Finding Employees

The way for companies to distinguish themselves from their competitors is through their employees. The skills, knowledge, commitment and abilities of the people who work for the company are the greatest assets they have. For great workplaces, there is no shortage of talent. Smart companies are involved in constant hiring. They have talent scouts within the company who are always looking for possible new hires.

For example, Walt Disney World has a program known as Casting Scouts. Throughout the year, cast members (employees) are given small cards with the casting scout logo and information on the card. There are lines on the card where the cast member fills in her name and work location. If she experiences great guest service at a restaurant, hotel, convention center, the airport, etc., she can give one of these cards to that person and tells him that he should consider working at Walt Disney World. The card has the number of the Casting Department (Human Resources) that the person can call. This card tells Casting that this person has exemplified the type of guest service that Disney is looking for. They pass step one of the hiring process.

In The Gifted Boss by Dale Danten, he states that the exceptional employees are rarely the ones who are looking for jobs, which I would agree with. He relates a story of how Lou Holtz would keep a hiring wish list with prospects to fill each coaching position. Holtz said, "You can't wait till there's an opening and say, 'Who can we hire?' That's how you end up with a group of second-stringers." He'd get to know the prospects well enough to know if he wanted to work with them in the future and how to win them over (what their goals were). Being on his wish list was halfway to being hired. Most importantly, when he did have the opportunity to hire them, he wouldn't ask them to come help him, but rather, tell them how he could help them get what they wanted out of their careers.

After I read Danten's book in 1999, I vowed that I would be that type leader in my hiring when I got into a position of authority to be able to make hiring decisions. When I worked various events with great people, I would ask them about their goals while we were making small talk and get to know them better. While at NYRR, I had a list of five people I'd worked with before that were on my hiring wish list to bring to NYRR. I got two of the five in the two years I was there. I don't know if that's a good percentage or a bad percentage. The work that those two exceptional people did was extraordinary. The great thing about hiring exceptional people is that their standards and work ethic are already higher than most other people's. They've both made huge contributions to an organization accustomed to mediocrity. Because I had gained the confidence of my boss by bringing in great talent, the other three people had open-ended job offers. My boss and I had an agreement that if any of those three people changed their minds and called for a job, we would find a place for them in the organization whether we had positions open or not.

Event Planning Tools - Timelines

Timelines

This is probably one of the most important documents you'll learn to use. The best program to use for timelines is Excel (in my opinion). Other people use Microsoft Project for their overall project plan, but I'm not a huge fan of Project. Excel is a very important program to learn to use. It is capable of doing many, many things. Also, most people have Excel on their computers. The same is not true for Project. When creating a timeline, I start out by looking at the various functional areas and what the respective deliverables are. Work with your contacts in those functional areas to establish realistic deliverable dates.

For the format, moving left to right on the page, I usually have the following columns:

Days Out - meaning how many days before the event is the task due
Date Due - the date that this equals
Task - what needs to be done, in detail
Responsibility - either the person's name or the department's name
Notes - any special information
Sometimes I will add a Date Completed column. I will do this in a situation where it's a new event that will be a repeat event, and I don't know how long it will take to complete a lot of the tasks.

I also put an auto filter on the entire document to allow sorting to be much easier, especially for very detailed and long timelines.

If you're working on repeat events, you can set up a template timeline. Put in the number of days out that the an action needs to take place (e.g., signage ordered 30 days before the event). With Excel you can create a formula that allows you to simply enter the date of the event in a cell (I put this cell at the top of my timeline), and the due dates will fill in the second column based on the number of days out previously entered in the first column.

Timelines keep everyone on task and keep the project moving forward on a common schedule.

Event Planning Tools - Fast Facts and Checklists

There are some major tools that event managers use everyday. Three of the main ones are: fast fact sheets, checklists, and timelines. They're all very important for keeping the planning and management of events on track. Different people use different formats, and some may even have different names for some of these documents. This blog will cover fast facts and checklists. A later blog will cover timelines.


Event Fast Facts

This is usually 1-2 pages. It is a very high level summary of all the general information. This should be short, to the point, and unambiguous about the information it covers. This document is very helpful for people in the organization who answer the phones and/or email. They often get a lot of general, high level questions, and rather than calling you for the answer to every one of them, they should have the information at their fingertips.

