If you're like me, you want to be successful at your job. I mean, don't we all? You also wish that everything you work on turns to gold. Unfortunately, that isn't realistic and isn't always the case. Recently, I've had to make some tough decisions on behalf of my professional organization, SGMP (Society of Government Meeting Professionals).
We entered into a hotel contract for a regional conference and that conference had to be moved to another date. Per our contract, we had steep attrition penalties to pay for canceling and rescheduling. It has been a challenge to try and figure out the best thing to do. Do we cancel? Do we go forward with low attendance and lose money? Do we reschedule? We opted to reschedule. It was the obvious path of least resistance.
When we began moving forward with this program nearly a year ago it seemed like a great opportunity to raise money for our chapter. Instead, the opposite has occurred. While I try to keep my optimism and attempt to move forward with the hopes of turning this conference around, I am met with the reality that sometimes all that glitters is not gold.
Hindsight is of course 20/20 and if I had a "do-over" I would definitely do things differently. But life doesn't work that way, instead you live and you learn. These days I'm holding onto one of my favorite sayings:
