My Best Piece of Advice from 2021 — Don’t work with anyone you wouldn’t enjoy lunch with!

We all know what it’s like to be saddled with a bad hire or a difficult client. To be frank, it can drain the life right out of you.

But with the added constraints of being on Zoom or Microsoft Teams all day, as I am, the prospect of working with a “bad apple” becomes all the more unbearable!

Why?

There’s nowhere to hide!

Take yourself back to the olden days (you know, those halcyon moments of any time pre-Covid) when you could quickly shake off an aggravating meeting with a quick run to the coffee shop or a peek into the department store on the corner.

My favourite life hack from this time was bookending my soul-sucking meetings with ones that were guaranteed to be a fun exchange of ideas. This way, I could always end my day on a high note. Or even better, end my day with a crisp glass of Pinot Grigio enjoyed on a sunny patio.

Oh, dare I dream!

But as we’ve repeatedly learnt through the pandemic, it’s now much easier to feel trapped in our work.

Even in the last days of 2021, many of us are still taking online meetings from our couches and guest bedrooms. And even with a digital background of Puerto Vallarta, who are we kidding, there is little to no psychological separation between work and home.

You can’t “run away” when someone catches you online to complain or whine.

On Zoom, there’s no elevator you can find a reason to pop into, no colleague who rounds the corner to save you from the excruciating company, no fake call you can run into your office to make — Nada!

In the world of online meetings, there’s no way to ditch a difficult person whom, let’s be honest, we can’t even be sure is wearing PANTS!

A few months into 2021, I was at my limit.

Admittedly, my Team Lead and I found that we had some folks in our work-sphere that had become a drain on our energy. So, we penned a new objective for ourselves:

WE DON’T WORK WITH PEOPLE WE WOULDN’T WANT TO EAT LUNCH WITH.

And guess what? It works!

One question is always handwritten at the top of my notes when meeting with a potential employee or client: Would I want to eat lunch with this person?

At the end of our call, if my answer is “NO!” Then they’re out.

If I can say, “Yes. Lunch once a week with this person would be OK.” Then they’re in.

And if I write, HELL YA, all across my notebook, then I know I’ve landed on a “Winner Winner Chicken Dinner.”

Using this benchmark for new business relationships may sound unorthodox, I know.

Isn’t the primary goal of onboarding all about making money? Weighing the candidate’s ROI against the business’ bottom-line? Who cares about lunch, right?

As someone always trying to drop 10 pounds, I’d have to agree with you that the actual lunch is not the priority. But I stand behind my litmus test.

You see, problem-solving in your business is very simple; either you are the problem or the people you do business with are the problem.

However, when imagining the scenario of a lunch date, it becomes obvious who the problem is.

For example, think back to your last painfully illuminating encounter with a demanding client or entitled employee. On a lunch date, don’t you think you might have sniffed these problematic behaviours out when, say, the server had topped up the waters but not stayed long enough to take a cocktail order? Or, forgotten to specify no croutons on your lunch date’s Caesar salad?

Even assuming the service went off without a hitch, don’t you think in an hour of bread breaking, you’d have an instinct about whether you’d want to extend the visit with a dessert order?

I would argue, yes.

The “lunch date” is a powerful thought exercise as it separates us from the typical brass-tacks of business decision-making. Instead, the experiment asks us to base our decision on more personal metrics: how will we feel about sharing our most precious resource — time — with this person?

So, the benchmark stands.

Now, do I currently get to enjoy lunch with my new favourite clients and employees?

Nope. Not often these days.

And as an openly devout lover of lunch, I shamelessly dream of patios with charcuterie boards, crisp Pinots, and business chatter. Yep, I’m a biz geek at heart, and my extra 10 pounds are empirical evidence that I know how to pick my lunches as well as my lunch dates. In fact, cheeses are some of my best friends these days. (Okay, I might be suffering from a bit more pandemic isolation than I’d care to admit.)

So here’s the question posed to you. Considering the people you spend most of your time with on screens, would you want to share lunch with any of them?

If not, this simple question could save you a lot of future grief and do a world of good for your business.

Now, I believe in both inherent luck and its creation and consider myself to have abundance in this area.

Historically, I’ve often worked with people with whom I loved sharing lunch. But since making this question a central pillar of my business, my batting average has gone WAY UP!

Firstly, my team is excellent. Every one of them has a certain sparkle that always makes me smile.

Secondly, my clients are great. For some of them, I would blow ALL of my Air Miles to share appetizers!

Let me give you 3 perfect examples of who I consider IDEAL lunch dates:

Every week I work with Jed Cavadas.

He leads the revenue team over at Sparkrock, absolutely cracks me up!

He talks fast, skips a lot of words (just like me), and I know under his American-style “straight-shooter” charm, he cares deeply about the impact he strives to make in this world.

Though he sounds like the type that would take you to a local pub to sling back burgers and beer, in truth, he is a hardcore vegetarian and total “foodie” (without the cheese and chocolate belly to prove it).

I also work with Carmela Orsini

Carmela is a quirky gal who always has a fantastic book on the go (I get all my book recommendations from her). She seems to do it all while mitigating life in the Microsoft Partner channel, with regular calls to headquarters in Germany. I find our online meetings fly by, and I just wish I could keep her for an extra hour to lunch or grab a drink because she’s funny as hell and, like a good read, she always leaves me wanting more!

And finally, @Jenna Prada!

What a smartie; She used to work for me, and now I work for her!

The only things slowing her down are her 3 fantastic kids who race around her like electrons speeding past their neutron. The only times I’ve ever felt drained by our conversations are when I try to imagine taking on the tasks she accomplishes in our chats together. Simply put, the awe I have for her is exhausting!

You can easily see why those are my IDEAL lunch dates. Who would make it to your list?

As mentioned earlier, there is a chance that — ahem — the “bad lunch date” is ourselves.

I have come to accept that I am not at my best until taking my 30-minute midday walk. But it can be challenging to stick to my self-care routines when I feel the crunch of deadlines and obligations.

But here’s the bonus of surrounding myself with people that are ideal lunch date types— they reciprocate the generosity.

When anyone in my world asks for a quick meeting, if I were to say, “Hey, if you let me walk for 30 minutes, you’ll get the better version of me”, they get it. When I’ve asked for this concession, everyone has responded with a generous, “Of course! Call me after your walk.”

I don’t know about you, but that’s a work atmosphere I want to be in every day. And all the better when you can create it for your own business by prioritizing the quality of your business relationships.

I’d love to hear how you have been making workplace adjustments to your business throughout the pandemic. Please share in the comments...