Advanced Operations: 7 Habits for High-Performance Event Operations

The day before yesterday, I finished reading Stephen's "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" and wanted to try to apply the principles in the book to life and work, so I thought about using the seven habits to review my previous experience in doing activities, and this article came about.

Many times, when we are organizing activities, we often think about how to please users. We treat users as gods and serve them carefully. More or less, we always encounter such situations in our operations :

• The user told the operation that he hoped to have this function, and the operation went to raise the demand with the product manager. However, he was rejected by the product manager and was confused, asking why the product manager treated him like this. !
• The operations department planned an event with great enthusiasm, and the execution went smoothly. The user feedback was also good, but when reviewing the situation, we were surprised to find that the conversion rate was so low. !

Why does this happen? Let’s check ourselves based on these 7 habits.

Overview of the 7 Habits

The 7 habits are divided into three categories: attitude, thinking, and skills. Attitude is the basis and motivation for doing things, thinking is the process and ideas for doing things, and skills are the specific operating methods.

It is explained from two parts: internal and external. The internal part refers to the internal part of the event operation team, and the external part refers to the communication and cooperation with partners outside the team.

Habit 1: Be Proactive: Establish a Vision for Your Operations

Being proactive not only refers to an attitude towards doing things, it also means that people must be responsible for their own lives.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

Being proactive is an attitude. In event operations, being proactive means that operators are responsible for the results of the event and even more so for the company.

Let's ask a series of whys to explore the reasons for the above situations:

• Why do our operations and products conflict with each other? ——Because I don’t want to make the product.
• Why doesn’t the product want to meet this requirement? ——This demand is not important and not very valuable.
• Why is demand less valuable? ——Because there is a gap between the product positioning.
• Why is the activity going smoothly but the conversion rate is so low? ——Because no attention was paid to conversion during planning.
• Why didn’t we pay attention to conversion when planning? ——Because we only want to make users happy.

Having asked this question, I actually understand why this situation occurs - the operation is influenced by the opinions raised by users.

We emphasize the core operational concept of "user-centricity", but we forget that the foundation of operations is the product. What is operation? Operation is the process of linking products and users. We focused on the user side and ignored the product side.

Covey said in "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People": "Proactive people are more rational than impulsive. They are able to think carefully, choose values ​​and use them as the internal driving force of their behavior; while passive people are the opposite. They are emotional and easily driven by the environment or conditions."

Before operations, we should clarify the "values" of our products, that is, the positioning of the products, and plan operations based on this positioning to avoid the above situations. Before the event is launched, the goals for the event must be set. These two are the vision of event operations.

The "value" of a product is the basis for operations to determine whether user needs are reasonable and whether activity planning is effective.

Habit 2: Begin with the end in mind: Set goals and plans

One of the principles underlying “beginning with the end in mind” is that “everything is created twice.” Whatever we do, we first conceive it in our minds, which is the first intellectual creation, and then put it into practice, which is the second physical creation.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

Starting from the end in mind is the mindset required when doing things. In event operations, we need to plan the event in advance and write the planning results into a text, which is the event plan.

The purpose of planning is to find a feasible path to the event vision. Break down the activities and assign them to the corresponding staff members. At the same time, each participating staff member should also formulate personal visions and goals.

The plan is also the basis for dealing with emergencies. For example, if a staff member is unable to attend an event due to an emergency, another person can be quickly arranged to take over the relevant work according to the plan; for another example, if a staff member encounters a problem during execution, the problem can be handled according to the vision and goals in the plan.

My habit is to write down the following elements in the plan:

• Purpose of the activity (vision)
• Item execution table (items, related persons, risks)
• Personnel function table (personnel, corresponding functions)
• Funding and Materials Table (Material Requirements, Funding Budget)

Habit 3: First Things First: Activity Management

Habit three is about the second creation or physical creation, which is the realization, execution and natural expression of the previous two habits.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

The first thing is the skill to do things. Our manpower and resources are limited, and we need to arrange various matters during the planning process. Therefore, we need to follow certain principles to sort and arrange matters, which is the execution part of our event planning.

According to the four-quadrant method, the priorities of matters are sorted according to the two dimensions of urgency and importance. The importance is determined by the impact and value of the matter on the activity, while the urgency is determined by the remaining time of the matter.

I am used to converting these two dimensions into measurable values, giving a score of 0-5 based on the severity of the impact on the activity if this item is not done, and a score of 0-5 based on the value of the activity after this item is done. The importance score is calculated by combining these two items, and the urgency score is directly calculated using the remaining time value.

