post # 117 — Sunday, June 25, 2006 — a Careers post
History Lesson
A lesson I learned early and still apply to my advantage (and, of course, in the service of others.)
Always volunteer to take the minutes of meetings, and to do the first drafts of proposed initiatives or reports. Not only will you get credit for volunteering to do things on behalf of others, but you get control of what's recorded. You are now part of the decision-making process. He or she who writes the history gets to make history.
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Mark Gould said
I had a colleague once who took this a stage further: he claimed that he would write the minutes before the meeting.
In fact, I suspect he never did, bit the point he was making is a good one. He never had a meeting that he did not plan meticulously, to the extent that he could predict which participants would object to or support which proposed courses of action.
The result is that he is extremely successful in his field. Perhaps making history involves writing it in advance.
posted on Sunday, June 25, 2006