Those Lessons Many

Years ago, on a stint in the world of corporate communications, I did some editorial work for a major pension plan. One brisk morning in January, I rode an elevator up a tower in downtown Toronto to kick off the project with several key executives. And although she would not be intimately involved with the details of the job, my boss rode along.

A fly on the boardroom wall would have said that she contributed very little to the meeting; she barely said a word. But her presence was felt in the five or ten minutes it took us to get from the reception area to our seats. I watched in awe as she exchanged effortless small talk with our hosts and telegraphed enthusiasm for the conversation we were about to have. Even before we arrived, I was impressed by how she approached such an interaction: she had chosen her outfit strategically, for example, so that she wouldn’t have to awkwardly hang...