Here are some of the standard types of information I include in my fast fact sheets:
- start and end times and loctions (both for internal setup and for participants)
- maps and diagrams
- transportation options and directions
- broadcast information
- registration times and locations
- website addresses
- travel booking contact numbers
- awards
- volunteer information
- contact numbers and email for event staff, both on race day and before


Checklists

Checklists can be used in pre-planning and for the day-of the event, but I primarily use them for the day-of. My timeline often acts as my pre-event checklist. For each area on event day (e.g., for a road race - start, course, finish, post-race, etc.), prepare a checklist of what needs to happen in each area by what time. Also, prepare an equipment checklist for the logistics team for packing and setup. For example, drop-off of specific equipment, volunteer arrival, participant arrival, etc. This helps the person managing that area help you by making sure nothing is missed.

These two tools will prove invaluable in your preparation for your events.

Know Your Environment

A lot of companies will schedule happy hours throughout the year. Although I definitely recommend going to these to get to know the people you work with, it's also important to be aware of your environment. Understand the difference between drinking with your friends and drinking with colleagues, even if the people you work with are both. I've seen people do some pretty stupid things, like slamming boilermakers in front of company executives while they looked on with mouths gaping. Although this person and some others thought it was funny, his professional image never recovered. The work he did was fabulous, but he was never assigned any projects that were high profile or that involved sponsors. Upper management were afraid of what he might do or say when in meetings, via email, etc. Right or wrong, perception is often reality, and it carries over to other areas. Don't let stupid decisions you make in your early career impact where your career may go in the future.

Reality Check

A couple of weeks ago, my newest employee, who has only been working at the company for less than five months, asked me for a promotion. I was floored. She's newly out of undergraduate school (less than a year) and this is her first "real" job. I explained to her why that wasn't going to happen right now, and probably not for at least another year. I chalked up the request to inexperience. Come to find out, she also later told my department Vice President that she should get a promotion. He was floored, too. Another Assistant Manager, who has been in the position for less than a year and has no prior experience, also felt he deserved a promotion. Without going into the details of why each of them didn't deserve a promotion, I just want to make sure people know what to realistically expect when entering the job market.

Here are some realities of working in the sports industry:

1) You will work evenings and weekends. I don't know of any area in sports where people don't work any evenings or weekends. Some areas of sports work more evenings and weekends than others, but all areas work at least some.

2) Salaries may not be what you expect when you start. I was completely clueless of how little I would actually be making. Before graduate school, I worked for Ashland Chemical in sales. After my graduate internship at Disney Sports, I was hired in as an Event Manager, a level higher than Coordinator where other people had to begin. As a manager with a master's degree I was making $15,000 less than I did when I left Ashland Chemical, and that's just salary. At Ashland, I also had a company car, the company paid for my gas and auto insurance, and I had the opportunity to earn a bonus. I don't regret the decision to work in sports, even with the lower salary, but I would have planned differently had I known what to expect. It's the simple law of supply and demand. There are a lot of people who want to work in sports. If you won't take that starting salary, there's someone else who probably will. We often get paid to do what a lot of sports fans would do for free.

3) You're not going to be vice president or general manager within a few years of starting a job unless you start your own company. Don't get too caught up with titles. Understand that it's a marathon, not a sprint. Choose opportunities that will help you learn skills that will get you to your ultimate career goal. Yes, there will be people who are promoted quickly, and you may be one of them, but they're usually the exception. Andy Dolich, Memphis Grizzlies President of Business Operations, has a frame in his office of all of the business cards he's had over his career. I don't know the exact number, but it's definitely more than a few. Be realistic about how long it may take you to get to the position you want.

Don't be discouraged by these things. Know that any great organization rewards performance both monetarily and with more responsibility, just have realistic expectations when you start.

Managing Up

In talking with my newest direct report, I mentioned that one essential skill for her to learn is how to manage up. She said that she had heard the phrase "managing up," but didn't know exactly what it meant. Here's what I explained to her.

My first week of working for my mentor, she sat me down to go over her expectations of me with respect to my work and also as someone who would be reporting to her. Her first "rule" is one that I've adopted and taken with me everywhere I've worked: Don't ever let your boss get blindsided. Ten years later, I still follow this rule. I practice it with the people I work for and I ask my direct reports to do the same for me. This is the first piece of managing up.

Too often, people go about their work and don't update their boss. Any project you're working on, make sure your boss knows what is happening. There are many ways to accomplish this: hallway conversation; phone call; regular meetings with your boss; departmental meetings; written departmental reports; email summary. Update her on what you're doing, what your concerns or challenges are, what other people's concerns are, etc. If there are any potential problems or issues, she will know something about them if she's asked, or at the very least will have heard something about them. By knowing about them, she can also help push things through.

