Blindly into a Meeting

As we continue through memory lane in this 30th Anniversary of DMOProz...Early in my immersion into Madison, I was churnin' and burnin', I was taking every meeting I could to understand my new community. It got so frenetic that I sometimes had no idea with whom I was meeting.

Within the first few weeks in town, I was summoned to a meeting with two individuals that I knew held some prominence in the community....but I wasn't briefed on their identities. Turns out, these two had founded our Destination Marketing Organization in the early 80s.

It was an interesting lunch, to be sure. These two elder statesmen were trying to deter this young buck from moving the DMO into the Chamber building (which wasn't my idea...but I was there to defend the concept). I pushed back, extolling the advantages of having 5 community development agencies under one roof, collaborating when appropriate, but never merging (which was their fear).

At the close of our lunch, I felt we had reached detente.

And then, the next day, I get a call from the son of one of my lunch partners saying, "what the hell did you say to my dad?"

Startled, I responded that I had simply explained our plan forward to move to the Chamber building and why it made sense.

And he responded, "I don't know what you did...but he loves you."

Because I unknowingly pushed back on Augie Faulkner...an icon of Madison's business community.

Because I had no idea who he was.

Because, if I did...I probably would have caved.

Sometimes going in blind works to your advantage.