“The beginning is the most important part of the work.” - Plato
The way you start a conversation decides what people pay attention to.
Take Brian, a VP of Product. He was presenting his roadmap to the leadership team.
His first slide said: “We are going to build three new features this quarter…”
What followed was predictable in hindsight. The entire conversation stayed stuck on the features - what made the cut, what didn’t, what else they could add. They never really got past that.
We usually think of openings as a way to grab attention, to hook people and get them curious. They are that. But an opening does something deeper.
It sets the lens for your audience - what they pay attention to. And once that lens is in place, everything after gets filtered through it.
Brian could have started differently.
Instead of leading with what they built, he could have opened with:
“Our enterprise customers are dropping off after 30 days.”
And followed through with the same roadmap and features.
The questions would change from “What do we build?” to “Why is this happening?” The discussion moves from features to what actually matters.
Here’s how patterns unfold:
Start with a feature → people look for more features
Start with a number → people look for whether it holds
Start with a roadmap → people look for what’s missing
Start with a problem → people look for what matters
You’re not just starting a presentation. You’re telling people how to listen to it.
Watch It In Action
Watch how Joe Smith in this TED video opens his talk and how that opening shapes how the audience responds to everything that follows.
Try This Week
Before your next meeting, spend a few extra minutes on the first 60 seconds.
Don’t ask: “What’s a strong way to start?”
Ask: “What do I want them to listen for?”
Then build your opening around that.
From Elsewhere
What we’ve been reading In Japan, there’s a practice called Nemawashi, where key conversations happen before the meeting. By the time people gather, the decision is already taking shape. It’s a different way to think about alignment and what a meeting is really for. Read more >>