Latest / PCMA Convene Podcast / Convene Interview: Values Behind the Numbers: David Allison on What the 2025 Salary Survey Reveals About Event Planners
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- Convene Podcast Transcript Convene Interview, ep. 9 *Note: the transcript is AI generated, excuse typos and inaccuracies Magdalina Atanassova: This is the Convene Podcast. Today we’re unpacking the 2025 Salary Survey through a different lens: values. David Allison, CEO and founder of the Valuegraphics Project, is back and we dig into the survey’s big tension—high job satisfaction, lower pay satisfaction—and what it says about employment security, community, and the power of recognition. David shares practical ways leaders can retain talent and how planners can realign their roles with their values. If you’ve ever wondered ‘so what now?’ after reading the data, this episode is for you. We start now. Hi, David, and welcome back to the Convene Podcast. David Allison: Thanks for having me back. It's great to be here again. We had such a good time last time. So looking forward to this conversation. Magdalina Atanassova: Me too. So let's start with the big picture. When you reviewed the salary survey results, what stood out to you as a clear expression of the values behind planner behavior? David Allison: Wow. Start with a big question, for sure. One of the things that, you know, it just anecdotally connected for me when I think about all the planners that I know, and I know a lot of planners, and they're, you know, remarkable. The work that they do, the amount of time and effort and energy they put into their jobs, the amount of soul they put into their work. I've yet to meet one of a planner. I was going to say the gang. The whole universe of planners that I've encountered all around the world in my work as a keynote speaker. I've yet to meet anybody who doesn't deeply care about the work that they're doing. This is a caring community. And so I saw that in the results. I saw people saying, I'm putting in my blood, sweat and tears. I'm doing way more than just showing up and phoning in. And I don't feel like I'm always recognized for that. And in fact, that shows up in. In the data we use to understand planners from the value graphics studies that we've done, that there's a direct correlation back to some sets of values that we see that are around recognition and just wanting to be called out and recognized for the amount of effort that they're bringing to the table. I'm rambling now, but the incredibly important role they play inside organizations today, which is often unsung. Magdalina Atanassova: Yeah. And speaking about, you know, the big picture again, the survey showed high job satisfaction but much lower satisfaction with current compensation, which you just highlighted. So how does that tension reflect the power value of employment security? David Allison: Yeah, you know, I have a little. You might not like what I'm going to Say any group of people out there. If you say to them, do you think you're being paid enough? They're going to say, no, of course not. So it's no surprise to me to see that there's this widespread belief that everyone should be paid more. Everybody thinks that they're underpaid and overworked. So that's not unique to this profession. So take that with a grain of salt. I mean, I know a lot of people put a lot of time and effort into putting this study together, and I don't want to just like poke the balloon with a needle, but the finding that there's a lot of folks out there who don't feel like they're being properly compensated, it's not really news. What is news to me is how people are willing to stick it out and stay and be loyal and the longevity of the career that they tend to have in this industry. That seems to me. Now, I haven't gone and studied all the other industries out there and all the other kinds of people, but that seems to me to be fairly unique and an interesting thing that the data from this survey does tend to reinforce. Magdalina Atanassova: Yeah, a big percentage of the people that replied to the survey were with pretty high tenure. So, yeah, that's definitely something that's quite unique for our industry. David Allison: Yeah. And you asked me specifically about the value of employment security. So when a group of people over index on the value of employment security, what that means is they will take into account their employment security over other conditions that may present themselves. So, like a perception of not being paid enough. Well, am I not being paid enough? But at least my job is secure. And I think as in this industry, we're starting to see that security is eroding. It's becoming less and less of a sure thing, that you're going to have a job for life if. I mean, if there ever was a sure thing. But at the moment that we're recording this, there's a lot of news about layoffs in the sector. And so that employment security being eroded means that people are out of alignment with that particular value. And so other factors that in the past they may have put lower on their list of values against employment security are now going to be coming up and being a little more even. So this willingness to continue to work in a place where I feel like I'm not being paid properly could be starting. So, you know, folks who employ planners, it's time to really pay attention to the ones that you want to keep if you're going to Put them into this situation where employment security as a value is not being aligned for them. You're at risk of having a bigger flight of folks than you perhaps would like to see. So time to double down and be really good to the people that you are keeping and that you want to see stick around. Magdalina Atanassova: I'm going to ask you to focus later on quite a few tips for HR and managers employers. So I like that you're starting from now to already give some ideas on how to navigate the current environment. And you often talk about community as one of the top values for event attendees. But in this case, how might community or the lack of it be driving how planners feel about their