the "pep talk" and frustrated that instead of helping them feel encouraged about their next big step -- student teaching -- he instead chose to tell them how terrible they all were at teaching.
Killing the Moment
This happens after every single event that I have put on. The need for myself and others to give into the deflated feeling that happens after a big push to do something amazing. I have had wildly successful events where after it was over the volunteers started picking out every flaw.
Yes. I believe in constructive break downs of what we did great and what could have been done better. I believe in writing down real notes and thinking it through for next time. No event or public experience is perfect and there is always room for improvement.
You have to celebrate the moment.
Enjoy all of the hard work that you did. Celebrate all of the people who worked on it. Relish in what went right. Really live the whole event through. The planning, the event, and after the event. Just love every moment of it. (We can talk later about being crabby/crappy during an event. That's a no-no.)
Do Your Events Differently
After the event; like a week after or more have a wrap up meeting. Have all of your staff and volunteers write what they would improve and what they loved. The rules should include:
- If they have something they would change they must have a suggestion or know that they don't have the answer.
- There can not be any name calling or dressing down of any one individual.
- Lastly, did you meet your objectives? If you did or you were close celebrate that.
Don't give into the human nature to grind down an event until it has no joy left.
We don't need to be like that. Granted, as event planners we need to set the expectations not just of how we want our events to be, but how we will be while we are planning, performing and after the event.
Do you have stories of having an event crushed afterwards when someone starting poking holes into it all? Me, I have too many to count and am working hard on changing how I start, execute and end events. Let's commiserate in the comments -- AND promise to change this habit.
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