How shall we use this meeting?
It happened to me again today. Four times in fact.
In the book I spend a lot of time reviewing the reasons why it might be so hard to know what we want beyond the simple things like knowing we prefer the vegetarian sushi. The three main reasons are:
- Lack of practice
- We’ve trained ourselves to look in the wrong direction
- We’re scared of what finding out might mean and overwhelmed by the volume of choices
Today’s experience reminded me again of how something that appears to be so straightforward is so rare.
Let me back up a little and explain.
A couple of days a week I’m a Business Advisor at my local Enterprise Agency. It’s a non-profit that provides help and coaching for local people who want to startup in business. On a typical day I’ll have five one-hour appointments with people who want to make what is a pretty major step.
The appointments are short, only an hour. I’ve not met them before And the diary is packed tight.
I want the session to be as effective as possible. I’m a coach. I know that often they will want some technical info about starting a business and I’m happy to give it to them but more than that I know, even if they don’t, that the real secret to success lie within them and its my job to pull it out so the client can see it clearly, perhaps for the first time.
Inevitably my first question is something like What would be a good use of this hour for you? Readers will recognise this as a form of the most basic coaching question – What do you want? I rarely ask – What do you want? – so bluntly because I’ve found that question is too stark and too powerful for most people. Usually, I soften it to…
What do you want to get from this hour? or What would be a good use of this time for you?
Bear in mind that most of these clients have booked a meeting because they are interested in starting a business; what percentage do you think can tell me how they want to use the hour or have come fully prepared to say what they want? 50%? Higher?
My heart soars when a client brings out a notebook with a list of questions they have thought about but how many are like this?
It’s actually less than 5%. The most common reaction is a blank stare or the slightly panicky look of some who has been caught in a spotlight. Often they have not brought a pen or any sign of preparation at all. And I’m talking about people from a wide range of backgrounds, social class or experience; it has nothing to do with culture or education.
To soften the impact I’ll repeat the question in another form as gently as I can.
If you could walk away with something when we’ve finished, what would you want to walk away with?
Or
I normally like to set an agenda so we make best use of our time, if you could get something from this meeting, what do you really want?
At this point about half the clients will get it and dredge up a list of stuff to start with and we’re off. The other half though normally start telling me a story at this point Well I’ve been working for… these I’ll have to stop before you tell me your story, let’s think about this hour – What would be the best use of our time? or something similar.
That normally does the trick and once we have a quickly scribbled agenda on the corner of my pad we can start.
Often one of their questions is about how to be successful and aside from the practical and marketing advice the first insight is sitting right there between us. How they have approached this hour is a fairly reliable indicator of how they value and use time. And that in turn can be a predictor of business success – particularly in your own start-up.
Step 1 is often becoming more like someone who knows what they want because its largely true that people who know what they want stand a far higher chance of being people who get what they want.
Reminds of this great quote from Drayton Bird:
A wise man said the secret of success comes in three parts. First, decide what you want to do. Most people have no idea. Second, decide what you are prepared to give up to do it. Most people aren’t willing to make real sacrifices.
And the third part? Do it. Most people just talk about doing something – and that’s as far as it gets.
And for you? Well why not conduct your own experiment in setting quick agendas before your meetings or noticing more about how you value and use time. Do you know what you want from the next 20 mins?
You can find out more about becoming that type of person here:
