Okay, I'm making this specific lesson on sitting down with senior stakeholders, and especially senior leaders, members of leadership teams, directors, vice presidents cxos, that you will have the chance to spend time with along your career. And I think I'm doing this because it's so important that you know how to handle those key sessions. You're not going to get many of them, and you're not going to have a lot of practice. So prepare. That's the number one thing already it's get ready and come in this session, as prepared mentally and emotionally as you can be sure that you make the best impression, increase your visibility and add value. So first of all, how do you go about setting a session?

How do you make it happen? The first thing I would say is make sure that you talk about it with your manager first, and that you get endorsements so that you can start going ahead and reaching out to people With the support of your manager, and ask to your manager for support, ask your manager, what's the best way of reaching out to senior stakeholders? For example, I use many, many techniques. One way might be simply going and talking to a senior leader and say, Hey, I'd like to sit down with you and have a conversation. When would you have some time? That works for some people?

Yeah. But some other stakeholders are always busy always on the run, and they might not even know you. So how do you go about meeting with them? You can go through your managers and ask them to ask them, so you can go through them, or you can use other tricks. So for example, I once wanted to get to know our chief marketing officer better and I knew that he was taking breakfasts every Friday morning and that most of the time on Friday mornings. He was on his own at the table.

So when I approached him, I said, Hey, I see that you're having breakfast on Friday mornings. And I was wondering if this is a time where you want to be alone and reflect or if you would mind that one of those days, I join you, and we can have a conversation because I'd like to ask you a few things worked perfectly. And he was very glad to share breakfast with me. And it was not only a great way to connect, but also a way for me to learn from this person in an environment that was a bit more relaxed than sitting in his office or doing it more formally. I also use the opportunity, especially when I was working in France, of using the coffee corner in the coffee area. Very often you have access to senior stakeholders.

So why don't you just find a way to join that table and engage in the discussion and then you know, you will naturally over time have a chance to ask a few questions. So Coffee corners can also work. And finally, one of my most favorite tricks is if you have the chance to travel on business trips, be smart about it. Yeah. Can you share a taxi with some people that you want to get closer to? Can you get on the same flight as them and influence the way you're seated so that you get to sit next to them and share.

I used to do that a lot with one of my managers who's always on the run. And each session we had together was great. But each time we didn't have enough resources in here to go to other meetings. So the way I got to spend more time and get closer to him was to spend all my travels sitting next to him. And he knew it as I all know, you're sitting next to me again, and we were joking about it. And I said, Yes, of course, if you don't want to work, I appreciate this.

But, you know, I know we're always so busy. So I thought let's, let's do it during the travel time. And it worked brilliantly for us so much that I remember once, him telling me, we have to go to Amsterdam and from Strasbourg where I was working, you know, it was about five hours of a drive, or we could try. And he said, Well, I know you'd like to spend time with me during travel. So why don't we drive together, you can print out a few things. And we can work together on your personal development was the best session I had together with him.

Lots of feedbacks, lots of learnings, and lots of fun as well. So you get my point? Yeah. Find a way that suits them. Remember the principle of adding value to others, rather than thinking about what suits you well applied more than ever with senior stakeholders, because their time is really really precious. They're not just acting busy, they really are and they are juggling with 1000 topics, so make it easy for them.

Okay. Now, the second thing is, you get the session you sitting so what do you do? How do we Engage was very simple. I always say that a good success indicator is to make sure that they speak more than you. If you manage to do that, you're going to have a successful session, and you're going to learn a lot. How do you go about this was simple, ask open questions, open ended questions that are quite general and encouraging, and makes them talk about something they enjoy.

And of course, that is related to your point. So my best examples would be if you look back in what has made you successful in your career, or even what has made you so successful in your career, or, you know, what do you think is the key skill that helps you to get to where you are and that quick? And what advice would you give to someone who wants to be successful in this company? This is a great one. So you get my point. Yeah, open ended questions and couraging positive questions.

That get them to talk about their personal history and how they got to where they are. People like to share. The problem is most of the time when they have one on ones people come with problems with Project issues or budget concerns and decisions to be made. It's quite rare that someone is genuinely interested in knowing how they got where they are, and give them a chance to share a piece of their story. So be that person. And then a few things.

Make sure you come with a pen and paper. This is about being serious, committed and curious. Listen carefully. take lots of notes, and a final tip and the session before the agreed time. If you plan for 30 minutes, make sure that you close it after 20. Why?

Because they're going to leave with a great impression of having the best gift you can ever give them which is they get to share part of the story and they now have a bit of extra time and they don't have to rush to the next meeting. They have 10 minutes where they can relax. Thank them. Well done.