Preparation Matters When Planning a Leadership Summit (or a middle managers meet (

Preparation Matters When Planning a Leadership Summit

Leadership summits can fuel collaboration and lead to innovative solutions and new strategies – as long as you take the right steps to create a coherent, focused event.

• Assign clear roles. You need a summit director to oversee the agenda, a coordinator to handle logistics, an emcee to guide the sessions, and facilitators to lead small-group discussions.
• Define a clear set of objectives. Have an answer to: “What do we want the outcome to be from an attendee’s perspective?” and “What do we want them to say when others ask, ‘What happened?’”
• Survey attendees to find out what’s most important. Ask: “What’s the one question you would like addressed at the upcoming conference?” and “If you could tell the CEO one thing that would improve the company’s prospects, what would it be?”
• Engage participants before the summit. Give attendees reading material on the objectives a week before it starts.