Event Planning Lessons From My Father
My father Melvin is a brilliant, kind, and gracious man in the middle stages of dementia. As my hero and lifelong mentor, Dad continues to teach me lessons that translate into every facet of my life, including event planning. Below are the first three lessons:
1. Human experience should be a top priority. When someone has dementia, they live in a moment-to-moment reality; similarly, event planning can be defined as specifically curated moments. If you want your event to be successful and you have not spent most of your time outlining the guest experience for all your stakeholders, you have not done your job fully. It is that simple; ask yourself, “how do I want to be treated?” and design an event with that premise in mind.
2. Clear and frequent communication is necessary. Often Dad asks us to repeat things and, honestly, I never grow tired of answering him because I want my Dad to feel confident and assured—which is not unlike what we should be doing for our event attendees. When designing your event communication plan, consider the cadence of your communications and how to reinforce the messages visually, orally, and in short form narratives. Guests rarely complain about over-information but often do not appreciate being insufficiently informed.
3. Active listening is your greatest tool for resolving conflict. Many times when my Dad is frustrated it is because someone has talked over him, at him, or has not taken the time to sincerely listen to him. During an event, we have all experienced moments when we are stressed and want to move on to the next task. As a result, we rush through conversations, send curt emails, or, worse, cut a person off mid-sentence because we need to get to the other things we have decided should be at the top of our priority list. Frankly, I have done all of these things and have to remind myself to stop, take a breather, and give any event grievance my full attention; as we know from my Dad’s first lesson, above, people will always remember how you treat them.
As my Dad continues his health journey, he reminds me daily to live in the moment, work with kindness, consider others when making decisions, and listen to understand. When we approach life and our event work with these simple core principles, I believe the experiences we curate are richer and more meaningful.
