The crux of entrepreneurial ventures: It is easier to dig yourself into a hole than to dig yourself out of it.
That you skimp or put off investing in developing your personal expertise, skills and behaviours for a “better time” is sheer lunacy. Many don’t see it this way until they are in a very complex and ambiguous hole (health, finances and relationships).
If your readers cannot grasp what you are wanting them to do in the first line of your email in a business setting, why should they read on? There is a pressing need for many people to be intelligently ruthless with their writing and meeting contributions. “I am seeking your advice on….” “My question is this….” “We need to set up a call/meeting…” “You are exposed to this risk…..”
I always laugh when someone says in a sugar-coated manner “let’s cut to the chase”, as if they are about to spring a surprise. Isn’t that why we are here in the first place? It is a trait beloved of amiable characters, who are desperate to be liked rather than respected. They pivot the conversation, to largely escape their own waffle or procrastination but think they are doing others a favour.
If you want to gauge business or societal risk from a pandemic, you don’t ask a healthcare expert or god forbid, a journalist, you find a probability expert (multiplicative problem).
If you want to gauge your child’s probability of getting accepted into the next educational establishment, you don’t ask their teacher, you find an expert in educational transition.
If you want to make money long-term as an investor, you don’t ask an expert in the market’s performance, you find an expert in business performance.
All too often I find smart people asking the wrong people for advice. What specifically, is the question you must answer? Who has a track record and skin-in-the-game in giving you a quick, high quality and simple response? How can you ideally meet or speak to them?
Having a bad week? Think again.
Imagine what life is like working in a claims management business that relies on automated cold calling? “We understand you’ve been involved in a car accident…..” When your boss has consciously sent out 60 million spam calls, and the phone connection almost certainly puts you directly in touch with an irate caller ready to scream at you?
There is nothing quite so likely to ruffle the heckles of a well-known journalist, as a fellow journalist (always of lesser standing), daring to challenge their position on factual grounds or re-frame their argument in ways that were never intended.
To the outside observer, a twitter-storm says more about the journalists doing the reporting (their emotional and psychological issues) than the subject matter or their public audience ever did. It is personal.
The reminder for those of us, who earn a living in business, is what’s the point of a public rather than a private spat over matters of substance? How does that advance our position? If the answer, is it doesn’t or I am unsure, which is really the case in 98% of occasions, arrange to meet afterwards on neutral ground or pick up the phone and resolve it fast.
“It is rude to interrupt”. Not if the intervention is genuinely in the other or a third party’s self-interest (greater understanding of their point or request). It is, if the intervention is merely undertaken to further your self-interest (ego, insecurities or fears). What I term the “Piers Morgan trade”.
You are walking into a room full of strangers in a business social setting, here is 5 default questions my most successful clients invariably ask their colleagues:
I have always seen deal-making (buying and selling businesses or assets, raising money, refinancing or entering into collaborative ventures) as an “engineered” process, never an event.
One that can be applied across asset classes and deal sizes, large or small.
A framework within, which inter-connected issues, and decisions need to be made about the future, not a sequential process.
Above all, a necessity to ruthlessly remove all the “junk” that lies in the heads of the people around the table, and those they are turning to for advice.
Repeat after me: The enemy of deal-making is those with zero skin-in-the-game, who seek to justify their value (ego) through unwarranted complexity.
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Are you walking into your next meeting seeking confirmation of your fears or confirmation that everyone was smart to set the meeting up? My strong anecdotal evidence is less than 30% of business meetings I have attended in my career have a majority of attendees with the latter mindset.
24 years ago I worked for Jay, an EVP of an international financial services company in Kansas City. He’d host a weekly meeting and then call me in immediately afterwards to his office. While tweaking his moustache, his Midwestern US words would roll off his tongue with vitriol. “Did you hear what Dora said? She is constantly screwing my plans. I am going to fire her!” This same meeting would take place every week, accept for the holidays. I was there to listen to his venting. When I’d calmly point out, she has certain issues, he’d retort, “screw her issues.”
Listening is important but fresh air cannot come in, if you insist on keeping the doors closed or cease to be mindful of others in the room.
If you are a Meeting Host, be honest with me, are you routinely overlooking the predisposition of those sitting around the table? If so, your agenda and the meeting “mechanics” are irrelevant. Zero plan to address the attendees’ emotional and psychological issues, zero commitment.
