The Meeting After the Meeting
The real decision often gets made in the ninety seconds after the official meeting ends, between the two or three people who trust each other enough to say what they actually think. This page is an audit of whether you're in that conversation. Twenty minutes, one pen, no audience.
1. The Last Big Decision
Think of the most recent significant decision that affected you or your area. Answer from evidence, from what you actually observed rather than what the org chart implies.
2. Your Hallway Map
Name the two or three people whose informal word moves decisions in your organization. Next to each, note the last time you had a genuinely unguarded conversation with them.
3. Prepare Your Influence, Not Just Your Content
For your next high-stakes room: name the one to three people whose perception of you actually matters. Decide how you want each of them to experience you. Then choose your lever, one or two at most, deployed on purpose: story, data, conviction, or connection.
4. The Unsaid Thing
One thing you are not saying in the meetings that matter most. What is it costing you to keep it unsaid?
If filling in section 2 was uncomfortable, that discomfort is the finding. The fix is rarely a better argument in the formal meeting; it's a seat in the informal one.