Member-only story
What are your three things?
What are your three things? When you find yourself in an impromptu conversation with a ‘higher up’ — your boss perhaps, or a Board member — what will you talk about?
The same person who advised me to identify the three most important people (see: ‘Three People’), also advised me to:
“…always have three things to talk about”.
Maybe a recent success. An ongoing challenge. An update on a long-term project. An interesting tidbit. Something you recently learnt. Three things you want to share and that the listener might want to know.
Actually though, it’s less about what you say and more that you have something to say.
Whatever the three things are, having things to say will show that you are engaged. That you are intelligent and interested. That you understand their priorities, what they need to know. Ultimately, that you are the kind of person they might one-day-hopefully-maybe promote. At the very least, that you are someone whose career they should watch…and whose rise they should support.
I used to keep my three things on the front pages of a notebook, updating them regularly. The weekly act of checking and revising kept them front of mind when I found myself in the lunch queue next to the CEO. I had a better answer to “how are things going?”…
