Event Team Management
You need a team to organize an event. You can't do
everything by yourself. So I don't need to tell you
further, how important a team is for your event. Event
mismanagement is mostly about team mismanagement.
Do the following things for effective team management:
Know your team
Just knowing the names, faces and job profile of your team members is not enough. You must have good knowledge of there personality, life style, likings, disliking, family background, status, educational qualification, knowledge level, customs, religion and especially there needs and wants. By needs and wants I mean there physiological needs, safety needs, social needs, esteem needs, cognitive needs and self actualization needs.
Every person has different needs and different priority to fulfill them. While for some getting recognition is more important than job security. For others job security is more important. Determine the needs of your team members and fulfill them in order to get optimum results from them.
Physiological needs
The need to have food, water, warmth, shelter and other things necessary for survival.
Your team members will not feel anything, if these needs are met but can cause them discomfort, sickness and pain if these needs are not full filled. So as an event manager it is your job to make sure that all the physiological needs of your team are met from time to time. Just imagine how a team member who hasn't eaten anything all day will perform his duty in the evening and you will get my point.
Safety needs
It includes need to be safe from physical and psychological harm. It also includes job security and financial security.
As an event manger you have to ensure safety of your team especially women. A person can't give his best in an unsafe environment.
To protect your team from psychological harm, make sure there are no internal conflicts (like ego clashes, altercations, conflict of interest etc) among team members. If there are conflicts, then resolve them judiciously.
Providing job security to your team is also very important. At no point any team member should feel that his job is under threat either by your actions or by someone else actions.
Take care of your team beyond the work place. If any team member is facing a financial problem, then help him as much as you can.
Social needs
It is the need to feel a sense of belonging and acceptance. Need to love and be loved by friends, intimate partner, family and social groups like your team.
To fulfill this need, there must be cordial relationship between you and the team and among the team members. A team member will not perform his best if he has considerable family problems. Try whatever you can to reduce his family problems. If you can't do much at least accept his problems and empathize with him. Try to reduce his stress by giving him a day off or engaging him in the sport he likes the most. Ask you team members to be as supportive to him as possible. All this will help.
People who have strong social needs should not be placed in a job where they have minimum interaction with people. They are the best for marketing or PR type jobs.
Esteem needs
It is the need to get respect, recognition, fame and status.
Some people have stronger esteem needs than the other. You will have to identify those team members who have strong esteem needs and then find ways to fulfill those needs. For e.g. if a person is working very hard to get recognition among the team members and you are not giving him the recognition he deserves (by openly praising him or giving him promotion) then sooner or later his motivation level will go down and he will not give optimum results or worst will not perform and quit.
Cognitive needs
It is the need to understand, learn, discover and explore.
People who have strong cognitive needs should not be placed in a job which is monotonous and which doesn't offer any possibility of intellectual growth. Frankly speaking, people with strong cognitive needs are not suitable for event management jobs.
Self actualization need
It is the need to be the best. It is the need to become everything, one is capable of becoming.
Very few people have such type of need. If you have some one in you team with this need, then you have both advantage and disadvantage. The advantage is that you can always expect optimum results from him. The disadvantage is that he will tirelessly seek for the position of leadership and if he didn't get it, then he will leave you soon and may even become your competitor.