Second, don't let the first time your boss (or upper management) hears something be in a planning meeting. When you're working on a project that is going to encompass many different areas, you'll likely have meetings with all of the stakeholders. With so many people involved, you'll run into some conflicting ideas. Work the building before a meeting, especially with the respective executives. They, or at the very least your boss, should know about any new idea before the meeting. That way, they can punch any holes in ideas and give you time to adjust. They can also help sell the idea once you're in the meeting. People are naturally resistant to change. You may get push back on a great idea just because they don't want to change. Talk about the idea with the other stakeholders beforehand and give them time to think about it. A meeting should not be the first place they're hearing about something new.

Third, learn what the hot buttons are for your leader and make sure you've covered them in your planning. Every leader has one or two things that they will focus on for an event. Here are some real-life examples that I've experienced. When I would give an overview of an event, after I had gone over all the details, one general manager would always ask what the rain plan was. Another general manager would always ask about the nearest restroom access and want to know if I had custodial staff scheduled to be on site at each location. A VP wanted to know what the "a-ha" moment was that we were going to provide for the client (whether in the contract or not - see blog on adaptability). One manager wanted to see in the plans the name and contact number of who to call for each area if something didn't happen when it was scheduled to happen. After a couple of times of presenting to each of these specific people, I learned what I needed to address when presenting.

Managing up is keeping your leader and partners aware of what's happening and ensuring that they have the information they need.

Meeting Agendas and Meeting Notes

Meeting agendas and notes are things that are pretty basic, but I don't ever remember anybody teaching it in any undergraduate or graduate level class that I had. Maybe because it is basic we're expected to just know it or it's supposed to be common sense, but even the most basic of things have to be taught to us at some point. It may be so simple that we understand the concept after hearing about it once, but we still have to hear about it at least once, don't we? This is simple, but hopefully helpful.

You will invariably be invited to internal meetings where the meeting leaders have not sent out an agenda ahead of time. Even when you get in the meeting you may not see an agenda. It's sometimes hard to tell what the purpose of the meeting is, and after the meeting you don't see any follow-up summarizing the points that were discussed. Be a person who manages meetings in a more organized way.

Meeting agendas set expectations for what will be covered. Just because people are invited to a meeting doesn't necessarily mean they all have to attend. By sending out an agenda ahead of time, attendees can determine if they really need to be in that particular meeting and then let you know. People are busy, including you. Don't waste their time. Send out the agenda a day before the meeting, at the latest, and include an overall meeting purpose. e.g., Purpose - To discuss the signage installation for the marathon. The subjects could then be broken down by various areas of signage--expo and registration, merchandise sales, press conferences, start, course medical stations, course sponsor zones, general course signage, finish, awards area, family reunion, etc. One company where I worked had a policy that if invitees didn't receive an agenda at least 24 hours in advance, they didn't have to attend. The philosophy was, 'If you can't tell me in advance why I need to be there, then I obviously don't need to be in the meeting.'

Put times by the subjects on the agenda and try to stick to them as much as possible. A lot of planning meetings can become very long. Time ranges on the agenda indicate the approximate times you think you will get to those subjects. This will allow people to only come to the portion of the meeting where they're on the agenda. Most people will come to the entire meeting to get the complete overview of the subject, but sometimes they're schedule won't allow that. They attend the meeting for the approximate time range that covers their subject, then leave. They may also send one representative from the department to be present at the entire meeting, take notes, and then report back to the department.

Take notes in meetings. If you're leading the meeting, it can sometimes be difficult to do both, but it's necessary. If possible, ask a colleague or subordinate to take notes during the meeting for you or in addition to your notes. This option will let you lead the meeting with a smoother flow, yet still capture all the information. As an intern, being assigned as a note taker was a great learning tool. It made me pay attention in meetings and boosted my note taking skills.

Always send out meeting notes within 24 hours after a meeting. This is something that is very simple to do and it gives you credibility as someone who follows-up. Find a format that works for you. When I send out meeting notes, I leave the header that I had at the top of the agenda to note when and where the meeting took place. I list the names of the attendees. From there, I use the agenda topics and put the respective notes for those areas under the corresponding category headings. If something was discussed that wasn't on the agenda, I put that category at the bottom. At the end of the notes I have a section called "Follow-Up Items." Anything discussed in the meeting that creates a follow-up action for someone is listed here, along with the person responsible and the due date. (When you're taking notes put a star by these items, underline them, highlight them, whatever works for you. At the end of the meeting verbally summarize these points to make sure you have all of them and then put them in the meeting notes. If someone says they will follow-up on something, always ask the next question: by when?) The last section of my notes lists the dates, times, and locations of any upcoming meetings.

When you send out the meeting notes, ask people to review them and get back to you by a specific date/time if there are any corrections or additions.

Again, something basic, but hopefully it will be of use.