A Day in the Life of a Senior Leader

Chapter 19. The Ask

Coffee in hand, I sit down in the Cave (my office). Any Tuesday during the workweek, a sip, and I parse the calendar.

1:1—“he’s fine.” Status meeting—“I just need to listen.” Staff meeting—“read the notes from last week.” Exec review—“figure out the biggest fire, have a defensible opinion.” Wait—Mark team review? Who is Mark? And what are we reviewing? Double-click on the meeting—unfamiliar names. No agenda. And it’s an hour? I message my chief of staff, who is familiar with my morning meeting vetting process. Carolyn responds immediately, “No clue. They run one of the infrastructure teams. We’ve never worked with them.”

An hour. And I have no idea what is happening during this time. My finger hovers over the Decline button before I remember that part of my job involves infrequent but important meetings.

In your regular 1:1s, you’ve sorted out how to communicate. “He’s an introvert, and I must pull him out of his shell. Or, She’s operationally focused—which is great—but we must move to strategy and stop crossing things off lists.” Your approach is well-known and expected. Those are good 1:1s. They’re high-signal, predictable, and worthy investments. In the infrequent but important meeting, you have no such contract.

But you still go. This chapter is about how to deal with infrequent but important meetings where someone needs something from you, and you don’t know what it is.

Three Assumptions, Three Meetings, Three Asks

Let’s start with three assumptions as ...