Years ago, I saw a meeting change direction in a matter of seconds.
I was working with Deloitte & Touche at the time. The firm had recognized a troubling pattern. They were hiring men and women in roughly equal numbers out of college, but by the time people reached the level where they might become partners, there were far fewer women in the pipeline.
Many talented women were leaving.
Deloitte decided to do something about it and launched an initiative focused on retaining and advancing women.
I had a very small role in the work, but I happened to be in a meeting where a group of partners and senior managers were discussing the initiative.
The reaction wasn’t exactly enthusiastic.
The general feeling was something like, Yes, this is important. But we have bottom-line issues to worry about. Do we really need to spend our time on this?
Then one person spoke up.
He had recently been in a meeting with Mike Cook, Deloitte’s chairman, and told the group that Cook was 100% behind the initiative.
The meeting changed almost instantly.
I’ve never seen anything quite like it before or since.
People knew Mike Cook. They knew that when he said he was behind something, he meant it.
And there were other signals.
A 2,500-Mile Trip
An outside advisory committee was created, led by former U.S. Secretary of Labor Lynn Martin. As I remember it, the committee was given remarkable freedom to ask questions, examine what was happening, and report what they found.
When the group held a planning meeting in Tucson, Mike Cook flew there from Deloitte’s headquarters in Connecticut to kick it off.
About 2,500 miles.
Could someone else have opened the meeting?
Of course.
Could someone have stood at the front of the room and said, “Mike wishes he could be here today”?
Absolutely.
We’ve all been in that meeting.
Instead, he got on a plane.
I doubt there was anything he said that couldn’t have been said by someone else.
But his presence said something no one else could say for him.
This matters enough for me to be here.
What Are People Watching?
When we’re leading change, we spend a great deal of time thinking about communication.
What should we say?
How should we explain it?
How often should we reinforce the message?
Those things matter.
But people are also watching.
They’re noticing where leaders spend their time. Which meetings they attend. What they ask about. What they make room for when the calendar is already full.
They’re looking for evidence that this initiative is different from all the other things that were announced with great enthusiasm and quietly disappeared six months later.
That’s why a meaningful gesture can have such an outsized impact.
It doesn’t necessarily have to be dramatic. It doesn’t require a 2,500-mile flight.
It simply has to be visible, credible, and consistent with what we’re asking other people to believe.
The women’s initiative at Deloitte went on to become increasingly successful. Many things contributed to that success.
But I’ve always remembered those gestures.
Especially the flight to Tucson.
Because sometimes leadership commitment becomes real to people when they can see what we’re willing to do.
And that can change the trajectory of an entire effort.
What gestures have you seen from a leader that made you think, “They’re serious about this”? I’d love to hear your example in the comments on LinkedIn.
About the Author, Rick Maurer
