"Name them over and over and over again."

In 2017 Nell Bang-Jensen wrote down a set of guiding principles for her work, which includes:

Know everyone’s name. Name them over and over and over again.

This called to mind my Morgan/Joel Strategy that I outlined in 2017, and that I’ve been working to follow ever since.

Yesterday I was at a meeting of the Stars for Life board and, a few minutes after we got started, a person I’d never met walked down the stairs into the meeting room and took a place at the table. He wasn’t introduced to us, and nobody thought to ask who he was. As a result I thought there was a (remote) possibility that I was hallucinating.

Finally, after 20 minutes of meeting business, at a break in the proceedings, I looked his way and said “I’m afraid I don’t know who you are.”

At which point he was introduced as a new board member, someone we’d approved the appointment of at a previous meeting, sight-unseen. He knew almost everyone else at the meeting, which is why he wasn’t introduced.

I’m glad I said something, because it turned out that a couple of the other board members were also wondering who this interloper was.

Know everyone’s name. Name them over and over and over again.