Pure Honesty Project
If you happen to watch House, M.D. as religiously as I do, then perhaps you have occasionally shared a simple life's desire with me: Man, I wish I could be as honest as House right now.
Fellow fans of the illustrious Dr. House probably already know exactly the types of situations I'm talking about... those involving half-truths, insinuations, omissions, embellishments, connotations, and outright "everybody lies" moments of realization and resulting, fist-clenching frustration. Wouldn't the world be such a simpler place if we could all just be as truly, unabashedly honest with each other as Dr. House is with his staff and patients? Call him mean if you see fit, but come on... the guy knows how to call it as he sees it.
Now on my second week of withdrawal from the show, inflicted upon me by the interference of the World Series on my weekly television viewing schedule (really, House is the only show I plan around; why did it have to be House?), I am missing some of that singular House cynicism. Here I am, reflecting on the nature of human honesty and why it is so frequently absent from our communications. Fear, embarrassment, propriety... many socially-ingrained inhibitors can prevent us from indulging in House's particular brand of reckless honesty.
I can already hear some of the grumblings: House is just mean. Well, what makes him mean? Is telling the truth mean? Why does it have to be mean? Why can't it just be the truth?
That line of thinking got me to waxing philosophical about the what-ifs of such honesty. What if we made a concerted effort to communicate only our truest thoughts and gut emotions? What if we were free to honestly tell each other what we were really thinking? What if we didn't feel the need to take everything personally? What if the truth didn't have to hurt?
As it tends to do, my mind turned the topic toward meetings and events. I began to think about the state of the industry and how so many companies and organizations are in such desperate need of some honest-to-gosh feedback from their attendees in order to take real steps forward in improving and building upon their gatherings.
Face it: many participants tend to sit quietly through an unsatisfactory experience, never say a word to anyone who holds the power to influence that experience, then get to their hotel rooms or their homes and hop online to tweet or blog their frustrations with the experience. If an organizer is lucky, some of those complaints will first surface in the event evaluations, where they can enter into some sort of constructive process. All too often, though, it seems folks tend to withhold the whole truth, no matter what event organizers do to try to get it out of them.
If only more people would speak up onsite. If only we knew what they were thinking. If only we had a few Dr. Houses in attendance, willing to point out, with impunity, exactly what we were missing.
All this rumination resulted in an idea, and I pose it to you:
Call it the Pure Honesty Project. Take a critical look at your attendee list for your next event. Pick out 10 to 20 of your sharpest thinkers. Invite them to a special focus group at the very end of your event. Offer a complimentary beverage or two. Get them in a room with you, and ask them what they think of your event.
Lay your heart on the line. Tell them you want to hear it all. Tell them to see if they can make you cry.
Make a game out of it. Challenge your participants to top one another in terms of bold, bald-faced truth. The harder a comment hits home for you, the more points the participant earns. At the end, grant a free event registration to the participant who earned the most honesty points, so he or she will come back next year to see what you did with the feedback.
If you don't really want to know what your attendees are thinking - if you're satisfied with the status quo - then do not, under any circumstances, attempt to host a Pure Honesty Project. Consider yourself warned.
Truth hurts. Honesty is scary. Think about it. Do you want it?
If you like the idea of hosting a Pure Honesty Project at your next event, take the idea and run with it. Let me know how it goes. Show a jaded House fan that not everybody lies, when given the opportunity to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Serenity J. Knutson, Editor in Chief
PlannerWire.com
Serenity@PlannerWire.com
Fellow fans of the illustrious Dr. House probably already know exactly the types of situations I'm talking about... those involving half-truths, insinuations, omissions, embellishments, connotations, and outright "everybody lies" moments of realization and resulting, fist-clenching frustration. Wouldn't the world be such a simpler place if we could all just be as truly, unabashedly honest with each other as Dr. House is with his staff and patients? Call him mean if you see fit, but come on... the guy knows how to call it as he sees it.
Now on my second week of withdrawal from the show, inflicted upon me by the interference of the World Series on my weekly television viewing schedule (really, House is the only show I plan around; why did it have to be House?), I am missing some of that singular House cynicism. Here I am, reflecting on the nature of human honesty and why it is so frequently absent from our communications. Fear, embarrassment, propriety... many socially-ingrained inhibitors can prevent us from indulging in House's particular brand of reckless honesty.
I can already hear some of the grumblings: House is just mean. Well, what makes him mean? Is telling the truth mean? Why does it have to be mean? Why can't it just be the truth?
That line of thinking got me to waxing philosophical about the what-ifs of such honesty. What if we made a concerted effort to communicate only our truest thoughts and gut emotions? What if we were free to honestly tell each other what we were really thinking? What if we didn't feel the need to take everything personally? What if the truth didn't have to hurt?
As it tends to do, my mind turned the topic toward meetings and events. I began to think about the state of the industry and how so many companies and organizations are in such desperate need of some honest-to-gosh feedback from their attendees in order to take real steps forward in improving and building upon their gatherings.
Face it: many participants tend to sit quietly through an unsatisfactory experience, never say a word to anyone who holds the power to influence that experience, then get to their hotel rooms or their homes and hop online to tweet or blog their frustrations with the experience. If an organizer is lucky, some of those complaints will first surface in the event evaluations, where they can enter into some sort of constructive process. All too often, though, it seems folks tend to withhold the whole truth, no matter what event organizers do to try to get it out of them.
If only more people would speak up onsite. If only we knew what they were thinking. If only we had a few Dr. Houses in attendance, willing to point out, with impunity, exactly what we were missing.
All this rumination resulted in an idea, and I pose it to you:
Call it the Pure Honesty Project. Take a critical look at your attendee list for your next event. Pick out 10 to 20 of your sharpest thinkers. Invite them to a special focus group at the very end of your event. Offer a complimentary beverage or two. Get them in a room with you, and ask them what they think of your event.
Lay your heart on the line. Tell them you want to hear it all. Tell them to see if they can make you cry.
Make a game out of it. Challenge your participants to top one another in terms of bold, bald-faced truth. The harder a comment hits home for you, the more points the participant earns. At the end, grant a free event registration to the participant who earned the most honesty points, so he or she will come back next year to see what you did with the feedback.
If you don't really want to know what your attendees are thinking - if you're satisfied with the status quo - then do not, under any circumstances, attempt to host a Pure Honesty Project. Consider yourself warned.
Truth hurts. Honesty is scary. Think about it. Do you want it?
If you like the idea of hosting a Pure Honesty Project at your next event, take the idea and run with it. Let me know how it goes. Show a jaded House fan that not everybody lies, when given the opportunity to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Serenity J. Knutson, Editor in Chief
PlannerWire.com
Serenity@PlannerWire.com
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