(1). A way to signal to everyone in the meeting that this is the only agenda item you want to talk about and that all of the other stuff is meaningless to you.
“Okay, team, well, first and foremost, I want to address 2012 compensation. I understand many of you may have booked vacations for after the New Year…well, you might want to rethink those plans for now…”
(1). Something that you really don’t want that new centralized team in Mumbai to start messing with.
“Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! What do you mean we have to run all of our T&Es by Annalise?! I thought you said they were out of scope! I’ve got to get in front of Jim on this … pronto!”