Some people ask for lots of things. They want this, and that, and then put some conditions, oh, and don’t forget about this, how about that, and so on.
I’ve found that if I ask for something simple in return, suddenly the criteria change. Why do I ask for this? Why do I need this? OK, but it will be done very late. I don’t have time.
I once organized a series of meetings in Bucharest. At the second meeting, we were supposed to have both a meeting at a coffee shop and some PowerPoint slides, but there was a logistical misunderstanding, and I couldn’t use a digital projector to show the PowerPoint. One person was very upset. I told her I would hold the presentation just for her, and do a one-to-one meeting on the spot, just for her, basically having all the advantages of a previous meeting, not to mention having the presentation just for her. She was upset and didn’t take my suggestion well. She left the meeting, although we could have stayed around the coffee table.
I then changed the format of the meeting just for that person and switched to a PowerPoint-only series of meetings.
We held the events for years, but the person never came.
Years later, the person came back. During that day, she saw a PowerPoint presentation, and then some more.
At the end of the meeting, she came to me, and said – “Look, all these PowerPoint meetings are fine, but could you organize some meetings around a coffee table?”.
There’s a saying in economics:
Milton Friedman — Human wants and needs are infinite, which means there is always more to do.” ― Calum Chace, The Economic Singularity: Artificial intelligence and the death of capitalism
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