A hallmark of healthcare today is the incredible wealth (or crowd) of learning events available to executives. Large-format conferences, peer group meetings, vendor events, professional association gatherings…there really is something out there for everyone looking to learn and network professionally. And for the record, we love all kinds of learning events that aren't ours. There's something to be had out of each (as well as drawbacks to be aware of). That said, we all know there’s huge variability in the value (or lack thereof) one gets from attending events.
So how do you make yours stand out/pick a winner with your scarce travel and event attendance time? Because learning events are core to our value proposition here at Union, you can imagine we have thoughts. In fact, we have a philosophy - 5 essentials that we put into every summit we do.
Today, I'll share some of our secret sauce for planning.
Background: What makes us qualified to opine?
All Union leaders have personally led hundreds of executive and board learning events. We have hosted them, keynoted them, facilitated them, attended them, and sometimes suffered through them when things go off the rails. Through those events we have all led over the years, we formulated a specific meeting philosophy that we wanted for Union -- and, as my colleague Amanda, wrote last week, we just had a chance to take that car for a drive at our inaugural East Coast Insight Summit in September in DC.
You can read more about the East Coast Insight Summit and what ~20 cross-industry executives discussed and concluded here (spoiler: big public insurance giants will likely continue to gobble up the healthcare world, but there are meaningful strategies to work with them, sell to them, and care for their members effectively). You can also check out our upcoming West Coast Summit on January 30th, 2025 in Los Angeles here. But for today, let's keep our eye on the ball of a different point: We are PUMPED (no other word will do; low caps will not suffice) to say our attendees found value in our evolved philosophy of what a high-level, engaging executive event should look like today. We got comments like:
“This meeting and the case studies were fascinating. The format was perfect and lent itself so well to having candid discussion”
“I feel like I got a mix of insight and lived experience I don’t get elsewhere”
“I love the swag!” - always essential
We've distilled our way of delivering fun, memorable, and most importantly valuable learning events into 6 key ingredients. Let's jump in.
Union's 6 event essentials
Key ingredient #1: Put a thumb on the scale - consider your organization's unique identity and purpose, and use those as guides to favor some event goals over others.
Events need to start with clarity of intent, explicitly tied to your organization’s identity and purpose. This is harder than it sounds when making an executive learning event because all industry events are juggling multiple goals at once. They all aspire to blend educating, learning, networking, facilitating connections, and having fun.
Well at Union, same deal!
Except, we're comfortable putting a thumb on the scale when it comes to learning as a goal. More specifically, we find there is a subset of executives out there who want to network and build relationships specifically by engaging candidly around big ideas as a way of learning. So everything we do - from agenda-setting and content development to dinner conversations and discussions - is geared at actively promoting learning through discussion.
Is your idea of a great networking experience to nerd out about strategy issues in healthcare in a way you won't elsewhere? Hey us too!
Advice for others: It's tough to be everything to everyone; as you're planning/picking learning events, pick specific goals to prioritize over others and let some of the rest go.
Key ingredient #2: Put in the work to deliver a content agenda packed with substance, provocative insight, and active problem-solving.
Today's executives are quite well informed. Honestly, we'd have a problem if they weren't, given the proliferation of new sources and industry events, and now our friend (?) Gen AI. To deliver compelling content at events, you really have to push past headlines, data points, industry PR, product demos, and conventional wisdom.
Pushing to next-level insights in the educational portions of events requires at least three elements:
Doing the homework - Put simply, there is no substitute for high-caliber research and content preparation.
Offering a perspective - Even if it’s provocative, political, or not entirely conclusive, speakers on the hook to provide content for events need to be ready to share their viewpoints. This allows them to really think critically about the issue through the position. Give them something to accept, reject, or modify.
Making it real - The easiest way to lose an audience is to deviate away from what they can relate to. The best learning content relies on real examples and/or practical situations with which real people can identify.
Advice for others: Leaders running meetings can break through the blah by working with their content teams or panelists to identify specific position or ideas substantial enough for participants to really dig into.
Key ingredient #3: Bring a well-rounded diversity of attendees in relation to the subject matter.
