“There’s real battle fatigue and that’s dangerous.”

JL What was the most important lesson you learnt about leadership during the pandemic?

IB Crisis or stress can be either stimulating or paralysing. But you couldn’t be in the business events industry if stress were not stimulating. But Covid has pushed that stimulation to the utmost because generally there was one problem, you dealt with it, and you moved on. With Covid, you had to find solution after solution after solution and it’s been going on for nearly two years. The important lesson is that the events people in the organisation have risen to the occasion a lot more than some of the other departments because it’s in their nature. So, I’ve had to deal with two completely different categories of people. Some who have gone off like racehorses to find solutions and those who say, ‘Oh my God this is the end of the world!’. I’ve had to rein in the former, occasionally, saying ‘Look, let’s think about this!’. And to the others, I’ve had to say, ‘No this isn’t the end of the world! There is a way forward.' So, being able to deal with two extremes at the same time.

JL What was the most challenging period for you during the pandemic and why?

IB The most difficult period is now. We faced the cancellation of our congress and managed to pivot it in three months. We faced the fact that we were in a crisis, but it was going to end. Now it’s starting again when we all thought we were going back to organising in-person meetings, and the fatigue, and the fact that people are so fed up with it, and it’s so different from one country to the next, is making things more difficult now than it has been in the past two years. There’s real battle fatigue and that’s dangerous. So, it’s about reminding everyone that this is not the moment to drop the ball. There is a light at the end of the tunnel and, no, it’s not an oncoming train. But that’s difficult. People are tired and confused and they feel there’s contradictory information. There’s a fed-up feeling that means people are less careful about what they do and that’s very dangerous.

JL What were your daily coping mechanisms for the added workload and stress?

IB When I get home, I try to stop thinking about work and I’ll read a book about something that is on a totally different topic, which means I have to concentrate on that and not work. And I think it’s important to keep that separation, so there is an area of relief. Whether that’s meditating, reading or jumping up and down doesn’t matter, the point of the matter is to have a sort of secret garden, where there’s relief. I’ve taken to learning Latin again, for example, because I thought that would do me good. I learnt it at school a long, long time ago! I remembered more than I thought! I’ve found it very, very beneficial.

JL When you look back on the last 20 months what makes you most proud?

IB The recognition of the staff and the recognition of the volunteers. They really have said, ‘thanks to you we’ve pulled through this. You’ve kept it all together’. And I think that’s important because we’re a team and you need that recognition and support of the other team members.

JL What did you learn about your own leadership style?

IB We created a core team, a smaller group of people to make decisions. I come from the congress world, where you never do anything on your own, so I tended to include a lot of people in everything, but we just didn’t have time for that. So I created a sort of rapid response team, which meant we could do things quickly. It meant we were not communicating as widely as we used to, of course. There were a few problems, especially after 18 months, there was a feeling of distance, a gap, which we have now been working to close. But it’s difficult to say how much of that gap is due to the rapid response and how much is because people are working remotely. The two have probably added up.  

JL Did you make any changes to how you manage your team and, if so, what were they?

IB We are Zoom fatigued and Teams fed up! There was one day I had done seven Zoom meetings one after the other and that’s a very bad idea. You have no time to prepare. Now I have a strict policy- no more than three Zoom meetings in a day and at least an hour between each meeting.

 JL What would you say to other leaders who are struggling in their role?

IB That’s a good question. There have been moments when I felt, ‘Am I doing the right thing? Are there other ways of doing it?’ Being able to exchange with some colleagues and ask, ‘How on earth are you dealing with this?’ was important. You realise you’re not alone in the maelstrom. And most of the time I would put the phone down and say, ‘Okay, I’m doing what everyone else is doing!’ So for me, the AC Forum has been very helpful. Because we’re not competitors, I can reach out and there’s no commercial conflict there.