Have you ever attended a formal meeting and your meeting partner showed up without any device or piece of paper and pen?
I have many times and with my 20 years of business experience I can share that in most cases the outcome was not great.
Why?
First, I would like to point out that I am not a big defender of meticulously taking minutes for every single word said. Minutes can be overdone and, to be honest, how often do we go back into our mega data file archive and read through what has happened in some past meeting? Well, I prefer to use my time differently.
However, there are some meetings where it is crucial to protocol as many details as possible. And depending on the category of meeting, I do know how to differentiate. I am also in meetings with an open-exchange character where I would refrain from writing anything at all and dedicate my entire focus on my talking partner.
But let’s take a look at a "normal" meeting or even a job interview. How many times have I been surprised by an external candidate or a colleague or even an HR team member who arrived to our meeting with bare hands and just sat down going into our conversation? Not frequently, but too often. That is why I want to share my HR and leader’s perspective on how this behavior can be perceived.
The following thoughts have been on my mind in such meeting situations:
Wow, he did not prepare anything for our meeting!
He is expecting me to open his Excel file to share it on the screen?
Is this meeting going to be a waste of time because he won’t remember half of the content afterwards?
How will he ensure to follow up on any complex details I share with him during the meeting?
Is he going to remember every single task we discussed during our meeting?
Does he really respect and understand the importance of this meeting?
In job interviews, some particular thoughts arose:
How arrogant is this candidate to believe that he won’t need to write down anything?
How will he remember the names and positions of the next interview partners whom he will meet in the next interview round? Is he not interested in remembering their names properly?
Did he not prepare any questions for the interview?
Is he going to remember all the details from his application?
And, whatever the reason for not bringing any device, I always got the impression that they would not care enough, not own the topic, or be totally arrogant and think they were a superhero and remember everything by heart.
Yes, there have been two or three situations where external candidates surprised me and remembered quite some details, but as soon as it got to many details, e.g. „You will meet John Dozymacbozky on February 23 at 9:15 in room 485. He is our Director for Engineering Projects for our sites in Austria, France, and Georgia. Please give him a call at 036297 32406586 when you are at the main entrance“, people would tend to ask for a piece of paper and a pen. Which did not leave a positive impression with me.
Or if I told my team member to increase Anna Smith’s salary as of May 1 from €67,450.65 to €72,566.00, the risk of remembering the numbers incorrectly, was significant. At worst, it could lead to an incorrect payroll. Totally unprofessional.
Again, regardless of your level of confidence in the topic or your capability to remember well, you signal to your supervisor that you are not prepared for the unexpected and therefore not ready to take on whatever he spontaneously might be telling you.
Even when meeting with your closest colleagues, it is always a sign of professionalism and respect to show up prepared and ready to write down whatever necessary. In the end, if you leave the meeting without a single note - that’s fine as well. But you would have been able to and you took the meeting seriously.
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