When professional meetings are a pleasure!

There are various experiences that come our way, when we meet people. Especially so in the professional world.

I add value - do I?

We spend our most crucial resource - time - in meeting others, and sharing ideas, thoughts, secrets and expecting to learn from them.

One of the most interesting forms of meetings is an open-ended industry-discussion. The participants wish to discuss the present state of the industry they are in, and speculate on the future direction of the same.

It turns out that there are three kinds of experiences one can get, in the course of such professional meetings, depending on the quality of the people.

I. The donkey bray: This is a rather unfortunate waste of time as the other person(s) have little value to add to the discussion going on. Either all are clueless, or one is not and the rest are. If only a couple are good, it creates a complete imbalance in the discussion as invariably, many will be left out. If no one has any clue, it's a total waste.

Cause: Idiots all around!
Outcome / Solution: Pray to God, end it fast, and run.




II. The mediocrity trap: This happens when not everyone in the meeting is an idiot exactly, but they aren't a bunch of Einsteins either. There are no breakthrough ideas that come up. Most of the people know about the same stale things, and repeat it ad nauseam in the discussions. 

Cause: No homework done by people
Outcome / Solution: Nothing much to be gained, except reinforcement of existing beliefs

III. The high-on-morphine experience: This is ideally what an alert mind expects. There are people in the group who know what the world has been shaping upto lately, and can connect the dots while going backward, and forward. Various ideas are thrown, dissected, torn apart, and seen from multiple perspectives. People fearlessly put forward their ideas as they have experienced them personally. You realise that people read a lot, analyse a lot, research a lot and evolve not just on theory - but practically as well.

Cause: People have invested in their personal research
Outcome / Solution: A lovely rejuvenation of industry understanding


At the end of it, a professional needs to really make a choice between remaining brain-dead and performing his task dutifully, or remaining alert to the world around while carrying out his duties loyally. No one can help you develop yourself - the time and effort has to be one's own. Read newspapers, watch relevant news channels, talk to people, analyse on your own, think!

This is the only way you can add value in any professional discussion on your industry. And when you start doing that, more and more people start expecting your company.


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