Daniel J. Gisser
“Make every meeting you hold be the best meeting ever.” These were words of advice from one of my managers many years ago during my corporate career.
It was an odd situation. The manager was an extremely high executive, #2 in a Fortune 100 company. Due to a reorganization I ended up reporting to him for a couple months. We barely knew each other, didn’t really work in the same parts of the business, lived in different cities, and knew our formal relationship would be temporary.
The only time we actually met 1:1 was at my annual performance appraisal. My reviews were fine, so we didn’t have much to say about that. Instead this leader chose to give me some more general advice, “Make every meeting you hold be the best meeting ever.”
Shortly thereafter, he retired. But his thought has stayed with me. I do try to make every meeting I hold the best meeting ever. This takes lots of preparation and follow-up. Sometimes I don’t get it right, but much more often I do.
Lots of good approaches in this New York Times article. Some are more controversial than others. Where do you agree and disagree? What other tactics work for you?