The Art of Leadership

Chapter 1. Assume They Have Something to Teach You

The daily morning calendar scrub before work goes like this:

1. Open the calendar and look at the entire day.

2. Note the number of meetings and the amount of unscheduled time. If unscheduled time is zero, die a little inside.

3. For each meeting, ask the internal question, “What do I need to do to be prepared for this meeting?” and act on the answer. Reread a spec? Glance at our Q2 goals? Make sure action items from the prior meeting are done, or just known? This is essential precaching that I don’t do in the meeting because it would mean I was wasting the other human’s time remembering why we’re having the meeting.

4. When step 3 is complete, I’m almost done. There is one final subjective assessment that I make for each meeting: how much value is it going to create? Based on this, I can make a super-subjective estimate of how productive the day will be. This aggregate assessment allows me to determine before the day starts whether it will be one of high-energy forward progress or a morass of marginally interesting minutes.

Marginal meetings are unavoidable, and identifying them ahead of time gives me a chance to figure out an angle to increase their value. I’ve got one small thing that works consistently: assume they have something to teach you.

It works like this. Hypothetical scenario: a recruiting meeting with someone who is interested in working at my company who is a referral from a human I trust. The problem is, they want to work in a different part of the organization. While I know little about the other team, I do know there are no open jobs there and won’t be for a while.

This meeting is of perceived marginal value because I’m not interviewing this person for a gig, because there is no gig. Also, I’m not qualified to interview this person because their skills are different than mine—they’re on a different team. I do trust my referring friend, though, and I want to do them a solid. I know most hires are referrals. And I’m responsible for representing my company, which is why this meeting is on my calendar.

More importantly, there are actually no marginal minutes. It is my personal and professional responsibility as a leader to bring as much enthusiasm, curiosity, and forward momentum as possible to every single minute of my day. When I find myself in a situation where the value is not obvious, I seek it because it’s always there.

“Hi, Cathy. How do you know Ray? Interesting. How’d you two end up working together in such different parts of the company? No way. I never imagined that legal and engineering would end up working together on that! Tell me that story?”

With three questions, I’ve uncovered a story that will teach me a lesson. Cathy is telling me about the time that she and my friend Ray ended up cowriting a code of conduct for their company. I’ve never written one, but I understand the value, and here is someone sitting here who can teach me how it’s done. Splendid.

Life isn’t short. It’s finite. As a leader with a finite set of minutes, it is your job to find the stories and make the minutes meaningful. Find the stories—they are always there, and they will teach you.