There’s been a lot of talk about pubs dying out in Germany.
Have you read about it?
What’s happening is that we’re losing the places, and the opportunities, for conversations without a purpose. Conversations that don’t have to lead anywhere.
That made me sit up, because management has exactly the same problem.
Digitalisation makes it worse. On video calls, people have left the meeting before I can even say goodbye. It’s happened to me several times. And I’m no better; I’ve done it too.
In our business it can be extreme: if you don’t deliver the expected value, and fast, you’re out as a supplier. So keep it short.
Another experience. We were running a CEO search. I was interviewing a potential candidate, a CEO, and the conversation ran over. It turned into a talk without an agenda. We spoke for a long time, about all sorts of things. About our children. About a problem with building a house. Then about his doubts over his company’s current strategy. About things he would never tell his supervisory board.
Six months later he called. He was looking for a CFO. We didn’t win that mandate with a brilliant presentation, but because of a conversation that didn’t have to lead anywhere.
Step off the hamster wheel for a moment: whenever a conversation has a goal, a decision, a sale, a commitment, we adjust what we say.
We don’t say what we think. We say what serves the goal.
Incidentally, we all pretend to be terribly busy, only to waste the time on our phones afterwards.
The paradox: precisely when pressure rises and the numbers are bad, open conversations are the first thing we cut. “We don’t have time for that. We have to deliver.” Yet that’s exactly when we’d need them most.
Four things I can recommend from my own experience:
When someone asks “How are you?”, I answer honestly, brutally so. Whoever asks gets a real answer, even if they didn’t expect or want one. It sometimes takes the conversation away from its original purpose, but it brings a lot of insight and empathy.
In interviews, I don’t ask questions like a scientist studying an insect under the microscope while keeping his own cards hidden.
I use the time between appointments. I let things sink in instead of rushing on to the next “maximise the value” topic.
I make slowness visible. When a breakthrough comes out of a long, aimless conversation, I talk about it, so that colleagues and clients understand that not everything valuable happens in minuted meetings.
We can’t plan low-pressure communication. We can only make room for it.
You don’t always have to be the biggest, the fastest or the smartest. Too often, we men get caught up in that childish role play.
