I would try to be super-assertive in meetings and, you know, pound my hand off the table, and it never ended well. People would say, 'What are you beating the table for?' It's not natural for me.
There was no one at the table [of a Cabinet meeting] who could be of help to me except the President, and when I needed to consult him I did not choose a Cabinet meeting to do so.
You have a meeting to make a decision, not to decide on the question.
If for instance, in a board meeting, if you have an idea, it better be a good idea, or you're not going to get everybody's attention.
The best meeting I ever went to was a meeting in France where the talk slots were 60 minutes long, but you were told to prepare a five-minute talk. It was absolutely great because the entire talk was a conversation between the speaker and the audience.
I can't count the number of times I've sat in a meeting where it's been 20 men and me.
I can pretty much tell which way a meeting's gonna go in the first three or four minutes. Because if someone's not taking me seriously, I'm definitely not taking them seriously.
The way I dress and carry myself, a lot of people find it intimidating. I think my whole career can be boiled down to the one word I always say in meetings: strength.
The Law of Triviality... briefly stated, it means that the time spent on any item of the agenda will be in inverse proportion to the sum involved.
Observe any meetings of people, and you will always find their eagerness and impetuosity rise or fall in proportion to their numbers.
When I was research head of General Motors and wanted a problem solved, I'd place a table outside the meeting room with a sign: "Leave slide rules here." If I didn't do that, I'd find someone reaching for his slide rule. Then he'd be on his feet saying, "Boss, you can't do it."
I'd make a comment at a meeting and nobody would even acknowledge me. Then some man would say the same thing and they'd all nod.
I love meetings with suits. I live for meetings with suits. I love them because I know they had a really boring week and I walk in there with my orange velvet leggings and drop popcorn in my cleavage and then fish it out and eat it. I like that. I know I'm entertaining them and I know that they know.
People in my confirmation process, on the right and the left, really loved that idea of having someone who's going to be in meetings arguing on behalf of the dignity of people who sometimes aren't represented in meetings. But by the same token, they have somewhat unrealistic expectations that I can kind of make my own policy.
I once went into a meeting, and every woman put her a million-pound bag on the table. Then I'm there with my tote bag and anorak. And I'm like, well, I'm still the most important person in the room right now.
The binders, the charts, the grids may seem formidable, but the meetings themselves are built around informality, trust, emotion and humor.
It's no longer permissible to have sexist comments, but growing up in this industry, I spent time in many other organizations where it was just commonplace for men to talk about how a woman looks or give a woman a little bit of a harder time in a meeting and then say, 'I'm just joking - it's because I care about you.'
I hate having people sit in on meetings.
I find that no matter how long a meeting goes on, the best ideas always come during the final five minutes, when people drop their guard and I ask them what they really think.
Any time people come together in a meeting, we're not necessarily getting the best ideas; we're just getting the ideas of the best talkers.
Here's my theory about meetings and life: the three things you can't fake are erections, competence and creativity.
When you're in a meeting and you pull out your paper notebook, people look at you and go, 'Oh, he's taking a note.' But if you're in a meeting and you pull out your iPad, they go, 'Oh, he's checking Facebook.'
I was surprised to see the meeting was of Communists and the whole meeting was along Communist lines.
Meetings are the linchpin of everything. If someone says you have an hour to investigate a company, I wouldn't look at the balance sheet. I'd watch their executive team in a meeting for an hour. If they are clear and focused and have the board on the edge of their seats, I'd say this is a good company worth investing in.
Every discussion in a meeting has a diminishing curve of interest. The longer the discussion goes on, the fewer people will be interested in it.