employers and their careers? David Allison: Yeah, community is one of those very special values that fall into. There's a category of five values in the Value Graphics database and that the work that the Value Graphics research company does that we call the togetherness values. And there are different ways that people like to be together. Community is one of them. There's also belonging, relationships, friendships and family. But for community to rank so high for event planners, first off, it's not surprising to anyone, anyone who's ever been to IMAX or MPI or a site or pcma and you watch, watch the way people just like, it's a non stop. Hey. Hi. Oh my God, I haven't seen you since last. Like everybody feels connected, right? It's not like going to a conference of people I was going to make fun of, like chartered accountants or something, and I don't want them. But you know, there's just, there's this overwhelming sense of togetherness and in this case specifically around community. So as layoffs happen, job security becomes something that's under threat. The sense of community was also going to be under threat. You're going to find more and more people out of alignment with those values. So obviously for the folks who no longer have a job, this is a very difficult thing to maintain because now you don't feel like you've, you know, you've been voted off the island, right? Like you don't feel like you're part of the community anymore. But for the folks who remain, it's also a giant scar. It's parts of my community are now gone. The people I enjoyed seeing and hanging out with and being part of this community with are no longer here. And so my sense of community also feels under threat in other sectors where the employees, the base of the workforce, whatever term we want to use, has less of a ranking around something like community. It's not as much of an issue, but in this particular case for these types of people it's enormous. So we already got two strikes. Employment security isn't hanging out the way it's supposed to be to and feeling as good as it should. Community is being impacted in a major way. If I was an employer and I wanted to keep my best people who work in this particular profession, I'd be paying incredible attention to what's going on and how I can help them get those values and their other values back in alignment so that the risk of flight is reduced. Magdalina Atanassova: And when you are saying about IMAX and O, you know, or similar events where people are just saying, hey, you know, so nice to see you. I remember hearing the news of, I would say good industry friend leaving the industry for another job and few years later he returned to the industry and I remember everybody was like, ah, it's so nice to say that you're back, we missed you. David Allison: Yeah, yeah, no, it's true. And you know what, I go to some of these events for, for many, many years I've been going to IMAX because my friend Tahira is involved there. TCMA's had me over to speak once and I'm waiting for my second invitation. So anybody who's listening today, mpi. I've been a repeat offender at their events and the incentive travel executives and all kinds of other stuff. And even I feel like I'm part of the community. I mean it's a very community oriented group of people. I'm not in the profession but just by virtue of being there and being supportive and trying to share our data and our insight on how to make things work better for this, this, this industry. People are oh, hey, it's you again. And I felt a little. Tahir is going to hear this and, and laugh because I said, you know, I, I got to take a break this year, but I felt a little verklempt about not being at IMAX this year because I felt like I was missing my, my chance to connect with the community. So it's, it's, it's very definitely a, a huge factor I think in why so many people are willing to continue to work as hard as they do is because this community keeps them there. Magdalina Atanassova: I can say I definitely feel that you're part of our community. I would never see you as one of those removed keynotes that just show up randomly and never return or they return here and there. But yeah, you're part of the community. David Allison: Thank you. Magdalina Atanassova: So our results show that many planners would consider leaving their current job for a better offer, even if they feel loyal to the industry. So how does this square with your findings about the value of loyalty and how should employers interpret this tension? David Allison: Again, I'm going to point back to the survey itself. If you ask a group of people who have just told you that they don't feel like they're being paid enough, which, who's going to say, oh yeah, I'm making lots of money, I don't need any more money. There's very few people who are ever going to say that out loud, right? Maybe a couple of CEOs, even some of the CEOs that were in your study are saying, I'm not, I'm, I'm not being paid enough. And then the next question you ask them is, would you leave for a job that paid you more? They're going to go, well, well, I, I, I just told you that I don't think I'm being paid enough. And so now you're saying if I get a job that's paid more, am I going to leave? Of course I'm going to say yes to that. But here's what would really happen if somebody did come along and offer them a job. And you know, I mean, there's exceptions to every rule, but if somebody came along and offered them a job with a nominal increase of 10%, 15%, 20% increase over what they're making right now, they're going to think they're going to be excited about that. They're going to go, wow, okay, cool, 20% more money. But you know, I've heard that that organization is like this or that the CEO treats teams like that or that the senior management or the I've friends who've worked. And so all these other things are going to start to come into play. They're going to get into an interview around that offer or leading up to that offer, and they're going to be asking questions other than how much are you going to pay me? Who goes into an interview situation and sits there and