Early in my career, I left a client meeting that I thought I nailed.
A senior executive pulled me aside afterwards and said…
“I appreciate the enthusiasm on your part of today’s presentation around the over delivery of marketing leads, but they didn’t yield sales so it’s not actually success. Next time I want you to work backwards from the revenue goal and understand the drivers across the continuum of the sales cycle – otherwise nobody is impressed about leads. Also, it’s an imperative that we represent ourselves as a united team and solution. Think like the client.”
Ouch? Nope, very needed for a junior worker who hadn’t been in many client meetings before. This was real time feedback, respectfully given, that grew me early on. This is what professional development in action looks like.
If you find yourself in a meeting today where a junior worker needs some coaching, be their growth catalyst. Deliver that feedback!
They just might remember it 15 years later and appreciate it.
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Jourdan Marie Hathaway 
What a brilliant description, Jourdan – I had a few conversations like this. They were candid and respectful at the same time. A little scary in the moment, they turned out to be turning points in my career in that they reoriented me to what was really important to the organization, which sometimes differed from my rote thinking about what I thought was important to it. Since I came from a family of strategic thinkers, the differences weren’t usually that big, but ship and plane pilots will tell you that being a few degrees of the compass off your destination causes you to miss it.