MICE (Meeting, Incentive, Convetion, Exhibition)

We all know what it’s like when a meeting doesn’t go smoothly. Discussions get derailed, tempers start to fray, and things are seldom resolved to everyone’s satisfaction. In such situation, the problem is often the result of poor communicationand poor communication is frequently caused by poor listening.

Fortunately, there are some simple techniques which can be used to mitigate this problem. The most basic of these is called “active listening.” Now, I know what you’re thinking; this sounds like some goofy technique that simply states the obvious and wastes one’s time. The problem, however, is that most people consider themselves to be good listeners, but very few actually are.

An active listener does three important things:

First, he looks and sounds interested in the speaker. This requires looking directly at the speaker, maintaining eye contact if possible. By doing so, we let the speakers know that we are genuinely interested in what they have to say. (Admittedly, in many Western cultures, too much eye contact can make the speaker feel self-conscious. The key is to strike a balance, giving the speaker enough attention to convey understanding and interest.) It also helps to use vocalizations such as “uh-huh” and “yes” to encourage the speakers to continue.

Second, an active listener strives to adopt the speaker’s viewpoint. Try to see things from her point of viewespecially if you find yourself disagreeing! Avoid interrupting or finishing that person’s sentences. Even if you disagree, try to suppress your initial reactions and respond from the speaker’s frame of reference, not your own. Expressing dissent too quickly can be disastrous, if one has not properly understood a colleague’s point of view. Of course, it may be necessary to express disagreementperhaps even strong contentionbut one shouldn’t do that without thoroughly understanding the speaker’s point of view.

Third, attempt to clarify the speaker’s thoughts and feelings. This will help as one seeks to understand the other person. One way to do this is to ask open-ended questions, such as “How do you feel about this plan?” or “What is your specific recommendation?” rather than close-ended ones (e.g. “Is the plan on schedule?’).

Another helpful approach is to use reflective listening techniques. Reflective listening is a powerful tool for ensuring that we have understood the speaker’s ideasand it’s a great way to make that person feel that he has been listened to and appreciated. We’ll say more about reflective listening techniques in Part II of this article.

Active listening does not come naturally to most people. It is a skill that must be developed, but can be cultivated with only a modest amount of effort. Moreover, it is essential if we want to have smooth and effective meetings to go smoothly, in which we have properly understood the issues and everyone’s point of view.

About the author:

V. Berba Velasco Jr. is proud to work as a senior electrical and software engineer at Cellular Technology Ltd, a Cleveland-based ELISPOT biotech company with offices in Europe, China and Japan.

Here are 6 things you can accomplish TODAY by switching to a fully-automated registration system:

1. Stop shuffling data.

If you use Excel spreadsheets and/or Access databases to organize your data, then you have the ongoing task of transferring and compiling data to get the totals you need for your event. Eliminate these ongoing hassles by using a computerized system that automatically compiles and tallies all of your data for you… in real-time.

2. Eliminate manual follow-ups.

When someone registers using paper or a web form, your manual work has just begun… printing, copying, folding, mailing, emailing, rinse & repeat. Eliminate these time-consuming activities by using online registration. The fully-automated system will email everyone right when they register with their receipt, invoice and event materials.

3. Process payments and credit cards automatically.

Accepting credit card payments but manually processing them exposes you to entry errors – or worse, a declined card. Or you can just accept checks – taking longer to collect money. Eliminate these extra steps by having your system accept and process credit card and check payments for you … the moment someone registers.

4. Provide a self-service option.

Registrants will inevitably need to make changes. Avoid an influx of calls and email requests that interrupt your work day. Give your registrants the power of self-service with an automated system, which allows them to make their own changes in real-time.

5. End wait-list management.

Limited space or popular events that sell-out quickly can become a burden to coordinate when you start receiving cancellations and wait-list requests. Take this task off your “to-do list” – accept waitlist requests online, and automatically notify your waitlisted registrants when space becomes available.

6. Make data entry obsolete.

If you are using paper registrations or web forms that get emailed to you, then you have data entry or transfer hassles… a time consuming process that leaves you struggling with illegible handwriting and correcting wrong information. Eliminate these hassles by using an automated system, which collects and organizes registrant data online.

A fully-automated, online registration system eliminates 55% of meeting planners’ registration hassles and workload.

I sincerely hope this article makes your conference and event registration even more successful!

Bill Flagg is the President of RegOnline
Putting smiles on the faces of over 9,200 event-planning professionals worldwide because it is the easiest-to-use online event and conference registration system available.

P.S. – If you would like to receive more tips like this via email then go to http://www.RegOnline.com/eTips

Have you ever heard someone offer a positive idea in a meeting and nearly everyone around the table shoots it down immediately? There seems to be more reasons why it can’t or shouldn’t happen than in ways to make it happen. Many times these meetings become downer meetings, spiraling downward toward failure, and everyone leaves in frustration.

Does it seem that your meetings never accomplish anything?

Stop fighting the negative and use the negatives to drive toward the positive.

Dr. Bluma Zeigarnic, a Russian psychopathologist, said that we come into a greatest height of consciousness and alertness through negative events. Negative events actually turn us on more, get our adrenal glands going, our bodies get ready for the fight or flight mode. Our minds are turned on more during battle. We’ve become very alert and excited. It’s actually called the Zeigarnic effect.

So, let’s use this excitement to build toward the positive.

When you see people reacting negatively during your next meeting, don’t fear it, use it to your best advantage.

