by Tom Triumph, Featured Contributor
THE VERY FIRST TIME John Lennon saw his future wife, was at an art exhibit. The Beatle walked in to a local art gallery in London and took a look around. One of the art pieces was an installation by an artist named Yoko Ono. Her installation involved a wooden ladder, the kind you might get out of the garage when you need to change a light bulb on the porch, or maybe reach some apples in a tree. On the top of the ladder, she mounted a spyglass. Visitors to the art exhibit were able to climb up the few steps of the ladder and see what was visible through the lens.
John was curious, so he climbed the ladder and looked. He later described that what he saw made an immediate and positive impression on him.
Which naturally reminds me of an executive meeting I attended. As with many meetings, there were too many people. Probably thirteen from the client side, and me and my boss who were trying to sell something.
The meeting was not going well. The President of the company where I worked (my boss) was very knowledgeable, confident and articulate. He was also exceedingly verbose. He talked. A lot.
Here’s the rundown. The customer would ask a simple question. My boss would use it as an opportunity to regale them with a rambling story leading (sometimes) to the answer. A few times, he forgot the question and had to ask for a reminder. Sometimes the client had to ask again.
Simple Question: “Does your product allow for various user rights and permissions?”
Rambling Answer: “Back when we first started thinking about the feature set to offer….” (minutes later) “What was your question again?”
It was frustrating. My mind wandered and I turned my head from the ongoings to look out through the large windows. Outside the lights from Times Square were glowing brightly many stories below. Everywhere I looked, there were lights and the streets were buzzing with people. On a nearby highrise, there was a huge LCD screen that covered the entire side of the building. The giant screen was several stories tall. One of the things it was playing was a promotional advertisement for some upcoming basketball tournament, or maybe it was a new athletic shoe. I don’t remember.
But I do remember the 5-second clip of the basketball player catching the ball, and then the fluid motion of him jumping into the air and slamming it through the basket, before a quick cut to the cheering fans. Every few minutes it would repeat.
That wasn’t happening in the meeting. What my boss was doing was catching the ball (those simple easy questions being tossed to him from the client) and then dribbling back and forth (uninterrupted) on the court, sometimes going nearer the basket appearing as if to take the shot, only to move away from the basket and dribble some more. If the questions were like basketballs, he’d spin each one on his fingers or dribble the ball between his legs (he was really knowledgeable after all). Eventually, most of the time he would put the ball into the basket.
I stopped looking out the window. The meeting dragged on. The client grew increasingly impatient with the long-winded responses.
A few hours later sitting in a Starbucks, I tried to explain my take on the meeting, and how things could be improved the next time. “Think of yourself like a star basketball player, and the questions lobbed to you like a ball.” I said.
Associating him with a star athlete seemed to align with his opinion of himself. He leaned forward. Maybe he was imagining himself on the floor of Madison Square Garden.
“In the future, just take their question and immediately make the basket.” His eyes widened. “Don’t make them wait wondering ‘when will you ever get around to the answer.’ The question has been passed to you to answer. So just answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’.” At this point, he nodded his head in understanding, and was likely envisioning himself in a Knicks jersey.
“Once you’ve done that, you can add some additional explanation, but everyone is waiting for you to make the basket so they can move on to the next question. The objective is to quickly answer the questions and score the points, not to see you do tricks.” He smiled as though he could hear the crowd’s thunderous approval after dunking an imaginary basket.
Constructive criticism isn’t always easy, but the explanation seemed to go well.
So, what did Lennon see when he climbed the ladder and looked through the spyglass? Inside the lens, Yoko Ono had put the word “YES”.
John said that at the time, the world seemed to be full of negativity and that most concept art was “anti” everything. So naturally, he expected to see something cynical. Instead, that one simple direct word of affirmation touched his sensibilities.
Said another way… maybe John Lennon had a question, and cheered when he got a direct answer.
