How to Immediately Affect Your Event Culture

I recently walked into my neighborhood Starbucks and met the new manager. I quickly sensed the culture of the team felt more focused, present, and friendly. The previous manager oversaw three stores and so couldn’t give her focus to this one store and the staff culture devolved a little bit.?

I asked her why I experience such a diversity of experience in the Starbucks I’ve visited across the country. I estimate I’ve frequented at least fifty stores and maybe even a hundred. Some feel like the bar on Cheers “where everyone knows your name” or like a big happy Italian family chatting everyone up and making them smile. Others feel very ordinary and forgettable.

She told me something profound: “Leaders set the culture. People follow leaders, not policies.”

If you want to change the culture of your event, start with your leaders.

Jeryn worked as an ER nurse before managing a Starbucks. She lamented that many health care facilities lose their customer-centric focus. Medicine is all about helping people heal, but when the staff starts to see patients as an annoyance to doing their job the culture devolves into an antagonistic relationship. It seems to me that patients who don’t trust their medical providers to be for them will start to complain, demand, and become irritable. If instead, they were treated with dignity, respect, and compassion the same patient will become trusting and actively participate in their recovery.

Don’t you think the latter scenario will be more likely to promote health and recovery?

Translate this to your event. Do your public-facing staff see your attendees and speakers as people deserving of their best service? Or do they get irritated because attendees prevent them from doing their job? What’s most important to your leaders based on the actions of your staff?

You could ask the same question internally. We recruit 80-100 volunteers to produce our event each year. These people are often highly skilled and many run their own businesses. They are accustomed to efficiency and personalization. If we treat them as pawns who just need to do their jobs, they will respond by giving minimal effort or maybe even vacating their shifts. If instead, we show appreciation and esteem, we will get “above and beyond” service and our event will become better.

Serena has volunteered for at least four years at our events. She lives in Australia and can’t travel in 2022 due to COVID protocols. She lamented for months that she wouldn’t be able to come. We knew she has incredible customer service skills and so we invited her into our online community management team. While there she realized we have an opportunity to make our live streaming product amazing. She wants to get as much value out of the event as possible for herself. As a result, she offered to lead our live stream moderation team. She doesn’t expect anything in return. She wants to make sure it’s amazing for her and will work to ensure the same for all other attendees.

That loyalty didn’t happen overnight. I would never ask or expect a first-year volunteer to do something so lavish. But after years of partnership and mutual encouragement, she can’t imagine not being part of our event.

But it doesn’t always work like that.

Unintended Consequences

People watch what you do far more than they listen to what you say. For example, if you train your team to “Greet everyone with a friendly smile” but never smile yourself and always avoid difficult customers, you send a message to your team that you don’t really mean it.

One year I developed a simple scheme for teaching our staff to greet and serve attendees. It utilized the hand as a mnemonic device. The message is simple: Welcome people warmly. Take them where they want to go. Always invite people into deeper conversation. Find out what’s most important to them and then seek to link them with other attendees.

It was quite easy to understand, but it turns out I’m better at developing mnemonic devices than I am at smiling. During the conference, our accountant came up to me, help up his hand in a smile formation, and said, “Smile, Phil!”?

I was caught. I can make excuses for why it’s hard for me to smile, but it doesn’t matter. I can smile with my eyes even if my mouth doesn’t form a perfect smile. But I had become distracted by my work and didn’t model the joy I asked of others.

To Nap or Not to Nap?

What message does it send if your leader disappears for extended periods of time??

True story. In the early years of our event, I held the firm belief and practice of daily naps (I still believe in them, but I practice them differently.) There’s a ton of research on the benefits of naps. And frankly, when I’m running our event I typically only sleep 3-4 hours at night. A nap becomes necessary. But after one conference, I realized I couldn’t keep taking naps during our conference, even if they were only for 20 minutes.?

Here’s what unintentionally happened.?

I encouraged everyone to take care of themselves and if that required a nap, to do it. On the busiest day of our event, I made sure to grab 20 minutes of downtime and it included a nap in our first few years. In fact, my naps became such a part of the event that the team pulled together a sleeping bag and pillow to put in storage labeled, “Phil’s sleeping bag.” That felt embarrassing to see. I was the only person taking a nap during the day.?

But we had a contractor who took it too far. They disappeared during the middle of the day for a couple of hours. When confronted about it, they admitted going back to their hotel room to take a nap. Being gone for 2 hours was unacceptable, but I couldn’t fully blame them. They didn’t know that I limited my nap to 20 minutes and that I never left the property. Instead, they thought, “Well, if Phil can take a nap, so can I. Besides he told me to take care of myself.”

I bred a culture where people saw me as tired and unavailable. It also gave permission to staff to do as they desired. My core team knew that I worked very hard, but others saw me as distant and weak.

What’s funny is I preach the right things to our team about the things we value. We want people who go the extra mile. We desire service, excellence, and awareness.?

I worked very hard, but I didn’t see how this one small action affected the culture.

Today we have gotten rid of the bedding. It’s okay for me to slip away for a few minutes to take a break, but I don’t make a production out of it and I seek to model the behaviors I want from my staff and volunteers.?

We all know it doesn’t work to say, “Do what I say and not what I do.” If our kids know better so will our staff. And the effect will be a growing sense of distrust in the culture, people who are in it for themselves, and palpable frustration.

Diagnosing Your Cultural Impact

There are two ways to assess your impact on culture.

First, look at the culture you desire to create. You’ve probably written down values and statements that express how you want your culture to function. Look at that and get honest feedback on how well you and your leadership exhibit those values. Are there any obvious incongruencies? Which are the most detrimental if you don’t fix them? Focus on those first.

Second, get people who know you well to answer this question: “Based on my behavior, what would you say are the most important things to me?” Ask a variety of people to answer this. Don’t be afraid to ask your spouse and some close friends in addition to work colleagues, bosses, and customers.

As you look at these two lists, celebrate places where your values match up with the culture you seek. But also look at places where you can improve.

Less is More

At Social Media Marketing World we seek to create an open culture where there are few barriers between speakers, staff, and attendees. We eliminate many of the usual barriers like having a green room where speakers disappear for large chunks of time. In recent years we even removed markers like knowing who the alumni are. One year we had many different colors of shirts for our staff teams, but we realized this only created confusion and complexity. So now there are two colors: black and white. Black for full-time staff and white for everyone else. In some cases, the staff will wear white if they are in an attendee-facing role.

These intentional decisions help create the culture we desire without becoming overwhelming or confusing. “Less is more” is a principle I’ve learned as a jazz saxophonist, but it applies to events too. If you limit the number of options, you’ll make it easier for people to make decisions.

The first time I attended NAMM’s (National Association of Music Merchandisers) large annual conference and trade show, I became so overwhelmed that I left the event. The program was an 80-page magazine. The venue is spread across multiple hotels in addition to the Anaheim Convention Center. Finding a friend became nearly impossible.

For longtime attendees (which comprise a significant part of the NAMM audience) the event was very understandable. For a newbie, I found myself overwhelmed. Thankfully, I went back, met some new friends, and the event became unforgettable. That’s the year I met Scott Page (saxophonist for Pink Floyd) and so many others.

So as you think about your event, create a culture where it serves your purposes and makes it easy for your guests to enjoy.

What do you think?

What are some intentional ways you build event culture?