20. Problems are Always on the Agenda

Aren’t there some things that you don’t prepare for in advance and start thinking about only after you come in to a meeting?

That’s how it always is for me. (laughs)

That does happen a lot.

Oh good, so it’s not just me. (laughs)

It’s impossible to be absolutely prepared down to the last, tiny detail. So you just need to think on your feet when the time comes, to seriously consider, “What would I do if it was me?” I think you can come up with something pretty helpful doing that.

If I talk about this as a methodology, when you need to think about something in a situation like that, you should not spend a long time on it.

Right.

Right.

In other words, you need to be able to think of good ideas quickly, while you’re sitting there at the meeting. If you spend all your time planning, you actually think about it less.

Right. Although sometimes you’ll have something you’ve been thinking about constantly for a long time.

Oh, definitely. I’ve got a lot of those ideas, too.

Some ideas are like that, but for the most part, the whole process of listening to the discussion, putting it all together in my head and coming up with an answer takes no time at all.

I think most discoveries come from an “Ouch!” moment. In other words, when you ask, “What’s on the agenda for today?” the answer you usually get isn’t “Today we’re going to do something really fun.”

Right. (laughs)

Most of the time what’s on the agenda is...

“Problems.”

It’s really never anything good. It always makes me think, “I’m really stuck...”

Right.

After all, it’s never anything good. So then I say, “I can’t stay stuck forever!” and that’s where most of the ideas come from, from suggestions like, “Well then, how about...”

That’s true...

So I’m not very good at coming up with ideas when the situation is like, “How should we celebrate a birthday?”

(laughs)

I mean, I’m sure I’d have fun whatever we did.

That’s true. It doesn’t really matter what you come up with. (laughs)

(laughs)

Don’t you agree?

Yes. (laughs)

We just came to a really big consensus here!