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Are you familiar with "The Emperor’s New Clothes"? > Two swindlers arrive at the capital city of an emperor who spends lavishly on clothing at the expense of s

Are you familiar with "The Emperor’s New Clothes"? > Two swindlers arrive at the capital city of an emperor who spends lavishly on clothing at the expense of state matters. Posing as weavers, they offer to supply him with magnificent clothes that are invisible to those who are stupid or incompetent. The emperor hires them, and they set up looms and go to work. A succession of officials, and then the emperor himself, visit them to check their progress. Each sees that the looms are empty but pretends otherwise to avoid being thought a fool. Finally, the weavers report that the emperor's suit is finished. They mime dressing him and he sets off in a procession before the whole city. The townsfolk uncomfortably go along with the pretense, not wanting to appear inept or stupid, until a child blurts out that the emperor is wearing nothing at all. The people then realize that everyone has been fooled. Although startled, the emperor continues the procession, walking more proudly than ever. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor%27s_New_Clothes https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor%27s_New_Clothes In the corporate world, the emperor has clothes, but they are underwear and everyone pretends its a full suit and tie. Basically speaking, in order to sound more important people say "Omni channel sales strategy" but what that actually is a small Salesforce integration. One way to not have to attend those meetings is ask questions like "by Omni channel sales strategy do you mean..." and remove the fluff from whatever they are saying, basically be the child in the story.

kayodelycaon 4y ago
The not attend meetings trick boils down to: if other people don’t like me, they won’t bother me. Not the best strategy in my opinion. There are far better ways to slip out, but they require more careful maneuvering. My typical strategy is asking the right questions to the right people. I try appear helpful, while indirectly pushing to make the meeting more relevant or my presence less necessary. I’ve often made the offer to be available when they need my input. Helps smooth things so people see me as busy, rather than deliberately avoiding them.
- willcipriano 4y ago
  It really depends on who is in the room. In my experience founders and people who are busy (C level folks, IC's) tend to prefer my style of commutation, it's middle managers who end up not liking me. Career wise that tradeoff appears to have been a pretty good one to make, but caveat emptor of course. Sometimes you can be surprised with this question and they will explain a actual strategy with multiple moving parts and everyone is better off by having it explained. Often you can catch a technical gap or two during this explanation and improve on the approach. It's really only the incompetent that get offended.

kayodelycaon 4y ago

The not attend meetings trick boils down to: if other people don’t like me, they won’t bother me. Not the best strategy in my opinion. There are far better ways to slip out, but they require more careful maneuvering. My typical strategy is asking the right questions to the right people. I try appear helpful, while indirectly pushing to make the meeting more relevant or my presence less necessary. I’ve often made the offer to be available when they need my input. Helps smooth things so people see me as busy, rather than deliberately avoiding them.

willcipriano 4y ago
It really depends on who is in the room. In my experience founders and people who are busy (C level folks, IC's) tend to prefer my style of commutation, it's middle managers who end up not liking me. Career wise that tradeoff appears to have been a pretty good one to make, but caveat emptor of course. Sometimes you can be surprised with this question and they will explain a actual strategy with multiple moving parts and everyone is better off by having it explained. Often you can catch a technical gap or two during this explanation and improve on the approach. It's really only the incompetent that get offended.