goes, okay, David, do you have anything else that you want to ask? And the only question I come up with is how much money? Of course I'm going to ask about who am I working with and who and what are the expectations and what about balance? And you're going to ask questions about all the other values that this survey question did not ask you to consider. So I think if the survey question had been, whoever did this survey is going to hate me and everyone, they're going to, like, send Hitman out to get me. But the question was, if you were given another offer where all the current conditions were exactly the same and you felt like your values were aligned on all levels in exactly the same way that they are right now, and it gave you more money, would you say yes? And of course you're going to say yes. The inverse. What if that offer damaged your time to spend with your family or didn't give you any sense of community? Or. I'm making stuff up because I don't know who an individual's particular values. But if the question was, some things about this new job are not going to make you happy because they're going to give you less of what matters most to you, but we're going to give you a little more money, would you say yes under those conditions? Now, what our data and our research shows is that there's what we call financial elasticity. When a job offer or a job gives you all the things that matter to you other than money, you're willing to accept, on average, 12% less for compensation, package of benefits and salary and whatever, you'll take 12% less. If everything else about the job is a perfect fit and you go to work every day feeling like, this is the place I was supposed to be, this is the job for me, you'll take a little bit less. So, yeah, I have a little bit of a. An issue when you just ask a question that's so devoid of any context like that. If somebody offered you more money, would you say yes? Of course you're going to say yes to that question. It's kind of. It's kind of loaded. Sorry, whoever did this study, if you're. I don't. I mean, it's an incredibly valuable piece of work. Was it you? Oh, my God. Magdalina Atanassova: You're speaking to the person. But that's fine. I'm actually going to try and change the question. David Allison: Yeah. Next year, why don't you follow me and we'll work on some of these questions a bit. Because I am so sorry. This is going to make for a very funny podcast. People are going to be like, oh, my God, he got caught out. Magdalina Atanassova: No, but see, the survey is quite long, so you have to limit it. You can't really put all the nuances in a survey. Especially when people are so surveyed out. It's so hard to get responses to a survey. So I hear you, and I definitely take the criticism. I think it's very important that we hear. And especially a person like you who does that for A living designing the correct questions for the correct group of people, you know, and knowing the group of people. So thank you. David Allison: Okay. Magdalina Atanassova: Thank you. David Allison: I'm glad that that ended well. Magdalina Atanassova: You're still my friend. Don't worry. David Allison: Anybody's watching this on YouTube, they're going to be like watching me turn shades of red now. But. Okay, let's carry on. Let's carry on. Magdalina Atanassova: No worries. No worries, really. That's why I invited you to hear your feedback, whatever that may be. So, Demi, how can leaders use values to retain talent, especially when demographics don't reveal much about satisfaction or turnover risk? David Allison: Well, you know, values is a word that a lot of people have different definitions for. And it can be kind of confusing to talk about values sometimes because we've all been talking about values for decades without any facts or stats or data behind them. We've just been making up words that make us feel good and saying, these are our corporate values. These are my values, the values of my team. We pick any pretty word. I call it business poetry. Right? We just get to pick words. So I like to take it out of the conversation about values and instead use this little phrase. What we're really talking about here is what matters most to people. What matters most to people is their values. And values are what matters most to people. But let's just talk about it in terms of what matters most to people. So your question, how can leaders use what matters most to people to create better workplace environment and to reduce churn and to get more engagement and trust and loyalty and all those sorts of things. I think it's pretty straightforward, right? If you know what matters most to people, if you know that your particular workforce over indexes on this and this and this and this, that, let's say personal responsibility, ambition and financial security are the three things that over index for your workforce compared to the folks at your competitor, organization or the general pool of folks that you're pulling, your talent pool that you're pulling from the people who are attracted to you, who stick around and are high performers. They share this set of values. Well, then that's the secret to success from an HR perspective and a people and culture perspective, because you know what matters most to people. And so all you have to do is make everything that you can about that stuff. Just say, that's my North Star. How can I put policies in place that are going to give people more of that? Connect the dots for people and show them how everything about coming to work at this place and putting your heart and soul into it. Like we know people in this sector do aligns with these things that matter most to them. They just want more of that stuff. And the beauty of this, because I know everybody's coming at leaders in the HR space and the people in culture space and saying, oh, you got to do this, you got to do this. You got, there's a never ending list of stuff you have to do. But if you know what matters most, you know what. Also, you can say no to the stuff. You don't have to worry about. If, if your teams don't have a high index compared to competition or