I carried the Alexa story for years thinking the lesson was about speaking up. It wasn't. I had spoken up. I wrote a thorough, technically correct document. And I still lost, because I had prepared for a technical argument while the room was having an organizational one. That distinction, between the technically right answer and the organizationally viable answer, is the one I wish someone had taught me twenty years earlier. It would have changed how I approached every important meeting after it. For those of you who have experienced this: did you recognize it in the moment, or only in hindsight?
I carried the Alexa story for years thinking the lesson was about speaking up. It wasn't. I had spoken up. I wrote a thorough, technically correct document. And I still lost, because I had prepared for a technical argument while the room was having an organizational one. That distinction, between the technically right answer and the organizationally viable answer, is the one I wish someone had taught me twenty years earlier. It would have changed how I approached every important meeting after it. For those of you who have experienced this: did you recognize it in the moment, or only in hindsight?