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Harvard Business Review
The Real Meeting Happens Before the Meeting
The Real Meeting Happens Before the Meeting
Harvard Business Review
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2:47 · Mar 31, 2025
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GORICK
NG:
It's
one
of
these
unspoken
rules
in
the
workplace
where
before
every
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GORICK NG: It's one of these unspoken rules in the workplace where before every
0:03
meeting is another meeting.
0:04
People call it the meeting before the meeting.
0:07
Imagine a big decision is being made.
0:10
It's not the case that people are just showing up cold.
0:14
Chances are the decision has already been made well ahead of that actual meeting.
0:18
Think about how a decision gets made around whether A Company should acquire B
0:23
Company.
0:24
People don't just show up one day in a meeting and say, hey,
0:26
I think we should do this.
0:28
What do you think?
0:29
There's going to be oftentimes a meeting before the meeting
0:32
and probably a meeting before the meeting before the meeting before the meeting.
0:35
What's going on?
0:36
Well, someone has an idea.
0:38
They socialize the idea, meaning they go around to their colleagues,
0:42
starting with their most ardent supporters, and they say, hey,
0:45
what do you think of this?
0:47
They're getting feedback.
0:48
They're getting advice.
0:50
They're understanding if this decision has been made before.
0:52
They're understanding who the naysayers are, who they should talk to next.
0:57
And once they've gotten smarter over this topic,
0:59
they then take their proposal to the next person,
1:02
and then to the next person,
1:03
and then to the next person until 10 conversations later
1:07
and the proposal may now look very different from how it first began
1:11
but it now has all
1:12
that much more of a chance of surviving
1:15
because they've gotten input.
1:17
Then what happens?
1:18
Well, then the meeting happens.
1:20
And if you were an alien swooping in from outer space,
1:22
it may look like, wow, this meeting is going swimmingly.
1:27
It seems like everybody is just on board when, in fact,
1:30
they had been socialized to this idea long before this meeting began
1:34
so the decision had already been made long before this meeting even started.
1:40
So what is a meeting before the meeting?
1:43
Well, it could be as simple as you instant messaging a coworker and saying,
1:47
hey, I was thinking of bringing this up, what do you think,
1:50
or I was thinking of trying this.
1:52
Has this ever been tried before?
1:54
Am I thinking about this the right way?
1:56
Or it could be something more formal where you have a meeting with your
1:59
manager,
2:00
and you present an idea,
2:02
and they suggest that you speak to so-and-so
2:04
and then so-and-so and
2:05
then so-and-so,
2:06
and then you have slides, and you have memos, and you have documents.
2:10
So it really ranges from the super informal, that water cooler conversation,
2:15
all the way through to version 30 of a slide deck.
2:20
If you want to make an impact in your career,
2:22
it's not enough to just put your head down and do the hard work.
2:25
You have to speak up.
2:27
And if you've navigated these unspoken rules effectively along the way,
2:30
you'll not just see your ideas implemented, you'll have your name attached to it.
2:34
And you may even be the face of it too.
2:36
This is real impact that you can have even early on in your career,
2:40
assuming you navigate these unspoken rules effectively.
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