WELCOME TO THE
Library
Pull something off the shelf. I write most weeks about the parts of an event nobody sees.
New on the shelf
everything on the shelf
The event planning form that replaced nine emails
Somebody on your team turns up with the wrong number, and they were told the right one in a conversation three weeks ago. This post covers why that keeps happening even when everyone communicates well, the event planning form that fixed it on a nine-hundred-person conference, and the three things that make written capture actually hold.
The event day briefing your team actually needs
The document your team reads over coffee the morning of decides how much of the day comes back to you. This post covers what has to be in it so that nobody needs to find you between sessions.
What event day feels like when your team has the full picture
Your team can only run the day without you if the document in front of them answers what they'll actually need. This post covers what has to be in it, what usually gets left out, and how it changes event day.
The event logistics spreadsheet your team needs to execute without you
Your team can only run the day without you if the document in front of them answers what they'll actually need. This post covers what has to be in it, what usually gets left out, and how it changes event day.
Stop being the search engine: how to build a retreat coordination hub
When every question comes back to you, you've become the place people look things up. This post covers how to build the place they should be looking instead, and what has to live there for it to work.
The brief that lets your retreat team decide without you
A good brief tells your team what to do. A better one tells them enough to make the call themselves when you're mid-session and unreachable. This post covers the difference and what has to be in the second kind.
The 4 retreat roles that make delegation actually work
Delegation falls apart when nobody is clear on who decides what, which is a different problem from nobody knowing what to do. This post covers four roles that make the handoff clean and what each one owns.
Why Your Retreat Team Keeps Coming to You for Everything (And How to Fix It)
Your team is capable and they still check with you before nearly every decision. They're missing something you've been carrying in your head without realizing it. This post covers what that is and how to get it out of there.
Why staying hands-on with event tech can slow everything down
Keeping the tech yourself feels faster and safer, and for a while it genuinely is. This post covers what it costs once other people need access to it, and how to hand it over without losing track of anything.
How to build a support system that makes your retreat run itself
A team that checks with you before every decision isn't support, it's another inbox. This post covers how to set things up so the answers already exist, and your people can move without waiting on you to confirm.
Delegate like a leader: What not to take on when running a retreat
There's a version of retreat leadership where you're still doing everything, just with more people watching. This post covers which pieces stop being yours the moment you have a team, and which ones genuinely stay with you no matter how much support you have.
A guest tells you at registration that she can't eat something; you send the list to the caterer, and the plated meals go perfectly. Then there's a reception with forty unlabeled things on trays. This post covers what to collect, who it goes to, and the step that catches an error before it reaches somebody.