Stephen H Baum Leadership

In a conversation this week, I relayed to a coaching client my repeated experience of learning the most amazing things in the last 90 seconds of any meeting. He suggested I share this.

I had just become a Principal of a consulting firm whose senior partners included a former partner of Booz Allen & Hamilton (which I would myself later become): Ed Kimball. We were paired on an assignment for a very large and general electric company on an assignment to find out why two substantial divisions had blossomed despite every attempt by “the system” to snuff them out. I learned a great deal from Ed on that assignment (and from the interviews with friends and foes of the divisions). One of those “learnings” occurred at the end of an hour long meeting. We had packed up our briefcases and were walking to the door with the chief of staff. I trailed behind the two of them at some distance. I could see Ed ask what appeared to be an offhanded question and the client respond, intently and with his hand on Ed’s shoulder. The exchange lasted no more than a minute or so. They knew I was in earshot, but the exchange took place anyway.

Afterward, Ed replayed his experience. He had asked about the client’s underlying motivation for the assignment and been rewarded with a disclosure about the politics and personalities of key senior executives. Ed went on to tell me that in his decades at this profession, on numerous occasions what happened in the last 90 seconds had more value than the hour that had preceded it. “When the meeting ends, it isn’t over. Let everyone else think that but you turn on your radar. That is when you will learn something incredible.” It may happen with asking or without asking. It is a moment when the other guy’s guard is down. It is a moment when people may get real. Treasure it.”

I have had this experience more times than I can count in coaching conversations (when the client relates an event he thought immaterial or discloses something highly personal); and in conversations with salespeople, airport gate agents. And this week it happened with my cardiac surgeon when he speculated about a common phenomenon that in my case might explain an issue.

One caveat, you are always on stage if anyone else is around. While I always encourage people to be authentic, remember that the 90 seconds is a get-real moment for both of you. If you come from a caring, kindly place, you can ask or say almost anything in that moment. Treasure it when it happens.

That’s my view, what’s yours?