In Meetings, Honesty is the Best Policy

All of our careers are punctuated by what at the time seem like minor incidents but which we look back on as being representative of some larger principle.  I was once in a meeting with a major client, my agency team, and the client's media auditor/consultant.  It was a big deal meeting, lots of senior clients from both the U.K. and the U.S.  For some reason the discussion turned to the possibility of 60-second commercials as against what was for this client the more usual 30-second format.  The client turned to the consultant, and asked him for his view.  The consultant seemed to have no informed view, beyond using a lot of words before ending his remarks by saying: "There's lots of research on this topic, which I've asked Brian to take you through."  He had done no such thing, despite apparently having some advance knowledge that this issue was going to come up.