“He’s running just a few minutes late, but we’ll be right with you,” said a well-dressed receptionist at precisely 10:00 a.m. one morning in the lobby of an investment firm I was visiting.
Finally, I was meeting with Brett, a serial entrepreneur turned investor. He had had enormous success at a very young age and was now an active investor in more than three hundred companies with over $1 billion under management. I wasn’t sure exactly how I could work with him, but I was confident there would be a way, and so I had worked through a mutual connection over a month before to schedule a meeting. And now here it was, about to happen. We had booked a half hour with his assistant, but secretly I was hoping the conversation would go well and end up taking forty-five minutes to an hour.
“Brett will see you now. Here’s a bottle of water; please head on back,” said the same woman to me at 10:04 a.m. I thanked her and headed into Brett’s office.
“Great to see you,” Brett said warmly but firmly, with his hand out to shake mine. “Tell me a little bit about what you’re up to and how I can help.”
“Well, given that you’re an investor in over three hundred small businesses and we’re a software company serving small businesses that also is currently raising money from investors, I thought there would be ample opportunity to partner on something,” I replied. I proceeded to give him a quick but high-level overview of our software and possible partnership opportunities.
“OK,” Brett said at approximately 10:08 a.m. “You’re not a investment opportunity right now because you don’t fit our revenue requirement, but you might be a possible partner. Email me a one-sheet when you follow up and I’ll have our partnership coordinator take a look. Also, I’m going to introduce you to two people who you should meet who might be mutually beneficial.”
He spoke quickly and with confidence. Moreover, as he spoke, Brett was typing away, actually making the introductions via email simultaneously.
“Thanks for coming and all the best, Dave!” Brett exclaimed, sticking his hand back out to shake mine. (It was 10:12 a.m. at this point.)
As I walked out of that office, I was overcome with thoughts. On the one hand, I was tempted to be annoyed that I had had only an eight-minute meeting with someone I had booked thirty minutes with. On the other hand, during those eight minutes he had been honest, direct, and most importantly, extremely helpful in making those introductions and offering me an opportunity to explore a partnership. How could I possibly not be appreciative?
Soon thereafter, my thoughts turned to the incredible skill I had just witnessed. This guy had totally blown me off. (Wouldn’t you think “eight minutes of thirty booked after a four-minute lateness” constitutes blowing off?) Yet I walked away not angry at all. In fact, I walked away feeling very appreciative for Brett’s time and the value he had provided over that time —all eight minutes of it.
It can be easy to blow people off. You’re too busy, and if you’re not sure how valuable a person will be, why bother giving them any of your time at all? But it can be even easier to give away your precious time to people who ask for it and then want and take more and more. We all want to be liked, and it’s very tempting to give people the time they crave. But if I had had all thirty minutes with Brett, would it really have made a difference? He would have lost twenty-two minutes of productivity, and I probably wouldn’t have been any better off. We’ve all experienced the act of trying to get off the phone when the other person keeps talking. It’s not fun. You don’t want people to feel hurt or blown off, and so it’s easier sometimes to give them your time.
That might be the easy thing, but is it the best thing? Or is the best thing to blow people off without having them feel blown off? To guard your most precious asset, your time, ferociously and make sure every minute counts when you are spending it with people? To end a meeting or communication with someone quickly yet have her walk away feeling good about the interaction? These things are difficult, but they are worth it. Sheryl Sandberg, the Chief Operating Officer of Facebook, calls it “ruthless prioritization.” Let’s break down what Brett did into three simple steps that you can use to blow off people the right way:
- Initiate physical interaction (handshake) to indicate both the beginning and the end of the conversation
- Offer frank, direct, to-the-point conversation
- Provide value to the other person before ending the conversation
These three things effectively turned potentially thirty-plus minutes of mutually wasted time into eight minutes of mutually beneficial time, leaving twenty-two minutes for each of us to live, work, create and enjoy.
Quick Action Steps to Take Upon Reflection of This Scenario:
- Write down the names of two or three people who typically take up more of your time than you’d like them to at work or in your personal life.
- Choose one and construct a plan for your next conversation. Plan to quickly define the reason for the conversation, use signals to indicate the start and the end of the conversation. Be frank, provide value early on and end it quickly.
- Practice artful conversations with people who stop you in person to converse as well as people who text, email, and tweet at you.
Using these principles will help you shorten meetings with both the right and the wrong people and help you become more productive. We all want to be seen as nice people, and we all want to be liked. But remember, every minute you spend with someone who isn’t going to help you get what you want is a minute spent away from someone who may help you get what you want. It’s also a minute that person is spending with someone who doesn’t truly want to be spending it with him. Like Brett, you can maximize every minute.
This post is an excerpt from the new bestseller The Art of People: 11 Simple People Skills That Will Get You Everything You Want.
