GCB @ PCMA Convening EMEA 2024
Insights, Challenges and the Art of Difficult Conversations

From 30 September to 2 October, more than 600 professionals from the global events industry gathered for a few inspiring days in Barcelona during PCMA Convening EMEA, PCMA EMEA’s annual flagship event bringing together the global business events industry for an immersive 3-day program in Europe. The theme of the event was #BePresent, #BeOpen, #BeChallenged.
The GCB participated alongside many other representatives of the German business events industry. In his role as Regional Manager Europe, the GCB’s Akram Ouzid attended the event for the first time, making him one of over 300 first-time attendees in Barcelona.

In addition to the very insightful sessions on how to work with almost anyone and how to restructure your organisation to retain and develop your talent, Akram had the opportunity to facilitate a roundtable discussion during the NextGen Level Workshop on how to build and establish a strong foundation to grow as a business events professional. The topics of discussion at the workshop ranged from mental well-being to time management and how to brand yourself on social media and were managed by various NextGen-Rockstars.

Akram's topic was how to navigate challenging conversations. The session focused on peer-to-peer sharing and the challenging conversations that were discussed included talks about promotions, salary increases, sudden change in the work environment through new management for example, hiring from the NextGen and managing and balancing the expectations of experienced and new event professionals.
From Akram's perspective, all of these topics had one key factor in common: communication. The way we approach an issue and get the message across is key to navigating these challenging conversations. When it came to talking about promotions and pay rises, many approaches were mentioned. However, the goal is to discuss this topic from the perspective of shared and common added value that is worth the company’s investment. So-called "private arguments" such as planning to start a family, moving to a bigger house, etc. - may seem important and a valid reason to ask for a salary increase or a promotion - but they lack the necessary arguments to justify the company's investment and its return on investment.

In addition, cultural and work dynamics play an important role in these conversations. Questions such as: Where does the person I'm communicating with come from? How do people communicate in his/her culture? Is it a high context culture where communication is indirect and you have to read between the lines, or is it a low context culture where communication is direct? The Hofstede model of the 6 cultural dimensions can be of great help here!
While managing the expectations of young professionals when hiring/recruiting them for a job in our industry may seem like a big challenge, having an honest conversation from the beginning about the ups and downs of working in our industry has proven to be the perfect way to deal with this issue for some of the participants who had experience of hiring young professionals. Yes, we travel a lot, yes, you get to see some great places, talk to some great people, visit and meet in some great venues, but the amount of work needed to get the job done (preparation, follow ups, etc.) must also be communicated clearly and transparently from the beginning.
All in all, it was a very enlightening and exciting first time for our young professional and we are looking forward to many more opportunities to continue the discourse on the various issues and challenges facing our industry, the latest at the upcoming PCMA Convening EMEA 2025 in Rotterdam!
