Please Don’t Make Me a Lead

I work in PR. I understand the urge to turn a room full of people into a business opportunity.

Somewhere in my brain, there is always a tiny marketing executive asking, “Should we put a QR code on this?”

I try to keep him supervised.

As we gather for ERE, here’s what I hope we give each other: a few conversations that don’t have to justify themselves in a pipeline report.

We’re surrounded by people who spend their working lives figuring out how people connect with companies. Yet put us in a conference venue, and suddenly we’re speed-running introductions like there’s a leaderboard.

Name. Company. Elevator pitch. Calendar link.

Wonderful. We’ve known each other for 19 seconds, and I already have homework.

Let a conversation breathe.

You can tell me what you do. I want to hear it. But I’m also interested in what’s making your job harder than it should be. The idea your team keeps postponing. The thing everybody in your industry repeats that you think is complete nonsense.

Especially that last one. Pull up a chair.

Recruiting has plenty to talk about. Candidate experience. Hiring manager expectations. Technology that promises to give everyone time back, then somehow requires another standing meeting.

There’s real value in getting people together to compare what’s happening inside their organizations. That takes a little honesty, which is hard to get to when both people are delivering their approved messaging.

I know. I help write the approved messaging.

Try asking something you actually want answered.

“What are you trying to fix right now?” gives us somewhere useful to go.

Maybe you’re trying to explain a complicated product without needing six slides and a hostage negotiator. Maybe your company has a great story, but nobody outside the building seems to know it. Maybe you’re doing good work and struggling to get the right people to pay attention.

Those are conversations I enjoy. I’ve spent more than 20 years working on some version of them.

And sometimes the best contribution I can make is admitting that someone else would be much more helpful.

There’s a particular joy in saying, “You two should meet,” and then getting out of the way. Very efficient. Also one of the few occasions when my inability to stop talking to people qualifies as infrastructure.

The follow-up is where you find out whether you meant it.

We all leave conferences with good intentions and a bag containing at least one object we cannot identify.

Then regular life returns. The inbox has been breeding. Someone needs something by yesterday. That promising conversation becomes a vague memory attached to a LinkedIn connection.

So I’m giving myself a smaller assignment at ERE: make a few useful promises, then keep them.

Send the introduction. Share the resource. Answer the question. If I say I’ll think about your problem, actually spend a few minutes thinking about it.

A modest concept. Apparently still a competitive advantage.

If you see me at ERE, come say hello. Tell me what you’re building, what’s frustrating you, or which industry phrase deserves immediate retirement.

I’ll bring a few opinions and whatever help I can offer.

The tiny marketing executive can wait his turn.