Arrange matters according to the items on the 2D coordinate chart, combined with manpower and resources. Give priority to urgent and important matters, followed by important but non-urgent matters. Unimportant matters can be assigned to other people and only be considered if there is spare manpower and time. The urgency changes over time. Try not to let important things become urgent, and leave extra time to deal with emergencies or optimize activities.

If you need to add items, follow the same procedure as above.

Habit 4: Synergy: Collaborate Creatively

Synergy means that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, that is, the relationship between the various parts is also an integral part of the whole, but it is not just a component, but the most stimulating, distributive, integrative and motivating part.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

Habits 1-3 are the internal principles of the event planning team, while Habits 4-6 are the external principles.

Synergy is the attitude of doing things. The book often uses 1+1 as an example to illustrate that the result of being wary of each other is <2, the result of respecting each other is = 2, and the result of integrated synergy is >2.

A very good example is Tencent QQ membership. If you have paid attention to QQ membership, you should have noticed that QQ membership often has benefits from other Tencent products. Therefore, QQ members have more and better privileges, and can thus obtain more conversions. Other products gain publicity and even users and conversions from QQ members, and all parties benefit.

In the process of event operation, we inevitably collaborate and cooperate with people outside the team, including other people inside and outside the company. At this time, seeking cooperation is usually better than competing with each other. "When the snipe and the clam quarrel, the fisherman gains." If they fight each other, in the end no one benefits .

In the promotion of an event, we often see other brands listed under the organizers of the event. Regardless of whether other brands have specific cooperation in the event, the promotion has already achieved a synergistic effect. Each brand gets more exposure together, making the event look even more awesome.

Habit 5: Win-win thinking: Sharing resources

This model (win-win) prompts people to constantly seek bilateral benefits in all interpersonal interactions. A win-win situation means that both parties share the benefits and everyone is happy. This result will make everyone willing to accept the decision and complete the plan.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

Win-win thinking is a way of doing things. There is a physics experiment that shows that if two magnets are combined, the magnetic force they produce will be greater than the sum of their separate magnetic forces.

In event operations, win-win thinking is actually the sharing of resources, which tests the three virtues of integrity, maturity and contentment of all parties.

• Integrity means that the activity has a clear vision and can keep its promises to partners.
• Maturity refers to the balance between striving for our own interests and understanding the interests of our partners, that is, the balance between input and output.
• Being content means taking our own goals as the bottom line, knowing when we can be satisfied, and not letting the other party cross the bottom line.

We need to demonstrate our confidence in this event, express our sincerity in cooperation, understand the other party's point of view, and know what goals we want to achieve. We share our resources in exchange for other resources, and combine these resources to maximize their higher value, so that all parties can benefit. Such as the example of QQ membership above.

We need to consider what we can give to others and what we want from them. If a win-win situation is not possible, then we will not cooperate to avoid loss of interests.

Habit 6: Understand Yourself and Your Enemy: Understand All Opinions

Know yourself and know your enemy - first seek to understand the other person, then strive to make the other person understand you.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

Knowing yourself and your enemy is a skill in getting things done. It is the specific implementation of habits 5 and 6. In the process of striving for a win-win situation, we need to understand the following information about ourselves and our partners:

• Be clear about goals and expectations
• Understand the principles and methods to achieve goals
• Human, material, technical and other resources available

This is a skill that complements each other. Each side is a wooden barrel with planks of varying lengths. If each party acts on their own, the water in the barrel will only be as high as the shortest board. But if we integrate our planks, complement each other's lengths, and rebuild a barrel, then the barrel will be able to hold more water.

Habit 7: Keep updating: review

Self-improvement and perfection is a principle and a process, a spiral process between growth and transformation, and a process of continuous self-improvement.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

Continuous updating means constantly updating and improving the practice of the above 6 habits. Each activity follows the entire process of “planning-execution-review”, among which review is the most important.

On the one hand, after each activity, review the execution process of the activity and compare it with the planned plan to find out what was not done well or could be done better. Write down these areas for improvement and the corresponding plans, and try to improve them in subsequent activities.

On the other hand, in addition to specific execution reviews, try to standardize event operations and extract the underlying attitudes, methods, skills, etc. in event operations, just like the general principles like these 7 habits.

Habits for efficient event management

Each habit plays a role in every aspect of event operation. The figure below only points out the most important habits that may be used in each aspect.

I would like to thank Shuxianghui for organizing this shadow reading activity, and I would like to thank Naoke Bangdao for his guidance during this shadow reading.

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