COVER STORY Most of MetroConnections’ work has returned to inperson, but internal changes, including the elimination of siloed business units, have paid benefits as business has returned to normal.
And it keeps staff on track, with weekly 90-minute L10 meetings where everyone checks in on the important metrics. “I think it’s just that general cadence that helps companies stay on track,” she says. “It takes discipline and accountability as a leadership team to do it. It isn’t just like a magic wand.” Adoption of EOS actually increased during COVID as companies had to make difficult decisions to ensure their survival. “They had to get down to brass tacks,” Prato says. “They had to be like ‘We need to look at everything we do and does this fit in with what our core focus is? Or do we actually have to pivot?’” MetroConnections tears down silos A similar shift to virtual events took place at metroConnections, a 35-year-old leader in producing large-scale events and conferences. While 2019 remains the best year the company ever had, 2023 is coming close. “We’re happy to be back,” says Tom McCulloch, chief marketing officer and co-owner. But back in March 2020, that was no sure thing. Much like with INGCO, clients shut down events almost immediately. “There were definitely a few weeks of ‘Oh my God, what are we going to do’ panic,” says CEO David Graves. “But we got to work pretty quickly with leadership, our team, to devise the plan to survive this and to pivot to virtual quickly and use the resources and the people. We did it very quickly and we got up and running to be able to offer a solution to clients.” Back then, the company had four distinct business divisions: a conference services division that did meeting management, name badges, online registration and other services; an event division that focused on large networking events and related pieces like décor, furniture and centerpieces; a transportation division that picked people up at airports, got them to hotels and brought them to offsite events; and then there was the fast-growing production division focused on general stage production and speaker management. “What COVID taught us was we had a lot of walls in
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