The usual practice on invitations to request invitees for confirmation of attendance is intended to firm up the guest list and establish catering needs and reservations at hotels as well as champagne consumption. Still, confirmed attendees to a meeting can simply not show up or send a text message at the last minute with a vague excuse, “sorry, something came up” to declare their non-attendance.
Can the organizer of an event cancel just as abruptly?
Unless a meeting is prescribed by the company’s by-laws like a board or annual stockholders meeting, it seems easy enough to cancel or postpone, if all the attendees are notified in time by text or e-mail. And reasons for canceling do not even need to be catastrophic like a typhoon or fire, maybe the sudden migraine attack of the CEO. Even pedestrian reasons will suffice — the boss needed to go to Bora.
Scrapping a meeting is occasioned by the convener’s not answering his phone when an hour has already elapsed from the start time. Secretaries who untangle meetings do not need to give any particular reason for the boss’s absence and are seldom required to even think up of a credible excuse. They just say the boss is unavailable and the meeting will be rescheduled — you can take home the garlic rice and tomatoes.
When a meeting is called by the top summoning those lower in the food chain, the appointment cannot be canceled by those in the latter category. The higher up though can abruptly find such meeting unnecessary — I’ll just send you an e-mail on the subject. I don’t think we need to meet, after all. You can go ahead and get your eye cataract fixed as scheduled. See me when you can see me.
Frequently canceling meetings at the last minute is a bad habit. The routine occurrence of abrupt changes of schedules becomes a trait that then attaches to someone perceived as volatile. If meetings with this particular person seldom materialize, schedules with him are no longer calendared.
Some meetings are not canceled, but even moved earlier. (I really miss you.) These entail mutually satisfying expectations between two consenting adults, with no minutes taken on what transpired. The dates and times don’t even appear on the phone calendar.
Recently, there has been a new protocol on meetings that require its own rules of etiquette. What does an invitee do if the meeting is not cancelled but her participation in it merely scrapped — oh so sorry, but you are no longer invited. Please don’t show up and embarrass the receptionist.
Canceled invitations are different from cancelled appearances. The former is on the demand side of the equation — one’s presence is no longer welcome. The latter is a voluntary decision to snub an occasion due to some recent pique.
This new normal of a canceled invitation requires a proper reaction for the dis-invited. The media (old and new) are sure to try to cajole a reaction from the dropped guest. Here are some possible reactions.
Be honest. Of course, I’m disappointed. I had a good power point presentation ready for the meeting to which I had been asked not to go. As for this second non-invitation to the social event of the year, it’s too bad. I had a nice blue gown which I now have to put back in its box in the closet with new mothballs. I hope there will be other receptions I can wear this gown to. Of course, it’s the prerogative of the host to have a last-minute alteration of the guest list, and remove one plate from the head table.
Mention the faux pas as an administrative glitch. The one in charge of invitations should have be a bit more careful next time to vet the list. It will save on mail and printing to screen the invitees before they are alerted. Anyway, I’m sending back the invitation for recycling.
Anticipate the trolls. I was waiting for the cancellation of the invitation as I was sure there must have been a mistake. I didn’t want to send my regrets since such a notice was sure to be misinterpreted. Anyway, I hadn’t dressed up yet.
Hospitality now has new rules on invitations. Anyway, there are surely many other events where invitations are not necessary… or even expected.
A. R. Samson is chair and CEO of Touch DDB.
