The Meeting - A day of a pareto DONTER

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Few things in work life beat the nervousness of an important meeting. It may be a job interview, a presentation of a project or a debating session among different levels staff.

If you do not plan your meetings on a pareto basis (= thinking about what is the most important meetings to have or not to have, the most important subjects, the key staff involved and such things), they most probably will only get harder and less productive. Following is a story that exemplifies that.

The preparation for the meeting only begun this day. Few notes were made while multitasking with TV and internet. No rehearsal was done for the presentation, since he/she felt it would come up as not original when presented later.

An interesting fact is that he/she did not set goals and a strategy for the meeting. Also, his notes were all reviewed with no focus on specifics.

The Afternoon

Arriving at the office on time was easy (maybe the easier thing that will happen this day). He/she is there, already reviewed all the lines he/she had written to say at the meeting. The expectations are high, and also the nervousness.

His/her thoughts go like "you are not able to deliver it properly" and he/she even tries to argue with this kind of mental nonsense. Things only get worse, for he/she chose to wait alone (feeding bad thoughts) more than one hour for the meeting in the hall of the building. Maybe a poor choice, since his/her mental state should be a prime concern on this day.

He gets into the office and, stammering, starts the presentation. Confidence drops even more and the other executives feel it. He/she tries to underline at least the most important facts of the presentation prepared, but as he gave all of them the same indistinct attention, he/she knows as few of the low importance things as the high importance ones.

The Night

After the devastating outcome of the meeting, he/she is so sad he feels he/she can't even try anymore. Obviously there is not much choice, but he/she knows (or should know) that next tries probably will be branded by the same kind of bad habits performed this day.

He/she goes to bed thinking of his/her failure not as a lesson, but as a burden. Therefore, he/she doesn't see any kind of opportunity to learn with this day experience.