How do you really know if you are ready? Ready for a call, a meeting, or anything in business? It’s a question I have been asked for years by younger executives and people asking for my advice. Honestly, I’m unsure if you will ever really know if you're ever truly ready. However, one CEO had three words for me that changed how I think about meetings and the question of readiness.
As a young program director at KYCW, “Young Country” in Seattle, WA, I learned this lesson. I had no formal training for this job, and I always found myself very insecure about meetings and walking into a room with much older and experienced executives. These rooms, at times, had people with degrees and massive academic credentials. As an average high school student who didn’t attend college, I often felt insecure and ‘I’m not qualified’ to be in this room.
Years of being on the radio as a DJ, emceeing concerts, and attending countless impromptu meetings or presentations, I could find a way to talk my way through a meeting or situation. The ‘Gift of Gab, ’ my father would say. I knew how to hold the room long enough just to make something up, read the people, and barely skate through the moment. I’m not sure where it came from or how it was developed, but It was a decent strategy and worked – until it didn’t.
John Hayes was the CEO and owner of a company called Alliance Broadcasting. It was a small radio company based in Walnut Creek, CA, focusing on major market radio stations. Young Country was owned by Alliance, and in the early 90’s, I took a job at 23 years old and moved to the Pacific Northwest from my hometown of Oklahoma City. It was a career break of a lifetime, and I quickly realized I was WAY over my head.
There was a defining day when I had a meeting in my office, shortly after I started, with John to update him on all the progress we were making with the new station the company bought. The meeting was a disaster. I was not ready for the challenging questions, updates, or anything. Completely unprepared. Ten minutes into the session, I quickly realized I should have prepared much more for this session. I was doing what I always did, trying to talk my way through the meeting. This story is even more unbelievable because I’m an Eagle Scout. The Boy Scout motto is: “Be Prepared,” but somehow, I wasn’t.
With each probing question, every follow-up, and every topic, I could feel my shirt and necktie becoming tighter and tighter. John knew how to ask the perfect question. He knew how to follow up each question with another and another. He had this knack for drilling into issues and areas like an Oil Barron back home - He wouldn't stop until he found oil! I honestly can’t remember what the topics were, but what I do remember was this defining moment.
Toward the end of the meeting, John stood up, asked for a piece of paper and pen, and wrote these words: Focus and Preparation. He tore the paper and then taped it to my computer screen.
John went on to tell me that these are the three most important words in business: live them, know them, and always come back to them. Before you walk into any meeting, call, no matter how big or small, and ask yourself, “Are you focused and prepared?”
It seems obvious and straightforward. And therein lies the beauty of those three words. It was so simple, yet it's something I hadn’t really locked in on until that point, and in that meeting with John, I wished I had.
To this day, I remember that lesson as if I heard it only a few hours ago. I return to those words when I get lost, confused, or unsure about the day or the meetings ahead. Returning to that conversation helps quieten my mind and get laser-focused on what I need to be prepared for and ready to perform in a session.
Shortly after I received the lesson, I was sharing my experience with a co-worker as if I were granted the key to a hidden secret of management. As I told the story, they looked at me, somewhat uninterested, smiled, and then threw this new curveball: How do you know if you are “Focused and Prepared?” Again, dumbfounded by what I should say, I just stared at them and said, “Well, that’s another great question!”
I love a metric, a way to see data or quantify something, but how, in this case, would you accomplish that or know, given this is subjective? My gut reaction was just trying to convey a feeling of confidence, but I also knew there had to be a way to place a metric around that idea. Through years of trial and error, I landed here:
One hour of prep for every 10 minutes of a meeting.
Yes, that means if you have an hour meeting, that’s SIX hours of prep. You might think that’s overkill, but I have found that this focuses me on ensuring everything is ready - Documents, Decks, and mostly my mind and confidence.
As my career grew, I started running more divisions and companies, and my meetings, such as quarterly board meetings, became more critical. Knowing that I needed to get a set amount of time BEFORE the meeting, I was able to structure my day and get my schedule and mind in place to execute when the meeting happened— a game changer.
This is my framework; you need to see what is yours, but no matter how you quantify it, those two words will change how you enter your next meeting. You likely can spend less time getting ready than me, but you must establish your own KPI to be prepared.
Oh, and to finish the story with John Hayes.
A few months later, he came back through town and had a few follow-up sessions. Each session, I was so overly prepped and locked in I could see a slight grin on his face, almost beaming like a proud mentor - which he was.
That follow-up meeting was a turning point in my career; it gave John confidence in me, and he moved me to a bigger market, San Franciso, and introduced me to one of the most impactful figures in my business life, Mel Karmazin. It was a trajectory change in my career.
Thank you, John.