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5 Ways to Resurrect your 2020 Conference

Is there a nagging feeling in your gut that this year, more than any other it’s important to get staff and leaders together?

Do you feel it is time to share the strategy which has changed so much? Is there a need to generate a sense of one organisation, separated by distance but united in purpose? Do your people deserve to be recognised for going the extra mile whilst stuck at home?

Some have simply cancelled their plans but in doing so will fail to give their business the shot in the arm it so desperately needs. Braver leaders are taking a bolder route, exploring new ways of communicating the mission and preparing now for the approaching moment when we can meet face to face. Here are five ways to reengage a large cohort without compromising health.

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Unthinkable thinking

The world has changed and so have our lives. We may have even adopted a new outlook, refocused on what really matters –health over wealth, friends over followers. We could be forgiven for feeling that we’ve done enough, we’ve adapted and changed to cope with our new reality.

Have we done enough? In the months and years to come, it won’t be sufficient to simply cope. We must be prepared to reinvent our products, our work and ourselves to thrive in a future which is hard to imagine. Many others have written on the societal and economic changes we are likely to encounter, so I won’t elongate this piece by repeating their words. My concern today is with our thinking. How has this changed and does it need to?

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When NASA gives feedback

A little while ago we received an unexpected email, from NASA! As you’d expect our first thought was to delete it, assuming it was spam. Surprisingly it was genuine.

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Sleep through Mental Health Awareness Week

The theme of this year’s Mental Health Awareness Week running 18-24 May is sleep. A subject we’ve been especially engaged in for the past 15 years. During which time tremendous advances in the science of sleep have been achieved.

We now know better than ever before, why we sleep, how we sleep and most importantly the life-limiting effects of not getting sufficient sleep. One notable fact is that disrupted sleep is always a precursor to depression and many other psychological conditions. So it could be said that good sleep is a vaccine for mental illness.

Whilst a number of excellent books have been published on the subject in recent years, new discoveries are being made monthly and so publications go out of date faster than prawns in the sun. Instead, we’d recommend you reserve one of our Sleep Briefings during Mental Health Awareness Week, they last less than an hour and can be delivered in your workplace.

Write to us at mail@freshtracks.co.uk to check availability.

Our Shed is on TV

Here at Fresh we have a shed, it’s quite a special shed, originally built in the 16th Century from reclaimed ships’ timbers.

More recently we’ve brushed away the cobwebs and breathed new life into this ancient building. Now known as Wellbeing Barn it has become a multi-use space for team away days and small group retreats. Late last year it caught the eye of the BBC and has also become the set for a series of children’s nature shows.

If you’re looking for a private and unique space we’d love to hear from you.

Big Budget Boredom

Once upon a time a well known retailer was working hard to recover from a slump and wanted it’s store leaders to stop competing against one another and instead share their best ideas and resources. A noble and wise message.

During the months of build up their conference agency designed, refined and honed an event to inspire their top 500. The AV team produced a phenomenal stage and set. There was even a wardrobe department with a seamstress on hand. The budget ran to several hundred thousand pounds.

On paper the programme looked impressive and inspiring. Until the management team took to the stage, all of them! Each ignoring their five minute allocation and instead sharing their perspective for ten, fifteen and in one case twenty minutes!

All were reasonably accomplished speakers, one or two were entertaining but none had rehearsed and they had certainly not compared notes to avoid repeating themselves. Each extolled the value of collaboration, yet their three hour marathon to a post lunch audience in a darkened room simply illustrated that they hadn’t worked together.

Just after 6pm the jaded audience emerged, two hours late somewhat less than inspired.

If you are organising a conference, start with what your delegates will feel, not with what they see. Bright lights have a momentary impact but a well structured message with audience participation can last a lifetime.

There is a vaccine for mental illness

Whilst mental health is highly complex, numerous studies have proven that in virtually every case of mental illness, there is pre-existing sleep disruption.

Poor sleep is, therefore, a reliable early indicator that our mental health is at risk. Whilst it is quite normal to lose some sleep during periods of stress, the danger is that the fact we are not sleeping well can further increase the threat to the health of our minds.

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Feedback Fatigue – Is Just One Question Best?

Requests for feedback into my inbox have risen considerably recently. Invariably an email or a text will request my opinion for a product, service or even just a single phone call! This is frustrating and ironically can turn me off the organisation concerned.

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Salesforce Fiasco – Pride before a salesfall

Along with many of their customers worldwide, I have been having some trouble with Salesforce recently.

My issue began prior to the worldwide outage last Friday. It was a familiar case of arrogance from a Goliath-like supplier toward a small, though loyal customer.

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Why Great Leaders Say No

We seem to be living through a time when elected leaders at least, have succeeded by telling people what they want to hear.

Is this really leadership? We’d say it’s not. True leadership requires the courage and wisdom to say out loud, the truths that people don’t want to hear. It’s not fun, it upsets people and makes the leader unpopular. In the short term for sure and often, for much longer.

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