Feeling pretty awesome right now!

Today I made the conscious decision to approach an important meeting in a collaborative way instead of a confrontational way.  I was the only technical voice in the room from our side so I explained my case, why it was beneficial for those involved, and we walked out with a simple and mutually beneficial design with some very influential partners.  In the moment, I felt like I was knocking it out of the ballpark and I must have… two of my colleagues had already emailed my boss, his boss, and his boss to praise my efforts before we even left the building.

I have been reading ‘Leadership Gold’ and had just finished the chapter on the value of a pre-meeting… my colleagues and I had met ahead of the meeting to “get on the same page” where we discussed how things would unfold and where I initially hatched my plan to approach the problem in this way.  The other guys did a great job of keeping us on message and focused on the correct things, documenting the decisions, and executing their marketing and project management craft.  We fired on all cylinders today, and that just plain ROCKS.

This was my first real opportunity to visit a customer in this way and I feel like I made a very good showing for my company.  The customer is happy, we are happy, we have a clear path forward and everyone wins.   Short of getting a raise or promotion, I don’t know how today could have been any better.