Managing Leadership^®

I witnessed a peculiar event just the other day. It was a talk given by a foreign expert in a specific professional topic area, hosted by another, local, expert.

This local expert had assembled a terrific team who had worked very hard to put together a great evening for the international expert and the local audience. In fact, she had managed to gather the largest – by far – such audience ever in that country for an event like this in that particular profession.

The event proceeded smoothly and enthusiastically from beginning to end. A room was provided for the visiting expert to freshen up from sight-seeing earlier in the day and to rest from jet lag prior to the talk. A highly professional program handout had been assembled which included translations of the presenter’s slides in the local language. The on-site presentation translator – a volunteer and member of the local expert’s event team – was brilliant.

The entire thing went extraordinarily well. Positive buzz was strong. The speaker was surprised and delighted at the size, attention, and enthusiasm of the audience. After the talk, everyone stayed for a long time, thronging the refreshment area, gathering in ever-changing small groups which hummed with excitement about the evening.

It was a huge success. But there was one odd thing.

A local competitor to the host had been graciously invited to attend by the latter, given the importance to the overall local community of the event. The thing is that other prominent members of the profession, recognizing the value of the event, had volunteered their efforts to help the local host promote and support it.

But this person had not lifted a finger to help make a success of the evening – one so obviously important to a major movement in a profession of which he insisted he was an indispensably authoritative figure. It must be said that this latter contention is, in fact, a matter of some considerable dispute within the local community.

On top of that, he showed up in an inebriated state sufficiently advanced to make the people seated next to him distinctly uncomfortable.

And despite all this, the visiting speaker inexplicably acknowledged this person as her colleague and preeminent counterpart in the local country not once, but three times, encouraging audience members to seek him out for training and to join his organization.

But that’s not all: From the gracious introduction by her actual host at the beginning to the concluding presentation at the end of a beautiful example of local art in appreciation, not once did the speaker thank – or even acknowledge – her host.

How would you interpret this? Was it a snub? An oversight (as the speaker later, unprompted, claimed)? Or a disgraceful, public insult - a rebuff - to the real professional representative in the room of this major new movement?

Based on the overall response, it is likely that not many of the audience members noticed this issue. But some most decidedly did, and many of them had very strong feelings about it which negatively affected their attitudes toward the speaker and the movement she represents.

How would you respond? Is it possible to overlook this, do you think, or is it impossible to interpret it other than personally, and as a major slight – intended or not?

I can tell you that the local host has chosen to conceal her own feelings, and to emphasize the benefit to the community of the core of the presentation, which was excellent. But many of her colleagues are concerned that that benefit was essentially neutralized by the speaker’s mystifying neglect of her own host and elevation of a man who neither supported the event, nor who could bring himself to attend it in a sober state.

What would you do next?

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Today’s tip: Speaking of failing to advance programs by failing to pay the proper attention to the proper people, please see this insightful post by the Execupundit, Michael Wade.

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