A colleague of mine just spent three days trying to secure time in her client’s diary. Three days and apparently more than 10 emails. Turns out he was making an easy mistake. He was being too nice.
Have you ever done the endless back-and-forth of diary management and wished there was another way?
You’re not alone. Senior leaders would often prefer you to be more decisive and less accommodating.
If you’ve recently responded to ‘let’s catch up’ with ‘sure, whenever works for you’ in order to be accommodating, you might inadvertently have just given that person another task to do.
That politeness is a false economy – and it can turn accommodating into irritating. It’s a politeness paradox!
You might be better to simply put something straight into their diary and avoid the back and forth. Most execs I know will be grateful for your streamlining – and their EA definitely will.
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