In 1986 I had a major problem with my most important client, the Bank of America. My team was working on a multi-million dollar project and we were hopelessly behind schedule and in over our heads. The Executive Vice President of Consumer Lending called to meet with me. At first I tried to duck the responsibility by trying to convince my boss that this was so important that he should take over. Fortunately, he saw it as a growth opportunity for me!

I decided to buckle down and get ready for the meeting of my life. The stakes were enormous. If the meeting went poorly, we would have to unrecognize millions of dollars in revenue and lose out on the future of this line of business. If the meeting went well we could be doing business with the Bank for years. The meeting went nothing like I had planned but because of the diligent preparation, I was in a strong position to make things come out right over the course of our interaction. The project did get back on track and over the next dozen years we did over $30M in business with the bank and opened up a thriving new dimension to our business with banks around across the country.

The B of A experience helped me learn to aggressively prepare for high-stakes interactions and I have never been sorry that I spent the time to get in the best position possible. Some who have worked with me struggle to understand how it could possibly be worth one more run-through before the big moment. Others have been appreciative. The notes below are based on observations made by an executive who worked with me over the course of a year together. Upon my departure, he presented me with these points as a gift, so I would know he had learned much from our time together. I appreciate his appreciation and even more importantly, I am impressed with what he took away from our time together:

Dear Peter,

In the dealings we have had together I think I've picked up some seminal ideas from you:

• Always prepare so well that you are able to cover even the most complex topic in a casual conversation. It makes you more credible and puts people in a frame of mind that makes it easy for them to listen while you just talk with them rather than walking them through a step-by-step briefing.
• Always involve other people in your preparation. First of all, two (or more) heads really are better than one. Secondly, if people feel they are part of the solution, you capture their hearts along with their support for what you have set out to do. If you keep things close to the vest, those around you become suspicious and tend to put up barriers and you end up with half-hearted support at best.
• You work hard to have input from others become part of the final product. Their input enhances your own efforts. Besides, there is rarely a right answer anyway. Even an okay solution can be powerful if lots of people understand it, are bought in to it and committed to make it work.
• When someone asks you to review something, you always make it worth their while because you add as much value as you can. Then you challenge them with hard questions to help push their level of readiness to even higher levels.
• You create and take advantage of high-stakes opportunities for people to perform because this when you get the best out of them and this gives you, and them, material that can be used again and again.
• You always do what you honestly believe is best for your client. In the long run that will be best for you.
• You don't shoot from the hip. While you are very quick on your feet, when someone asks a hard question, you probe to be sure you understand what they are after and then you think things through carefully before offering a response.
• After you do something, you reflect on it to figure out what worked so you can do it again and what didn't work so you can keep from doing it next time.
• Things never go exactly as planned but you always perform better from having thought through how you would like things to go.

I bet you thought I wasn't paying attention. I may not have caught everything, but at least I got some important stuff. Mostly, I just want to thank you for all that you have done in the past year. You have shown us a whole new way of doing business and many of us really appreciate it.

JL
12/98