| Thoughts on personalizing multi-group interactions. A few years back, I worked at a big4 consulting firm. I would often fly into some 'what city is it today?' to meet with a company's team and often up to CxO in F500. Usually brought in because first few efforts internally failed hard. You can imagine meetings with engineering teams, with me starting out at 'below trust' bc it was top down. This means that even though I am CompSci by nature, our success hinged on personal interactions. Here is what I highly suggest, and has worked wonders for me. - Learn to talk. Get on calls early, do research on the attendants to try to find some common interests quickly. Think like a salesperson, trying to close the 'people' by being human, friendly. Edit: A good add on to this, is to find their 'pivot person' - a person on the call the team trusts (often a few people down the 'food chain'). - Make self-deprecating fun of yourself. I try to poke fun at myself very quickly to show humbling comedy - and I do it loudly. People like when you make them laugh. By making them laugh at me, no one's feelings are hurt. It gives their team a feeling of superiority, so you must be able to back it up with real firepower later to control. - Try to take 'their team' side as often as possible. Assume every decision they've made is intelligent, and in good faith. You'd ask for the same. - See how you can foster individual relationships. For their lead developer, "Hey I saw this about your stack/what we're doing/etc - and thought of you". - Only 'do other things' on your computer during that meeting immediately related, and very short in duration. - Don't argue with 'that argumentative, defensive engineer' around the other groups. "That's a really great point - can I call you after this?" Hope it helps. |