Let's Just Talk About the Work

I had back-to-back meetings today. Different parts of the business, different stakeholders, some about current projects, others about future deals. And sitting through all of them, I kept noticing the same thing.

People don't want to talk.

Not really talk, anyway. They want to stick to the agenda. Get through the bullet points. "Let's just talk about the work," someone actually said in one meeting today. And I get it, I really do. Time is precious. Meetings can drag. Everyone has a packed calendar.

But here's what I kept thinking: that's so not human.

I'm not saying every meeting needs to turn into a therapy session or a coffee chat. I understand the value of an agenda. I know why we set time boundaries and focus on deliverables. But there's something we're losing when we strip away all the human parts of our interactions, especially when we're trying to build something together or strike a deal.

You can't separate the work from the people doing it. You just can't.

When you're negotiating, partnering, collaborating, you're not doing it with a company or a contract. You're doing it with a person. And that person has a story, a day they're having, thoughts beyond the spreadsheet in front of them. The more we try to extract the humanity from these conversations, the more transactional everything becomes. And transactions? They're fragile. They don't weather storms well.

I've seen it play out. The deals that stick are the ones where there's actual connection. Where you take two minutes to ask how someone's doing and actually listen to the answer. Where you share something real about what you're navigating. Where you laugh, even briefly, about something that has nothing to do with the agenda.

That's not wasted time. That's the foundation.

Because when things get hard, when the project hits a snag, when someone needs to go the extra mile, they're not doing it for agenda item #3. They're doing it because they care about the person on the other side of the table. Because somewhere along the way, you became more than just a business contact.

So yeah, let's talk about the work. But let's also remember that the work gets done by humans. And humans need connection. They need to be seen as more than their function in a meeting.

If you want to strike a deal, close a partnership, build something that lasts? Don't skip the human part. It might be the most important thing on your agenda.



With grit and gratitude, The Gritter