When reading history, I wonder if you have noticed a phenomenon, is that over the centuries, the world's important meetings, especially at the national level, the top leaders among the meeting, the meeting time is getting shorter and shorter. Just a few examples, you feel it.
In the 19th century, after the Napoleonic Wars, the European powers held the Vienna Conference, from September 1814, until June 1815, almost a year. One hundred years later, after the First World War, the Paris Peace Conference, a little shorter, but also six months. Emperors, prime ministers, chancellors, presidents and their large entourages were both coming and going at these meetings, bargaining, co-opting and talking slowly.
And now? Even the important international summits are just a day or two, and the real talks, just a few hours. The relationship between the major powers is so intricate, the head of a good meeting, a few hours, which can be clear?
The book "Yalta" is about the famous "Yalta Conference" of the late Second World War, which was also an international summit, the triumvirate of Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin. This meeting was already very short, only eight days in total. The book also opened my mind: the duration of world conferences is getting shorter and shorter, not only because communication technology is getting more and more advanced, but also because there was an upgrade in the way human powers work diplomatically, at the time of the Yalta Conference.
Let's briefly review the process.
A year before the Yalta Conference, in September 1944, Roosevelt proposed to Stalin that he could meet in some city in northern Scotland in England, and Stalin refused, saying that the Soviet Red Army was conducting major military operations at the time and that he had to stay in Moscow to sit on the ground.
Roosevelt was undeterred, and in October and November, he offered Stalin a dozen options for meeting places, including Athens, Jerusalem, Istanbul, Rome, and so on. The meeting had to be held anyway, and the location was negotiable. Stalin refused with various reasons, saying that his health is not good, to listen to doctors, can not go far, to meet, it is best to open near the Black Sea, in the Soviet territory.
In December, the meeting was finally held on Soviet territory, in Yalta, on the Black Sea coast, after much persuasion.
So why did Stalin make such a fuss? In fact, it is three words: stall time. Why do you want to delay? Also three words: to prepare. At that time, the Soviet offensive in Germany was overwhelming, the longer the delay, the more land occupied in Europe, the more Stalin and Roosevelt, Churchill meeting when the bottom is hard.
In the choice of venue for the meeting, Stalin was well prepared. As for the meeting itself, the Soviet Union's preparations were even more meticulous.
In just three weeks, and don't forget, there was still a war going on, the Soviet Union repaired Yalta and turned it into a huge conference site.
These were minor things; the most important preparation Stalin made for the Yalta conference was actually intelligence.
As early as two weeks before the Yalta conference, Soviet intelligence provided Stalin with a document. What document? It was a Russian translation of the British delegation's strategy memorandum. This document stated in great detail the British position on all important topics at the Yalta Conference, including how it was prepared to divide Germany, how the UN Security Council should vote if Polish borders were drawn up, how Soviet member states should join the UN, and so on. Britain's cards had been laid out on Stalin's table.
The situation on the U.S. side was similar, and Soviet intelligence officers had an extremely detailed grasp of the U.S. situation. In other words, no matter what ideas Roosevelt and Churchill came to Yalta with, Stalin already knew everything about their cards. Then how can we talk? Then look at Stalin's two opponents, Roosevelt and Churchill, not only lack of preparation for the Yalta meeting, inwardly even loathe preparation, especially Roosevelt.
It was evident from one detail.
Roosevelt came, excited to sightseeing tour, Churchill had to accompany. In fact, Roosevelt where is to sightseeing tour, he just did not want to talk with Churchill deep. On the one hand, he wanted to avoid making Stalin think that Britain and the United States had agreed to prepare against him; on the other hand, he also wanted to avoid forming a common position with Britain, when the Yalta meeting to shrink.
Roosevelt had his reasons, but deep down he actually believed in the old-fashioned diplomat's way of playing, in proximity, in human interaction, and he did not believe in exhaustive prior preparation. The result? Although it cannot be said that the Soviet Union won much at the Yalta Conference, it did hold the initiative all the way through the proceedings.
The book Yalta, although written about the political games of the day and its contents, actually impressed me most with this point, the importance of preparation. Why am I concerned about this? Because it is related to a feeling I have.
In our generation, we are living in an era where time is increasingly fragmented, and the time spent dealing with people is becoming more and more like a short war, and the importance of preparation has been greatly enhanced. The summit now is even shorter than the Yalta meeting back then, but the intensity of the preparations and the depth of the specialized division of labor are again unimaginable back then. Stalin's performance at the Yalta Conference actually set a precedent for the style of diplomatic work of great powers.
Nowadays, competition in society is in fact very often no longer expressed as a competition between strengths, but in the competition of preparation. Preparation is to gather the strength on a point. For example, I do New Year's speech. On eloquence, on speech performance, I certainly do not belong to the first-class. But around this product, our company will be prepared for a year, to open many planning meetings, to write a speech word by word, I rehearse myself dozens of times.
A long-time recruiting friend told me, in fact, now interview people, other can not see, you look at a little, he did for this interview how much preparation. The more prepared you are, the richer the perspective, in fact, the more you can already prove his future work potential. This proves that he is a person who is good at making plans, a person who is good at learning, and a person who is willing to cooperate, and he is still a person who can act, and such a person can do anything.
In an era of increasingly short-termism, life is more and more like a stage, and competition is more and more dependent on rehearsals.
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