EMPATHY IS [OVERHEAD]

Some people are told, with varying degrees of tact, that they take up too much space. It may happen after a meeting, in a performance review, or at home from someone who has finally run out of patience. Augustus is interested in whether that person had enough information to make the call.

The conversation stays with the gap between how you are received and how you expect to be received. It is possible that both parties are missing something.

A problem does not stop at the meeting where it occurred. It gets retold in Slack, over drinks, and in the next person’s account of why something did not work.

At WAT, clients shape the explanation before the staff meeting, the exit interview, or the investor call gets there first. The client leaves with language that lets the company call the matter closed.

By the second company, most people have learned to call the first one a lesson. The word is useful because it can hold almost anything: a failed launch, a quiet departure, an investor who stopped returning calls.

The old company will come up at the next meeting. Augustus helps clients prepare the part that follows. There is no reason for everyone to begin at the beginning.

At first, secrecy can feel like discipline. You are protecting the work from premature judgment, keeping the idea safe until it can meet the world on its own terms. After a while, the protection becomes its own kind of work.

Clients come to WAT when the project has been hidden long enough to acquire an atmosphere. Augustus helps clients remain in stealth mode until they can describe the company without changing the subject. The work stays confidential until somebody decides it has to do something else.