Get out your flip chart or white board. At the top write the original idea down and tell everyone we want to look at all aspects of this.

Then ask what are the reasons we should do this, looking for a measurable benefit (this is the reason we SHOULD move forward).

Then ask everyone to list the consequences of not moving forward (this is what will happen if you stand still.) The typical first response for a consequence is someone pointing out that you won’t have the benefits. Don’t fight it, list the loss of benefits as a consequence, but point out that we want to determine if there is really a cost to standing still besides loss of benefits. Frequently there is an additional cost). The benefits and consequences, especially when you’ve put a measurable dollar figure on them, will help keep you on task toward resolving the problem.

Then ask everyone in the room to list all of the obstacles to making this idea happen. This is where we’ll put the Zeigarnic effect to our use. Start your list down the left side of the board. Get everyone involved. They can get quite excited. Make sure that everyone is heard as to what they think the biggest obstacles will be.

Then announce that we want to see what we’ve got to do to resolve the obstacles. Let’s change the ideas from everyone’s perception that there are walls that we can’t get beyond into the perception that we’ve got a tree down across our path (our obstacle) and we want to see what happens when we move the tree.

After everyone has been heard, and all possible obstacles have been listed start a list of 4-5 solutions for each of the obstacles. These are ways to remove the obstacle. Don’t quit with the first one, that’s too easy. Force more ways to do it, that will open up their minds. The deeper you look the more likely you will find the underlying issues.

What I’ve seen in large groups is that once we’ve removed the obstacle the room comes alive with new ideas. Up until this point, as soon as someone looked at an idea they had said, “tried that, didn’t work last time, not going to go there again.” Most of the time we think it is more expedient to avoid repeating bad mistakes, so we don’t even consider those options. Our minds shut down rather than looking for creative ways to move forward. I want to change that to one of realizing that we had an obstacle that can be removed, and once past that obstacle there is an infinite number of new ways, and new thoughts that will open up.

Change all “cant’s into how’s.” How will we move forward rather than can’t move forward.

I’ve seen the room become wildly excited once past the obstacles. New thoughts start coming from the room. You can almost see the light bulbs turning on above the heads in the room.

So, build a list of the solutions to remove the obstacle, then a list of all of the things that you can do once the obstacle has been removed.

Do that for each of the obstacles.

Now, make your final decision whether to move forward or not.
Weigh the

• Benefits of moving forward

• Consequences of not moving forward
• Obstacles and the ease of removing the obstacles as the tools for the final decision.

If you decide to move forward, immediately move to creating a list of actions for each of the solutions, assigning a responsible person to make it happen, whether it will be delegated and to who, and a delivery date.

• You’ve just turned a negative room into actions to move forward.

• You’ve turned a “can’t” into “how.” As a matter of fact, I’m always telling my clients that whenever you hear “can’t” stop what you are doing, and ask “how could I do it.” That opens up new thinking that was never there before.
• Everyone in the room has felt like they’ve been listened to, and have actively moved forward rather than stagnated.
• Frustrating meetings have turned into positive action plans.

Alan Boyer, President/CEO of The Leader’s Perspective, LLC is considered one of the world’s leading breakthrough specialists. He has worked with some of the worlds largest companies, on projects in the multi-billion dollar area, and with single proprietor companies. He has worked on many hundreds of projects with companies that have resulted in multi-$100 million savings or gains.
With over 35 years of business, quality, and process experience, he has catapulted businesses lightyears ahead in weeks. Some have doubled and some have jumped 10 times. He claims the key to that is:

• Helping the business owners/employees develop the business skills

• Helping them overcome the limitations and attitudes that they built between their ears (the self imposed limitations, I can’t, this won’t work for me, I’m different)
• By helping them find the breakthroughs in their business and thinking

The Leader’s Perspective

Helping companies worldwide reach further than they EVER thought possible…FASTER

http://www.leaders-perspective.com

AlanBoyer@leaders-perspective.com

After procuring and training employees, maintaining and utilizing them effectively in the organization is the concern of management and personnel administration. In doing this, both the employee and management should be satisfied. The management cannot satisfy and utilize the skill of an employee effectively by keeping him in the same job that he was originally hired for. The employee has an urge to improve and move up in the organization. The services and loyalty of an employee are to be rewarded reasonably. The higher positions in the organization have to be filled from within by moving employees from one job to another. Promotions and transfers meet this.

Promotion can be defined as the upward reassignment of an individual in an organizations hierarchy, accompanied by increased responsibilities, enhanced status and usually increased income. Also, some experts define promotion as the advancement of an employee to a better job in terms of greater responsibilities, more prestige or status, greater skill and an increased rate of pay or salary. In corporate terms, better hours or better location or working conditions may also characterize the “better job” that an employee seeks, but if the job does not involve greater skill or responsibilities and higher pay, it should not be considered a promotion.

The term upgrading refers to a practice closely related to promotion. In fact, it amounts to a small- scale advance in status. Upgrading is the movement of an employee to a more responsible job within the same occupational unit and with a corresponding increase in pay. For example, in the claims department of an insurance company a junior approver moves up to the position of approver. Both upgrading and promotion are ways of recognizing and developing the abilities of employees within the organization, instead of filling positions from outside. However, for certain highly skilled or professional jobs, it is often necessary to recruit from outside.

Incentive Programs provides detailed information on Incentive Programs, Employee Incentive Programs, Corporate Incentive Programs, Safety Incentive Programs and more. Incentive Programs is affiliated with Pay Per Click Affiliate Programs.