By the time you hit motherhood in your corporate life, you've been around long enough to go through a lot of big corporate meetings. Why is it that you put 15 brilliant people in the same room, and everyone always thinks they could have done so much more with their time? How many times have we snuck in some work in the middle of these things?
I'm afraid motherhood jacks up the stakes a lot more : time isn't just money, time is family.
So this is what I do:
I've become very good at spotting a point that sounds like it could have high impact but inevitably falls short of anything truly actionable. The motherhood statement. Usually preceding a very long justification without ever really saying anything. When you get really good, you can quickly spot the generic speakers early and tune them out five seconds into their speech.
I switch to blessed autopilot for a few minutes of working.
Usually it works. Sometimes it doesn't.
Take last week.
I was at a multi-country meeting representing the local business. By the afternoon of day one, I knew when it was safe enough to switch to auto-pilot. Until: "so what does the Philippines think?" snapped me out of it. Crap. I had to ask to repeat the question.
My auto-pilot mode needs work. Truth is, I'm horrible at multi-tasking.
Give me some advice, folks!
I get what you mean - I've been in so many meetings where I found myself feeling bad for all the minutes (or hours) being wasted. I actually doodle when I'm in meetings - sometimes to help pay attention (I get to process what the speaker is saying), sometimes to reduce the "gigil" especially when I think the speaker has less than bright ideas or thoughts, or sometimes simply just to relieve the boredom. If its an internal meeting, my colleagues know me well enough to know that its my way of paying attention so I don't even attempt to hide my doodles. For external meetings, a little more subterfuge is called for. hehehe
ReplyDeleteSubterfuge!!! Hahaha!!!
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