NEVER GO TO A MEETING WITHOUT A STRATEGY

Strategies are devised by intersecting your agenda with that of the other person at the meeting (i.e., “Let’s talk about you. What can you help me with on my agenda?”). If you have no strategy and just attend a meeting blindly (lunch is your most socially demanding meeting of the day as you have an hour and a half to cultivate a relationship), you lose your edge because you can count on the fact that your lunch date has a strategy.

Every chance encounter is a meeting, and each meeting is part of a larger series of actions that, when taken together, accumulate into an overall agenda. Agendas can shift, change, and adapt, particularly with a new job. But one must always have one. Each move either furthers or obstructs an agenda. Think of it as a board game.