Slow observed that golf
bets are won before the first hole and after the eighteenth.
I am ten minutes to an
hour early for group meetings, depending on the meeting. If they are
important enough for me to attend in the first place, I want to have
sufficient time to work with everyone who has something for me.
Similarly, if I am
unfamiliar with the rhythm of a meeting, I’ll set aside a half hour
after the performance to make sure I’m available for gain.
Some meetings profitably
continue for an hour after they finish and others have people rushing
for the doors when the buzzer goes off. I learn which is which from
experience.
There’s a rhythm to just
being present. If I don’t have an immediate activity, I’m just
available, which attracts people who need to see me.
I had a nominal superior
who used to frown when I would leave for a monthly industry meeting
an hour early. He liked to be busy with internal urgent/not important
crises.
“Well, save me a seat,”
he would say.
Then he would get there
late, while I was running the nametag table, working with the audience. I always got back to the office after
he did.
That continued to bother
him at an unconscious level, and every month he had to think it
through again.
Coming back later didn’t
bother me. I went to the meeting to work with people who came, and if
that didn’t just occur during the scheduled time, what did I care?
One day he asked me why I
consistently got such easy access to the top people in our market.
There’s things I need to
do by myself, things I need to do with my team, but most forward
motion comes from working with others. Joy’s
Law is ““No matter who you are, most of the smartest people
work for someone else.”
Working with the smartest
people is the hardest to schedule tightly. Forming a better idea of
optimal scheduling is easier on me.
Please join us at the
Capital
Technology Management Hub on February 12 at 6:30 for 300 seconds
of Rainmaker
18 – Leadership, Technology, and Change opening for Michael
Clark presenting Social
Media: Evolving In The Workplace at TeqCorner
1 comment:
Dick:
Tight scheduling around meetings is a false gain. Even if there is nothing happening before or after (probability of that is about equal to hitting the $275 Million lottery), you are covered for an unexpected traffic jam on the beltway or the angst of making the meeting on time.
Same is true for the next appointment after the meeting.
Who comes early to a meeting and hangs around to turn off the lights after? Perception is it's someone important.
Why waste the opportunity?
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