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Stephanie Nolen, a fantastic foreign correspondent for the Globe and Mail, gave the Dalton Camp lecture last year , in the form of advice to a young female journalist.

One item on her list is, Show up. But she is being a lot less flippant than Woody Allen was.

Now, we aren’t all going to have tales to tell of wading through the Nile headwaters in the Sudan, trying to keep our notebooks dry while avoiding snakebites, to get a story. But it’s great advice even in slightly more mundane settings. There’s nothing like actually being present, going to see the story for yourself, simply presenting yourself to learn what there is to be learned.

We find this all the time in our consulting practice – the more ways we can find to engage with our clients and everyone else involved in our projects, the better our work gets. It books up our schedules and means we might spend some days jumping from meeting to meeting, but it’s critical to staying connected, and it’s always, always worth it.

What does showing up mean for you? Does it mean picking up the phone instead of sending an email? Does it mean getting on a plane to visit a client or a supplier? Does it mean taking the time to sit down with your employees to get their take on what’s going on?  Does it mean a lunch with someone in a complementary business? Whatever showing up translates to for you, do it, and do it often.

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