Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

An old adage, one that I have experienced to be true, is that a person will tell another person the solution to all their problems in the first five minutes of the first conversation.

Many years ago, an experienced consultant told me, “The client will tell the consultant the solution to all their problems, i.e., the reason they hired a consultant, in the first five minutes of the first conversation. Pay close attention to the first five minutes of the first conversation. It will make you appear to be a genius.”

That was too simple. That, however, has proven to be true almost all the time I meet a new person in a new job with new problems. They tell me their problems and the solution to their problems in the first five minutes of the first conversation.

I guess there is some significant and deep psychological reason behind all this. There must be as this is significant, but I don’t know what it is.

What I do know is to pay close attention to the first five minutes of the first conversation. This little blog post is pretty repetitive with this “first five minutes of the first conversation” thing, but I guess that’s the message.

It works. Please try it.