5 reasons why you should pay for a good mental health speaker at your event
Where do I start?
Investing in the services of a good speaker at an event is always great value for money, whatever their subject. They have a wealth of experience, know their subject and have the ability to convey that to your audience in an engaging and relatable way. This sets the tone of the event far better than a (potentially) drab drawl from the visiting CEO. The numbers on the screen might be exciting to him but are unlikely to inspire the audience!
Of course, they may well want to know that your company is performing well but only from the point of view of job security, above that the figures really only mean a lot to your investors. What your employees really want to know is, if the company remains viable, is advancing in tandem with our ever evolving world and also, critically, that you care about them as people.
1. Setting the mood
Whilst a large number of attendees might be excited about your event, the odds are that most of them are seeing it as a great way of getting out of work for a day! As a business organising an event you know this and don’t pretend that you don’t!
It doesn’t matter if you have an exciting new product launch, a progressive restructuring of the company, or the event is just to get everyone together for an annual briefing of what’s new. Your employees are not as thrilled about the information you’re imparting as much as the Board of Directors.
And you need them to be excited! You need them to be as receptive as possible, you want them to listen and be engaged and feel that it’s important that they are there. A day of drab facts and figures is not going to achieve this, the delegates will probably leave as they came, uninspired.
Employing the services of a professional speaker can lift the tone of the whole event, if chosen wisely, and transform the mindset of the delegates. This you do want!
2. Make me feel important
MMFI. Everyone needs to feel important in order to feel worthy, it’s personnel 101 and something that some companies are renowned for being either very good at, or appallingly bad at. The front line of any business is incredibly important, the people serving the customers, the people delivering the goods or the salesmen on the road. These people are the shop front for your business, they are the people you will be judged upon as a company and their attitude with your customers and can make or break their relationship with your brand.
A couple of years ago I was asked to speak for the Warwick Business School Alumni, the subject was ‘Truly Effective Communication’. During the research I did for the talk I came across some interesting, and troubling, research data about how the people in the hierarchy of a company felt about communication.
It was startling, to say the least! The data, collected over thousands of companies and millions of employees showed that 90% of the people on the ground floor of a company felt that really effective communication was imperative.
When people in middle management were asked, 87% believed that it was crucial in the smooth running of the company whilst. When senior management were questioned, only 64% felt that proper communication really mattered.
I was staggered, to put it mildly! Everything in life is about how we communicate with each other, if senior management want a productive and stable business then everyone needs to know, very clearly, what is expected of them. And, as I’ve learnt from many years in business myself, shit falls, fast!
We ran a very successful Corporate Entertainment business and I dealt with hundreds of companies, hotels, event organisers etc..and I could always tell from the attitude of the person I was dealing with what the boss would be like. If the receptionist at the hotel didn’t care or was rude, I could guarantee that the General Manger (when I met him) would be rude, and probably arrogant. Flip-side of the coin, if the receptionist couldn’t do enough to help then the management would be the same, as I said…SHIT FALLS!
The moral in the story, let your people know that you care about them, that you want them to feel secure and you will be clear in letting them know what your expectations of them are.
3. Security is everything
Mental Health has become a huge subject over recent years and is spoken about much more openly now that it ever has been in the past. One thing remains true though, in the workplace, your employees still don’t want to share their challenges about their mental health for fear of losing their jobs.
For you as a company, this is counter-productive on so many levels and is something that really does need to be worked on. Until you eliminate the stigma that surrounds mental health issues within the company you cannot achieve a truly harmonious and secure environment.
Any member of your team who is struggling mentally needs support and reassurance, being terrified of losing their job achieves exactly the opposite of this. Experiencing this anxiety on top of everything else they are battling with will only to serve to knock their confidence and lower their self-esteem even further, and you want them to be at the top if their game.
Having a Mental Health Speaker at your event shows that you, as a company, are committed to making changes that will benefit everyone. It shows that you are open to dialogue without judgement and, potentially, opens doors to a much greater sense of job security for those experiencing challenges. This, in turn, lowers their anxiety levels which will improve their performance at work and at home. It’s a win, win.
4. Foster Resilience
Resilience is key for everyone, without it, we fall and never get up again. A good mental health speaker will have a story of mental strength, mental health struggles and how resilience helped them to overcome in spite of the struggles continuing.
A speaker who is open to discussing their own challenges will encourage everyone to realise that they’re not alone. The loneliness that can accompany mental health illness is crippling and impacts on every area of life.
There are tools that we can use to help but we hear this so much nowadays that the actual message can get lost in all the noise. Also, being told via posters etc…scattered around the company just becomes background noise and the message itself becomes lost.
People sometimes need a wake up call and having a professional speaker come in and put a different slant on the same old, same old can jolt people into realising that are strategies that can help them. Knowing that the company is behind them as well will make it much easier for them to believe that making changes is actually possible.
Belief is one of the keys to building resilience, knowing you can make it through and that the support is there for you as well is critical to enable people to bounce back.
5. Use the speaker as a springboard to better co-operation
If your company is planning to start or extend a mental health programme in the workplace there can be no better way of kickstarting it than with a professional speaker who has been there, done that and understands the importance of it. Not only the input you can make as a company but also how they should take self-responsibility for their own mental health and how they can take steps towards doing this.
No organisation is solely responsible for the mental health of the people they work with, the individual has to play their part. If they don’t there isn’t going to be much you can do to help except let them know that you will support them. Self-help is critically important in all areas of health, both physical and mental, but very often people just don’t know where to start.
You, as an organisation can do a lot at very low cost to help enable your workforce to take better care of themselves and, very often, just knowing that you care enough to encourage them will be enough to spur them on. The healthier your staff, the more productive they will be!
So, a good mental health speaker isn’t just there to talk about mental health, they are there to encourage, reassure, empathise and motivate people into being better. And, of course, there are speakers who can talk on various subjects applicable to your business but, in terms of enabling your workforce and fostering goodwill, you’d be hard pushed to beat the effectiveness of people like me!
Film:- ‘Kingdom of Us’ – Netflix https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fc8_spETMBY
TED Talk:- ‘Why my Autistic children don’t need a cure’ – YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xts1F-PoUNA
Book:- ‘Unravelled’ – Amazon https://www.amazon.co.uk/Unravelled-inspirational-story-journey-darkness-ebook/dp/B00L1ENC0O/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1563290341&sr=8-1