At Union, we are focused on the fact that healthcare is increasingly interdisciplinary. Everyone has to work within a matrix, even in the same domain or organization. This can be a challenge, but it's also an opportunity; and it's Union's focus. We purposely move across a wide range of topics and industry sectors, in the belief that today's savvy healthcare executive has to "speak" all these languages at a baseline level. Most executives can go deep; the best go (somewhat) broad, too.
The meeting version of that, for us, means bringing together diverse perspectives, sector backgrounds, and different job titles/roles. Title-based peer groups are great, but they risk creating echo chambers. At our Summits, we invite operators, investors, strategists, and even commercial leads (who are not there to sell...more on that in a second). If you've got a view on strategic issues, come ready to lay it on the table. When we all do that, it's amazing the wealth of information and ideas we all walk away with.
Advice for others: If you're hosting a large-format event, you can't always curate your participants this way; but you sure can pursue the principle in speakers, panels, and even planners!
Key ingredient #4: Outside the conference room, prioritize memorable and fun over expensive and luxurious.
OK maybe this is just us. There are certainly events out there where the major crowd draw is, at least partly, the fancy destination, dining, and extracurriculars (e.g. golfing, skiing, wine tasting). We're not here to bash that. Instead, it comes back to ingredient #1: remember who you are and pick a lane to deliver a differentiated event. This holds true not just for the learning portions of the event, but also the dining/lodging/entertainment portions.
At our Summits, we let our identity shine by choosing to host our executive participants for dinner at the kind of venue you would choose if you were dining with friends.
Informality works for us; we believe it contributes to people trusting and getting comfortable with each other. It lends itself to more candid conversation during the learning portion of the events, too. For the East Coast Summit, this meant that when we took our members out to dinner, we chose a modest, bustling, and very crowded local favorite in DC., where yes, we sometimes had to shout to be heard by our new friends. But hey, is that a national celebrity news anchor at the table over? (We haven't picked a restaurant yet for LA - where in the Santa Monica area would YOU take friends out to a nice dinner? Drop me a line!).
The point is, we know our organizational identity is at odds with a fancy chain steakhouse. While we're in learning mode for the majority of our scarce time together, we want to spend the fun time actually having fun--which to us means bringing our out-of-town attendees somewhere we would recommend to them if they were there on their own time.
Advice for others: Remember, you can't (successfully) be everything to everyone. Choose environments that you can connect back to your organizational identity and some differentiated learning/experience goals for the event.
Key ingredient #5: No quotes, no posturing, no sales. Deliver psychological safety in executive and board learning events.
In our view, no leader can engage fully on ideas and issues in healthcare today if they're doing so in public. "In public" means so much more today than "being interviewed by a reporter". If you hold a senior leadership role and you're attending a learning event or if you're sitting at a conference table or onstage for a panel, by this point you have learned to stay on message (you wouldn't have that role if you hadn't learned that discipline by now!).
But to learn, even the most senior executives need a chance to take the organizational hat off and just engage, as a human, in discussing issues of substance. Ask vulnerable questions. Admit to problems, limitations, challenges, conflicts, and unknowns.
That's why we keep everything off the record. It's also why we, in our teaching and facilitation of events, feel free to admit when we don't know things. To learn, we have to put aside bulletproof self-presentation and open up. That's just human nature, and it's a truly essential ingredient to all our events.
Advice to others: Small-format event planners/attendees--hopefully you're already delivering/enjoying this benefit. If not, start now! Large-format conference planners/attendees, you're out of luck on this one, so focus on the unique goals that those events can deliver (like an incredible breath of topic and networking opportunities).
Key Ingredient #6: Find joy in what you're doing for your clients and members.
We wouldn't be true to our Union identify if we didn't end on the one final essential part: finding joy in the work. Hosting amazing events is part art, part science, part joy. When your team loves the work and the purpose behind your event, there's an impact on those who participate.
We love the work of helping executives learn and wouldn't do it any other way.
Want to join our next event? Ask about our West Coast Insight Summit in January, and reach out to discuss becoming a Union member!
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