It's a mad world: Associations shouldn't pretend it isn't

An opening panel at PCMA Convening Leaders was supposed to be about navigating 2026 and beyond, and - unsurprisingly - the dialogue very quickly turned to geopolitics, the economy and the ramifications for events and travel. The core message from US Travel Association was - and I paraphrase - “There's a lot going on, some stuff is bad, other stuff is okay… just keep your head down, stay focused on what you can control, and get on with it.”

It is not easy work - ever - to be in a leadership role, and working in organisations like US Travel Association right now means carrying an extraordinarily hot potato: fractured geopolitics, strained international relationships, nervous markets, anxious members, forces that no one in the room can meaningfully control. Someone on the panel even mentioned having to turn off their phone notifications. That wasn’t rhetoric - it was a glimpse of what it actually feels like to be in these roles right now.

But the framing, the message, the position: it landed so badly for the room, and in dozens of conversations I’ve had since, it is clear that the majority of the audience felt disappointed.

“Put the blinkers on and focus” is execution language. It’s what you say to a sports team in the middle of a match when the goal is clear and the task is to perform. It makes sense in a bounded, controllable environment. But the world isn't a sports match.

What we are living through, right now, is not bounded, and it is not controllable. The wars, geopolitical realignment, the trade disruptions, domestic political instability, the climate crises, the democratic backsliding - is not peripheral to our sector. It is the context in which everything - investment, mobility, supply chains, reputation and international collaboration is being reshaped. Framing it as a distraction to just work through? That just doesn’t cut it.

This is where most travel and event sector associations - not just US Travel Association - are struggling right now - and perhaps where some are in danger of losing sight of their original purpose: to make sense of the landscape collectively, to share perspective, test ideas, build common understanding in uncertain conditions, and to gather to drive progress.

An association’s role isn’t just to promote the sector or manage reputation. It's to help members make sense of what's happening. To say: here's what we're seeing, here's what we're hearing, here's what's shifting, here's what we're worried about, here's where we think there might be agency.

At moments like this, that sense-making function is not a “nice to have”. It is the core of the job.

And yet too often what is offered publicly is a smoothing of the narrative rather than an engagement with it. An insistence that, despite everything, the system is broadly fine and the answer is simply to keep moving forward.

Members, however, are not experiencing the world as “broadly fine”. They are dealing with disrupted travel patterns, funding cuts, immigration concerns, political risk, regulatory uncertainty, polarised workforces, reputational exposure, and deep unease about what the next few years might bring. They are already living inside the context that many of our sector leaders seem to just be trying to step around.

What members need from their associations is not insulation from reality, but help interpreting it. They need to have their challenges acknowledged, validated, understood: this is genuinely hard, these are the forces reshaping everything, we don't have all the answers, but we're not going to pretend it's not happening - we are all in this together.

I believe good leadership is about being mindfully transparent. You have to be careful about what and how you share, because it's essential (maybe even existential) to build trust and confidence. And the simplest way to do that is to be open and have hard conversations.

Association leaders need to be open about who they are talking to and what they’re learning. About what tensions are being held, what scenarios are being planned for. Because there's clearly a gap between what's being discussed privately and what's being said publicly. Between what leaders actually know and what they're willing to name. And that gap is where members are being let down.

In contrast, Zanny Minton Beddoes, Editor-in-chief of The Economist - who held the end of day keynote - struck an entirely different tone, and it was a relief.

Let’s be fair - her job is entirely different - she's literally paid to interpret the world, to look at everything happening and make sense of it, and that depth of knowledge shouldn’t be expected from Association Leaders. But what struck me was how simple it was: she just told the truth:

-      This is an unusually unstable period.

-      Power is displacing shared values.

-      Old paradigms aren't holding.

-      Many institutions are still operating as if the world hasn't fundamentally shifted.

She didn't have solutions. She wasn't trying to reassure anyone. She was just naming reality clearly. And it was a relief that someone in a position of leadership was willing to acknowledge what everyone in the room could already feel.

Geopolitics, climate, conflict, shifting power dynamics are overwhelming because they sit beyond any single organisation’s control. But they are also shaping everything our sector does. To ignore them is not to stay neutral; it is to step away from the work of sense-making that members most need.

This event industry repeatedly talks about its importance, its impact. About connection, bringing people together, operating at the intersection of cultures and economies and politics. About the deeply human nature of travel and events. We like to say that we change the world.

If that's true - if we actually believe that - then we have to be willing to acknowledge the forces that are reshaping all of it. We cannot talk about connection while avoiding what is fracturing it. We cannot talk about our impact while avoiding the context that determines whether we have any.

I'm not asking any event industry leader to solve the geopolitical and economic instability, or even to have answers. But leadership right now means being willing to name what's happening. To create space for the real conversation - the difficult ones, the uncertain ones, the ones that don't have neat conclusions. To say: here's what we're grappling with, here's what our members are telling us, here's what we don't know, here's what scares us, here's where we think we still have agency.

That's not panic. That's not politicisation. That's the actual work of leadership when the ground is moving.

Business is not going to get any more sane - but that's exactly why we can't just put our heads down and carry on as if context is a distraction.

The world will not become more stable because we choose not to look at it. Problems don't go away because we sweep them under the rug. Pretending everything's fine doesn't make anyone safer - it just leaves everyone less prepared.

Associations do not exist to make people comfortable. They exist to help people navigate reality - actual reality, not a sanitised version of it. The complex, unsettled, politically charged, emotionally demanding reality. That means creating space for difficult, uncomfortable, unfinishable conversations.

It means helping members locate themselves in a shifting landscape, without blinkers. In a world in turmoil, that's what this moment requires.