How to Control a Business Meeting, Engineer vs Senior Management

It still amazes me the amount of experience and
knowledge I actually have.

A good imagination is needed for this so sit back
and relax:

Just came back from a meeting with the
maintenance business side of the Airline as I'm making
a new application for them too (I do more than
just airlinefreight.com).  There was 2 other
people in the room and 2 on conference call.  Of
the two people in the room, one is about 2 lvls
my senior (manager of my manager type person),
and the other is the project manager thats
running this project.  The 2 guys on the phone
were technical.

After sitting there listening to crap for 15 mins
I put my foot down.  I lent over the desk and
took control of the meeting!  Used a Loud voice so the
people on the phone could hear as well I
explained what THEY were talking about, broke it
down to separate points and answered each
separate point peace meal.

At one stage my questions couldn't be answered so
we got another guy on the phone and the guy that
was 2 levels above me started explaining to the
guy on the phone exactly what we were asking.  He
was using my EXACT words and phrases (typical
sales/business guy - no offence intended, its how
they work).  The guy on the phone then blabbered
on for a while, till I interrupted him and told
him how it was.  His actual words were "Oh .. ok
.. Thanks for your honest there, now blah blah
blah"!!!  I might've been a bit blunt but as I
was leaving for the meeting one of my team of 3
resigned!


Best thing was, this manager next to me LOVED it.
 The bluntness and the way I came to the point
and got it answered blew him away.  After the
meeting we stayed and chatted for about 20 mins
and he was saying how happy he was he asked my
manager to step in (my manager handed it off to
me).  Like it was his idea for me to take control
of it and work out how to implement this new
system.

After the meeting we were both walking the same
way so kept chatting about various stuff (mainly
how AT&T is stuffing the Airline Around) and he was
disappointed when I wasn't walking all the way to
his building as I work in a different building.

So although I've had one guy resign from my team,
I've just made my self a very valuable ally in
the maintenance business segment.