the talent pool or the general population around a value like, I don't know, I'm just gonna pick an easy one to talk about. To, to, to make my point here, let's say family isn't an important thing to your team and it isn't to everybody. Everybody sort of assumes that family is important to everybody. It's not, it's not important to everybody. In fact, it's not in my top 10. But if you know that, then you don't need to be putting things in place to help people spend more time with their family and have a better relationship with their family and given you putting things in place that are about what they care about. So the assumptions, in much of what happens in people and culture and human resources, there's assumptions about what's important to people and family's one of them. Everybody wants to be with their family. No, not, not, not really. That's, that's a, that's a major fallacy that so many millions and billions and maybe even trillions of dollars are being spent to satisfy that. Now there's going to be people listening to this who are just like, well, who doesn't love their family? Well, it's not about not loving your family, but it's about priorities for me. We'll talk, we'll make this personal because it makes me sound like a bad person. But, you know, family's not in my top values, but doesn't mean I'm a bad person. For me, I have in the place where most people would have family. In terms of how high up my level of importance around values is. I have the value of friendship. And so there are certain members of my family who fall into that category who have graduated from being family and are now my friends. And I need to spend time with them or I'm out of alignment with my values. But just blanket, am I, is it important to me to be with all of my family, with any family, like just the general sense of, no, there's certain. There's people in my family who I don't care if I ever see them again, frankly, which sounds terrible, but there's certain people in my family who I would, you know, I'd step in front of a bus for. And the way my values come together, that's how it works for me. So, long story short, if you're trying to put policies and procedures and build a culture that keeps me, you have to recognize that I'm different than what your assumptions might be about what's going to matter to people. So find the data, stop using values and what matters most to people in these sort of stereotypical ways and figure out exactly what it is, and then use that information to create everything you can that will keep people engaged and motivated and inspired. Long winded answer to a very short question. But the coffee's kicking in, it's early morning. Magdalina Atanassova: I like it, I like where it's going. So kudos to your coffee. So speaking of using values the wrong way, the first thing that popped into my mind is those mission and company values that everyone puts on their walls. And sometimes they're like, just took them off the Internet. David Allison: Like, oh my gosh, don't get me started on that. Companies will go out and spend bags of money, swimming pools full of money, to figure out what their company values are. And, you know, no offense to the companies that. Well, I guess a little bit of offense to the companies that do this because the methodologies they're using to figure that stuff out are so inefficient and have so much bias baked in. You send out a survey to the staff and say, is your family important to you? Even the people like me, for whom it isn't, are going to say yes, because you feel like a terrible person if you answer the question in some other way. So you need to find objective ways to figure out what the values of your workforce are. And you also need to understand that the values of the organization and the values of the workforce are two very different things. The values of the organization, that's like the rules of engagement, I like to call them guiding principles. Here's how we want you to behave when you come to work. And so one of them might be, you know, collaboration and teamwork. Cool. That's a, that's not a value. That's how we want you to behave when you come here. You are to be collaborative and feel like you're part of a team and work as a team. But if you want people to adopt Those guiding principles and those ways of behaving, then you need to show them how it connects to what matters most to them. So let's say your workforce over index is on creativity as one of the 56 values that we may find in the biographics database. So creativity is super important. It's a driving factor for the people who come to work in this organization that has chosen teamwork and collaboration as one of their guiding principles, their corporate values. You need to say to your and, and do and everything you. Everything you. All the different ways you have to communicate the with, with messages and with signals and with policies and everything. You need to show that by being collaborative and behaving in a way that is about teamwork, it's going to boost your creativity. This is the vehicle through which you get to be more creative. And if you do that, then people are going to look at collaboration teamwork as a corporate value and say, wow, it makes perfect sense to me. Why wouldn't I be like that? But if you don't, people are just coming to work saying, I'm a creative person, I want to be more creative. I appreciate things that are all about creativity. And I don't see any of it going on around here. And that doesn't. The collaboration teamwork, I don't get how that connects back to me. So making that connection is something we get asked to do a lot of in my keynote work, but also the research work from the biographics research companies. You know, someone's just spent all this money and time getting the CEO to sign off on this set of values and then they're like, but nobody's doing any of that. How do we embed this in the team? Say, well, it's not about, that's not about your team. You got to figure out what your team is about and then show them how to connect the dots. Really quite simple. It's complex how you get there, but it's, it's