I am a contingency planner – with just about everything in my life. I love thinking through what could go wrong and then devising a plan on how I will handle that if or when it does. For some people, it stresses them out to do this, for me, I find immense comfort and pleasure in knowing I am prepared for just about everything. I pride myself on my ability to anticipate problems, hiccups, and potential roadblocks. This behavior often drives other team members a little crazy because I am often trying to think about what could go wrong so I can have a plan in place, just in case. This can be perceived as a bit of a buzz kill if people are enthusiastically imagining everything going perfectly. However, one such project/event I was responsible for did not turn out the way I had anticipated and planned. Here are the background and autopsy results from the event.

I was tasked with planning, organizing and running an awards luncheon for 250 managers from around the country. There were a few traditional requirements for the luncheon, including the CEO speaking to the group, physical awards for each award winner (there were 40) and a keynote speaker. I had a specific budget to work with that had been allocated prior to my assignment as the event planner, and it seemed ample for what I had in mind. I was responsible for everything from the planning the food, to the entertainment (the musician and speaker), to ordering the awards. I had one person assisting me, but she had never planned or even attended an event like this before.

The day of the event, everything seemed to be going well. The agenda was flowing well; no one was over their time limit. The food was great, participant’s food allergies were attended to, the music was beautiful, the CEO was funny and personable, the awards were the best anyone had seen and seemed more expensive than the budget should have allowed, and then came the keynote speaker. She was hailed as a corporate storyteller. She had been recommended to me. In all my planning, I hadn’t had time to talk with her in detail. I figured since she had come so highly recommended, she would be great. That was not the case. She made false assumptions about the crowd, the company, was inappropriate (multiple times), and her speech bombed – really bombed.

This one person, the corporate storyteller basically, single-handedly ruined months of work and a lovely event (prior to her speech). When I had our post-mortem with my boss and event helper, we determined all the components of the event went well and had been carefully planned with this one, extremely large exception. This was a huge lesson for me. I assumed the speaker would have exhibited the same high standards I hold for myself. Instead, I should have worked much more closely with her and helped her more clearly understand the audience and environment she was speaking to. Here’s what I should have done and didn’t do in hindsight:

1. The speaker’s contract was really an invoice for her fees and the time she would speak (45 minutes). There was nothing about quality, topic, or about an ideal outcomes call to learn about our organization, the audience, or needs.
2. This speaker didn’t have a video for me to review so I could make certain her style aligned with our needs. I should have either insisted on this, taken the time to see her give her speech at another organization, or at a bare minimum, had her walk through in detail what she would be talking about and take time myself to ensure she knew what was and was not appropriate.
3. I didn’t ask a lot of questions about this speaker from the person who recommended her. I assumed if she came with a recommendation, she would naturally be good. I should have asked a series of questions to analyze what this person liked about the speaker, the speaker’s style, how they had utilized the speaker, and the content of the speech she gave. I did none of those things.
4. I significantly underestimated the importance of her role in the success or failure of this event. I should have spent more time, energy and diligence to determining her fit and style in relation to the event I was planning and implementing.

Up until this experience, I would not have thought one person could undo months of work to create a beautiful, memorable experience for the award winners and attendees – I was wrong. For months (even years) after the event people talked about that awful speaker, never mentioning the things that went well. I beat myself up for this with each time I heard the comments. But, as Kyle Eliason writes, “As one of my team members always likes to say when things go wrong, ‘Well, nobody was killed, so…’ Remind everyone that, no matter how embarrassing a gaffe, you can learn from it” (2015). Lessons learned.

Eliason, K. (2015, July 16). 10 Tips for a Successful Post-Mortem. Retrieved from https://www.portent.com/blog/10-tips-for-a-successful-post-mortem.htm

Greer, M. (2010). The project management minimalist: Just enough PM to rock your projects! [Laureate Education]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu/bbcswebdav/institution/USW1/201740_02/MS_INDT/EDUC_6145/artifacts/pm-minimalist-ver-3-laureate.pdf