Executive Presence
I participated in a three-day meeting in Delhi when I had a corporate job. The focus was on global economic development, and the venue was the Taj palace hotel. After checking in, I went to the registration desk and registered for the event quickly, though there was a long queue. After settling down in the room, I leafed through the plan. Several exciting themes caught my attention. Star-studded panels would provide me with good insights in the coming three days.
The inauguration and the networking dinner were the two critical events on the first day. I looked forward to great networking opportunities and meeting my business friends in the coming days without stepping out of the hotel. I had the freedom to skip some of the sessions to attend my regular office business.
The second day started with a panel discussion on some trade themes, and I was not keen to attend. After the plenary, the participants joined the break-out sessions of individual interest. Participation was voluntary, and one was free to join any group. The chosen group leader had to steer through the proceedings and report the insights in the summary panel. As I stepped out to take an important call, I could not join a group of my choice. By the time I returned, all the participants were huddling together in respective groups.
I looked around in dismay when one of the organisers directed me to a small group of women sitting in a corner. There were three ladies- a French, an Italian and a Bangla deshi. Without checking the theme, I pulled a chair and joined them. I noticed a sense of surprise on their faces. I introduced myself, and the ladies welcomed me with some hesitation. I realised that the subject was the global garment industry, and I did not have an iota of knowledge and experience. I put up a brave front though I was a misfit, and I could see a big smile on their faces seeing me joining the group — a diverse addition.
The Chairperson gave opening marks for five minutes, and there was a discussion around the current status of the garment industry. She commented that 25% of women in Bangladesh were working in the garment industry. I patiently listened to them and instantly translated that the data point as one in four women is associated with Bangladesh’s garment industry. All three women looked at me in awe as if I had provided some new insight. Their faces indicated admiration for my intervention.
During the discussion of twenty minutes on innovation on design technology of garments in France and Italy, I suggested that we step back a little. And immediately followed up with a simple question on the problem we were trying to solve? My team members gave me a stunning look as if it was a eureka moment and considered my comment a significant breakthrough. Another round of discussion followed on the problem statement.
During deliberations around bringing new collaborations of skills between the countries in the garment industry, one of the participants talked about utilising France and Italy’s design skills and marrying them with the manufacturing skills of Bangladesh. While I was at a loss to follow the discussion, I slowly repeated a statement made by the French participant word by word. While I was blank on what was happening, the Bangladeshi participant looked at me for my observation.
When the moment came to work on finalising the draft presentation of the summary, I stopped the Chairperson and asked her to go back to the earlier chart as if I had some significant contribution to make. She rolled back the deck for my review, and I stared at the chart with a blank face for a minute while the others were watching. I nodded my agreement on the content, as I had nothing to add. She looked at everyone for any final comment towards the end of the pitch. While the others had no observations, I asked her whether the proposal could scale, knowing that the question had no context. There was a whisper among the ladies. Widening of the eyes and the raise of the eyebrows convinced me that I got a score of nine on ten in the meeting.
I stormed, normed and ‘performed’ in the meeting with no contribution defined by ‘executive presence.’