quite a simple thought when you're think about it. Magdalina Atanassova: And do you feel a kind of. Let me rephrase it. Is it an obvious misalignment when our survey respondents say, you know, those that took extra responsibilities during staffing shortages are now more dissatisfied. So is that kind of obvious misalignment? We gave them a lot of work. We did not compensate them in any shape or form. And what can, what can be done better to align it? David Allison: Well, I'm really going out on a limb here and making some generalizations, but you know, based on the data we have on Event planners and what I know about what matters most to them and what their values are in various. Through various values, the definitions of those values can be. Okay, let me just look. Definition of terms for a second. So there's. There's 56 values that we have found from surveying a million people around the world. And so whenever we look at a workforce, we can see which of those 56 values are popping up at the top and the most important to that particular group of people, what matters most to them. But each value has hundreds of definitions. So you also have to look at what does that value mean to this group of people. What family means to you and what it means to me could be two very, very different things. Right? So in obvious ways and in less obvious ways for meeting and event planners, what we know is that recognition and just being. Being given a pat on the back is incredibly important to them. So here's the situation you've put forward. Someone has stepped up to the plate because of staffing shortages or an emergency situation or whatever. They've gone and done the extra mile on top of the extra mile they're already doing just by normal being who they are and putting their heart and soul into this work, like all meeting and event planners I've ever met do. And they take on extra responsibility from the management's perspective, from the corporation's perspective, it's like, wow, you're lucky that you still have a job and that you're taking on those extra responsibilities. That's great. I'm focused on how we're getting through the next fiscal quarter or the report or whatever I'm doing here, forgetting to go back to those folks and say, you know what you did that extra thing, you put in more. You already put in more than you, probably than other people just by virtue of who you are and what you do for a living. And now you've gone and done all this extra stuff on top of that. I gotta say, thanks to you somehow. And you know, the organizations that are able to give people a financial thank you, that's one way. But if you know what their values are, there's all kinds of other ways you can say thank you. That's just about giving people more of what matters most to them. I sound like a broken record because it's just so easy once you know what matters most to people, how to get them to be excited and inspired and motivated and engaged with their jobs. You know, there's a lot of talk right now. I'm off on a new tangent here, so interrupt me if you want to. But there's a lot of talk in the industry right now about how do we get the next generation of people to come into this industry when we're all feeling so burnt out and working so hard. And the narrative that goes out into the world from people in this industry is like, wow, we work a lot and we don't get paid enough. And then we're like, well, why doesn't anybody want to come and work with us? Why don't the new kids want to come and hang out? Well, you're not painting a really great picture of what, what it's like to come into this industry. So we need to change the narrative a little bit and start being about, talking about why this industry is so great for people for whom this, this and this are the things that matter most. So drawing those, connecting those dots and saying, you know what, there's like any industry, there's some challenges in this industry, there's things that we would like to change and we're all working on that. But you know what it's great for? It's for people who are motivated by this and this and this and this. So if that sounds like you, you should be thinking about a career in the meeting and events planning world because boy, you're going to get a lot of that. So yeah, I mean, keeping people happy, attracting new people, reducing churn, boosting engagement and trust and loyalty and getting people inspired and excited and motivated, all of it comes down to how can we give people more of what matters most to them. That's the only way that you're going to change what happens next, which is the tagline I use for my speaking. If you understand what matters most to people, you can change what happens next. That's the key. This has turned into a commercial and it's not supposed to be that, but I think it's a new way for people to think about people. And so I do get excited about it because it's, it's so powerful. Magdalina Atanassova: That's true. And I was about to ask you about mid career professionals, but then I kind of answered my own question just based on what you said about her career and those people that have done the extra work. So mid career is there, it's right there with them. So I'm actually going to skip that question. Makes no sense at this point. So for those planners who report feeling stuck so valuing the industry, but not their specific role and it can be just pointing the ladder where they are, what advice would you give managers or HR leads to tap into their team's values to re engage them. David Allison: There's two answers I want to give you here for an individual who's feeling stuck. And this isn't just about event planners, this is about anybody. If you're trying to figure out what's the next step in my career, should I invest my time and energy and resources in going in this direction or that direction and do I even want to be here anymore? And how do I get to a place where I'm feeling more satisfied and happy and excited about my life and about my role and my work? You need to figure out what your own values are. And once you see what matters most to you with some