by Peter A. Arthur-Smith, Leadership Solutions, Inc.®

“According to Gallup research on employee engagement, one brutal truth that hits companies like a baseball bat to the knee remains: 85 percent of employees worldwide are uninspired and, therefore, don’t feel motivated to do their best work.” Gallup’s 2017 Global Workplace report.

 Your writer was recently challenged to orchestrate a Big Birthday surprise for his spouse, from scratch, because she had done the same for him the prior year. His big challenge was to reach out to her many friends and relatives, not having many of their contact details, without blowing the element of surprise. That needed a certain amount of thought. Additionally, since there were so many to be invited, he had to accomplish this within a budget that wouldn’t break the bank; bearing in mind he had many other key financial priorities looming. Not least among those was publishing an important book over the next year.

Quickly resorting to LSI’s Simple Success Strategy, he knew the test would be:

» Arriving at a Vision-Purpose that would capture everyone’s imaginations; plus a matching strategy and associated resources – including location, people talent, budget and party items.

»Figuring out the people assists he would need, plus corralling the party participants.

»Providing sufficient effective leadership to win everyone’s cooperation and keep it a surprise.

As you can imagine, to meet the occasion it would require the assists of a number of people to pull-it-off; consequently it required a message that would capture everyone’s attention. Even more to the point, was getting everyone to participate the first day after our Labor Day weekend; especially as it bookended their long summer holidays. Would they instead be wrapped up in their intentions for a fast work-related start for the fall? Would they turn-out on an early weekday evening?

After considering a number of options, drawing upon LSI’s Option Solving technique; he resolved to hold the event at the family’s sizeable New York City apartment. He then enlisted the creative talents of his eldest daughter to turn his invitation words into a captivating, eblast overture ready for as many as relatives and friends as was possible. The words ‘Surprise’ and ‘Top Secret’ found their way to the forefront, especially as the youthful-side of our personalities love a surprise and our sleuthing-side loves the intrigue of a ‘Top Secret’ message. And so the Vision-Purpose-Strategy side of this special personal project was born.

His daughter, who created this rather attractive message, lived 700 miles away and she was encouraged to share it with her sister who lived less than 100 miles away for her approval, too. That way they both bought into the event and they were both engaged. Her younger sister was a crucial participant owing to her special, celebrity talents in running a family-party bar. Beyond that, a crucial talent was needed to help prepare the apartment for a party, to help lay-out a spread, and keep refreshments flowing. This is where Ala came in; the family super-weekly, house-keeping resource, who has helped keep everything shipshape over many years. She had to be enlisted into this family event, as well. Fortunately, with enough notice, she didn’t have a conflict that day-evening. She was intrigued by the surprise element, too!

He was now faced with prospect of getting the message out to as many friends and family members as was possible; particularly in light of not having most of their phone numbers or email addresses – all without blowing the secret. He needed to engage the able assist of several people, knowing that there would be some close friends who would never be contacted because they were in other orbits and his wife would be their only contact. Whenever he bumped into friends in the apartment building lobby, they acted as one starting point – to spread the word under a cloak of secrecy. Now we know how George Washington got the word out!

Again, he sought the advice of friends regarding cake makers and refreshment providers; especially as he hadn’t run such a party on such a scale in many years. Once he had drawn-up respective shortlists, he was able to make enquiries to figure out his best options. Fortunately these resources were outside his wife’s normal circle, so that it would minimize the chances of them spilling-the-beans. And so more people were engaged and swept into the secret cabal.

Another key member of the burgeoning party team was his wife’s professional office manager. His wife’s birthday fell on one of her normal work days, where she would usually have evening hours. How could things be orchestrated so it would appear like a normal working day, without giving the game away? Both her office manager and receptionist would eventually play a masterful role in helping orchestrate events both before and during the party date, as well as other office staff keeping quiet on the matter. They were all invited of course.

In between all of this, husband and wife would be on overseas vacation for 12 days, so concerns about losing momentum arose. The party would happen within a week of their return. Luckily the message resonated enough and the timing worked well enough to keep the growing excitement moving along. While they were away, there was at least one cell-phone call to your writer to confirm party attendance – the others came through email – which raised his wife’s attention. This had to be played down as an accidental non-event…a near miss on the surprise!

When he returned, in a somewhat jet-lag state, he really had to get his skates on to confirm numbers for a cake, refreshments and the family bar: more team-members to re-engage. Additionally, there was enlisting the help of the building manager and his doorman staff for extra chairs and keeping the surprise element intact. Your writer’s particular leadership challenge of that week was maintaining a “cool-stance” over the Labor Day holiday weekend, just prior to the event, while he and his wife stayed with friends more than 100 miles outside the city. Even more so was the conundrum that those same friends would also be attending the party, after the holiday weekend, without letting the cat-out-of-the-bag either. So there was virtually no discussion about the upcoming celebration to keep the lid on preparations.

Around that time, your writer also reached out to a number of European friends, who couldn’t attend, although likely would want to stamp their mark on the celebrations. Hence there was due emailing prior to the vacation and after it to sound them out and determine what was possible from their point of view. You will learn more about this in the sequel article about this unusual event…aided by our cyber-age communication conveniences.

Another challenge on ‘B-Day’ was to encourage the home-help to behave as if nothing special was going to happen that day; even though she knew she would be returning later that afternoon for party-readiness activities. The party-girl’s office staff also had to play it cool, even though they knew they would be attending the party later that evening, as well. It was remarkable how well everyone played the game: all for the element of surprise. And so the big surprise was on. People were coming from near and far. The prep-team was moving in. The suppliers were ready with their orders. Our next article will share how the full, ad-hoc team made out. Even so, the lessons to be learned from the success of this surprise party were:

» Extraordinary things can happen when people are approached in the right way – that                reservoir of goodwill.

» There are always solid options, if you utilize option solving.

» People can be engaged with the right proposition; even with no money strings attached.

To find out more about a more People Engaging approach, talk with: