One Simple Tip to Win at Work
Hey friends,
During my time at Google, I had a manager named Jesse who loved taking detailed notes in meetings. No matter how short or long the meeting, he would take notes for the team and share it with everyone. I always thought that was a waste of time as no one ever “used” the notes and they would simply live and disappear in the cloud. I personally hated taking notes, in college and at work, so I never picked up the habit.
Fast forward to a few years later and it’s my first week at Morgan Stanley Hong Kong. Given I was new there, I looked back at my time at Google and thought about what made the best managers great at Google. I immediately thought of Jesse and what he did. So, starting with my first ever conference call at the firm, I took detailed notes and shared them through email with everyone on the call after the call, especially highlighting the Key Takeaways and Next Steps at the top of the email. This simple effort changed my trajectory at the new firm: it differentiated me instantly from my peers, made everyone around me more efficient, and most importantly, allowed me to be more attentive during calls, absorb more information, and summarize the learnings in a digestible and actionable format.
As you start a new week today and jump on your first work call, here’s what you should do:
Join the call and open your email client at the same time
During the call, listen carefully and summarize each topic discussed in a bullet point format
After the call, spend a few minutes reviewing and cleaning up your bullets, and put a heading above the bullets that says Notes
Then, create another heading called Key Takeaways where you summarize the entire call in under 2-3 bullets (great for senior team members to glance at and get an idea of what happened on the call)
Finally, create another heading called Next Steps where you simply list what actions need to happen next and by whom
Add all the emails of people on the call (internal only) and hit send! 🚀
Start doing this regularly and don’t stress too much on the quality of your notes, over time you will get better at taking cleaner and more punchier notes. The key is to just do it and keep doing it.
Try it this week and let me know what reactions you get from your team. Good luck and stay smiling my friends! 😊
Sherjan