precision, then it becomes really obvious because you kind of have this list of, you know, if I have this, this, this, this and this, I'm going to be happy and wow, I don't have much of that or that. So how can I become, how can I get more of those things in my life? And then that'll answer your question about, okay, I got to go this direction because that's where I'm going to get more of those things. Right? So here's. So there's a couple of ways you can figure out your own values. Again, a commercial, and I don't mean it to be that this isn't my company, but this is a company that has licensed our database. It's called values identifier. Values identifier.com I think it's 59 bucks. You can go and take a 150 question quiz and it will tell you using the hundreds of millions of data points we have about what people actually what matters most to people. It'll tell you what your values are. So now you have like this magic list and you can the exact definition for you of those values, how they show up in your life, what your blind spots are, all this really great information that I've used this with friends and with colleagues and I get hired to come and talk about the results. And people's eyes just light up when they can see. Oh, there's the clear path to happiness. If I find ways to get more of these few things, everything's going to be great. But if you don't want to go and do the quiz, here's some ways you can start to figure out what your own values are. One really clear signal is to ask yourself and sit down and be really honest with yourself about this. Couple of different questions. First one, what are you doing when time stands still, when you lose all track of time and you like, look up and you're like, oh my God, I missed dinner. What are you doing then? That's going to give you a clue to what's most important to you, what matters most to you. Those are the things you can just like sink into and then find ways to get more of that in your work life that's helped you start to make decisions. Another great one is to look at your calendar. If I could share a screen, I'd show you my calendar. I'm sure it's like everybody else's. It's like covered with little colored blocks of time and you're trying to figure out a way to manage all the stuff we all have to do. There's blank spots in there. Those blank spots. What do you choose to do in those blank spots? That's another clue to what matters most to you. So you look at what you're doing in your blank spots in your calendar. Figure out what you're doing when time stands still. There's a whole bunch of other resources you can tap into about how to figure this stuff out on your own. If you go to my website@david allisoninc.com there's a resources page. I think it's backslash resources. And there's all kinds of stuff like questions you can ask yourself and quizzes you can take and all kinds of things like that. That'll help. So if you're feeling stuck as an organ, as, as a, as a person, figure out what your values are. Do whatever you need to do to get more of those things in your life, more of what matters most to you. Your question, though, is about how do leaders help people? Well, I think it's the same thing. I think it's encouraged the folks that you're concerned about. It's like, I'm a leader and you're my, you're my employee. Magda, I'm noticing that you're, you're just like, you're not who you were a couple of years ago, that you're, you're kind of dialing it in right now and I'm not seeing all the energy and excitement, enthusiasm I used to see. Well, in your quarterly check in meeting, I'm going to say to you, hey, I noticed a little bit of a change. I don't think you're as happy here as you used to be. Tell me what's going on. And you're going to say the obvious things. Everyone says, well, I feel like I'm working too much and I'm not making enough money. Okay, cool. Whether or not I can cope with that or deal with that as your leader, I don't know. But let's see if we can get you aligned around some of the other things that bring you joy and make you happy in your day to day life. And so here's the values identifier quiz. Why don't you go do that? Or here's a couple of hacks. Check your calendar for the blank spots, Take a look at when time stands still, come back and tell me what are some of these things that really, really, really matter to you. Let's see what we can do about adjusting your responsibilities in a way that will give you more of those opportunities. If creativity is something that you used to feel and now because of the way jobs have changed, like, I'll tell you what, my husband is going through something similar to this right now. He was in a role where he used to feel like he had a lot more creativity, a lot more ability to impact things that were happening on a day to day basis by coming up with good ideas. He's not in a creative profession. He's not a, you know, a painter or anything. It was just about being able to be a problem solver. But now he's at the top of the pyramid and he has so many other people that are solving all the problems that there's less for him to solve. And so he's kind of feeling like, I don't get to be the guy who comes up with the cool ideas anymore because that's what this person's job is or that person in these circumstances. So he's feeling like that value is a little bit of out of alignment right now. And so just helping people figure out how to get past those blocks can sometimes as a leader be the best thing you can do to help your people feel more engaged and motivated and inspired. Magdalina Atanassova: And I'd say that's the key to retaining people for a little bit longer. And may I add one more question? After you ask all these questions, when speaking to your employee, always ask and what else? And keep on digging because the first answer is never the real answer. A little tip from Michael Bungistenier I had on the podcast as well. And I've taken this to heart, so I have to share it every, every time I, I hear, you know, an advice about questions and what else is such a powerful question. David Allison: It's a great one. I have another one to add to