Secret story: The Secret to Professional Success

Secret story: The Secret to Professional Success

In 2013, my manager advised me to multitask during meetings to save time. His idea was to make the most of meeting time by handling another task simultaneously. I followed this advice for a long time and since everyone does the same.

However, in the past three years from 2021 onwards, I’ve changed my approach for the following reasons:

I’ve attended numerous video call meetings at various times and for different clients with a highly successful Executive VP at my current company. I’ve never seen him multitask during these meetings. He is one of the few experts in pharma commercial analytics who can single-handedly manage an entire project if necessary. Even at his senior position, he remains hands-on with tasks related to targeting, alignment, call planning, and IC design.

From my perspective, the key reasons for his success are:

1. Expertise and continued hands-on experience, even at a senior VP level.

2. No multitasking during meetings; he is fully attentive during calls.

3. Most importantly, in a 45-minute client call, he speaks for only 5-10 minutes, encouraging the client to talk for the rest of the time. His insights and consulting are concise and spread throughout the discussion.

The most effective consulting meetings are those where the client does most of the talking, and you listen and absorb all the information by avoiding multi-tasking!