your, your, your repertoire. Why does that matter to you? Oh yeah, and someone will say, blah, blah, blah, blah, Blah. And you go, and why does that matter to you? Blah, blah, blah, blah. Why does that matter to you? If you keep asking that often enough, you'll get down to a value. It'll be about my creativity, my personal growth, my ambition, my family, my friends, my whatever the place where it stops. And there is no more answers to that question. Now you're talking about values. Magdalina Atanassova: Yeah, love it. Gonna link to a bunch of resources and also the resources page on your website that you mentioned so you know, in our previous episode. Because I think it also holds a lot of tips that people need to hear. So looking ahead to 26, what are the missed opportunities for planners and employers when it comes to aligning values, incentives and workplace culture that maybe we haven't covered so far? Because we covered quite a bit. David Allison: Oh wow, you're asking the crystal ball question. You know, okay, you asked a crystal ball question. I'm going to give you a crystal ball answer. In many parts of commercial life and many parts of business right now, I'm seeing a real shift towards trying to understand who people really are. In the marketing world, for example, there's a whole lot of talk about how values driven marketing is the answer that continuing to use demographic stereotypes to understand people doesn't make a lot of sense because you know, people don't. Our demographics are a terrible way to understand who people. I mean, let's Gen Z for an example. How much time have we all spent running around talking about Gen Z and what they want and what they don't like? You know, there are a third of the populace. There's 100 million Gen Z in the United States alone. And you're trying to tell me they're all the same on anything. I mean, it just doesn't make any sense. So there's this realization happening in politics, it's happening in sales and marketing, it's happening in leadership, it's happening in all these sectors. Everybody's kind of starting to realize that the old fashioned ways of thinking about people just aren't working anymore. And that people are behaving in ways we seemingly just can't understand. Why are these people doing this? And why did they all vote that way? And why is it all happening like this over here now? And why aren't people responding to our. So everybody's kind of waking up to this and starting to just sort of look around like they're been in a big hibernation and say, okay, well what are we? How do we do this better? The event industry has always been about bringing people Together and making things happen because of that magic that happens when you bring people together. So if we could just apply this same thinking to the events industry and really get to a modern, contemporary, data driven understanding of who people are based on what's on the inside. Not their job titles, their CVs, their seniority level, their gender, their income, their job, their occupation, none of that stuff. Who they are on the inside because of what we inherently do in this sector, which is bring people together. If you're bringing them together in this context of what truly matters to them, I think that's the rocket fuel that takes this whole industry to the next level and becomes even more obviously a power player in how businesses succeed in the future. Businesses are starting to wake up to it right now because in a post Covid world we have distributed work environments. We're always, you know, some async environment, all this stuff going on. When you get people together, they know now that it's important that this happens and that there's some connectivity and togetherness. Our data backs this up so they're paying attention. What's going to make them pay attention even more is if we can show them even bigger, more transformative results from bringing people together. And that's only going to happen if we start to understand people better. If we're in the business of bringing people together and we're using the latest information on who people are, then this thing's going to explode. So there's my crystal ball response to. Magdalina Atanassova: Your crystal ball question, I take it. So for anyone reading the salary survey and asking, so what now? I hope they can listen to our conversation first and then start to think a bit deeper about who they're employing or who they are as a person, if they're feeling stuck or if they're feeling out of alignment. But how would you recommend they apply your work to start creating more values aligned workplaces Again, this is going to. David Allison: Sound like a plug, but you know, I'm going to tell you about a book that I've written that's got some really useful tools in it. But just to make sure everybody knows I'm not just trying to make a bunch of money here. When you put a book up on Amazon, you make like a buck a piece and all the rest of it goes to Jeff Bezos so he can build another rocket. So this isn't about me trying to get rich. This book that I've written called the Death of Demographics because my publisher said that would help me sell more copies and be very dramatic and accomplish that goal, the Death of Demographics has a 15 question quiz in it. And then you can take that quiz and I give you the answer key and how to administer it and all this stuff and send it out to the teams you're trying to understand. And based on how they respond, it'll point you to one of 15 chapters in the book and say, okay, the folks that have just responded to this survey, they're most like the people in this chapter, this archetype, and here's some things you need to know about them. Now, it's not as accurate obviously, as working with the Value Graphics research company and getting, you know, academic precision, because it's, it's based on the assumption that there's only 15 kinds of people out there, which is ridiculous. There's millions of kinds of people out there. And. But for a book and 15 question quiz that you can do for the cost of I don't even know what it sells for, 1499 or something, it's a pretty powerful tool and it can start to focus you in the right direction. We've had organized large organizations use this as a way to understand their workforce and write back to me and say, okay, well that just cleared the decks of a whole bunch of things we don't need to think about anymore. If most of our folks fit into this archetype and we drive in that direction, then all that other stuff we don't need to worry about. We can take all those resources and all that time and that brain power and focus it in this way. So it's a very useful thing, even though it's still a little bit like playing the piano with your fists, right? It's not Rachmaninoff, but at least you're playing the right instrument, right? At least you're banging on the values piano instead of the broken demographic guitar over in a corner there with no strings on it. Magdalina Atanassova: I think that's a good start, at least for people to get a taste of what they can achieve with more precise research. David Allison: And here's an offer. If anybody buys the book and does that and wants to talk about the results, send me a DM. Find me on LinkedIn. Lord knows I'm not shy. I'm all over the place. Just Google my name and you'll find me. Tell me that you use the, it's called the Archetype, the Values Archetype Survey out of the Death of Demographics and that you want to discuss the results and I'll jump on a call, I'll walk you through it and tell you how to. How to use it. So there you go, Some free consulting for anybody who wants it. Magdalina Atanassova: Awesome. And now I'll stop the recording and we'll go back to the questions I'm asking on the salary survey to discuss them one by one. I'm kidding. Was there anything we didn't mention? We definitely should before we wrap up. David Allison: Huh? You know, I end my keynotes this way, and I think it's worth. It's worth mentioning we've talked about how using values to understand people is a far more effective and efficient way of doing things. And not only for this reason, but in large part because using demographics to understand people is not efficient. Gen Z are not all the same as each other. Women aren't all the same as each other. Gen Z women are not all the same as each other, and so on. But the biggest reason we should do this is because continuing to use those sorts of assumptions about people, demographic or not, like we talked about the. The assumption that everybody's motivated by family, like, there's a lot of assumptions that are going on, and those assumptions are stereotypes. They're just stereotypes. And those stereotypes are what props up and continues to fuel ageism and sexism and racism and homophobia and ableism and classism and all these problems that we're trying to figure out a way to get out of and do better around. And the answer is really quite simple, is if we could just stop thinking about people that way, continue to use demographics for what they're good for, but what they're not good for is helping us understand people. And so if we stop using demographics to understand people and start using what is important to them on the inside and what brings us together, the values we have in common, then we can not only do better in our jobs and, you know, create more engaged workplace culture and create happier employees and be happier ourselves in our roles, all those things happen. But we can also make the world a little bit better because we're not perpetuating those myths that lead to all those terrible things. So, you know, values bring us together. They show us what we have in common. Demographics push us apart and reinforce what we have that makes us different. And you know what? One thing I know, nothing good in history has ever happened. By doubling down on what makes us different. The only way to solve any problem is to find out the things we have in common, see ourselves in each other, and then using that common ground as a place to stand together, see what we can do about fixing some of the problems we're facing. So values are the way we can get to that place. We can solve so many problems in the world if we can just see what we have in common first and then tackle the problems together. Magdalina Atanassova: I love it. And I definitely see the alignment with the salary survey results. Thinking about the people first, their values and then working with the numbers. I think it's a quite powerful tool. David Allison: Yeah, we're a sociological data company. The value graphics research company is. And sociology quant data is like what, what are you talking about? Sociologists like to sit down with like 12 people and have in depth conversations with them. Not 1 million people like we've done and do surveys and start chopping numbers. But in, in all that data, your survey, my surveys, surveys everywhere. In all that data, there are humans that that represents. And I think sometimes we forget when we're looking at data that we have to take that data and apply it to humanity and apply it to human beings and then sort of translate it back out to being qualitative. So quant is great, but it's using quant to understand things in a qual way is where they become useful. Magdalina Atanassova: Well said. Well, David, thank you so much for bringing a different nuance to our survey results because we're doing our best, but I think it's very helpful to see it from your perspective. David Allison: So I'm glad that you're continuing to do this survey and that you've got historical data and you'll have in the future and you can measure, see how things are going, how people are feeling. It's a great measure of emotion if nothing else. Right? Yeah, no, it's fantastic. Good work. Magdalina Atanassova: Thank you. Thank you. And I'm coming back to you next year. Mark my word for some advice. David Allison: Okay, sounds great. Magdalina Atanassova: Thank you. Remember to subscribe to the Convene Podcast on your favorite listening platform to stay updated with our latest episodes. For further industry insights from the Convene team, head over to PCMA.org/convene. My name is Maggie. Stay inspired. Keep inspiring. And until next time.