Dr. Tachi Yamada is President of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's Global Health Program.  In a recent interview with Adam Bryant of the New York Times, Dr. Yamada recounted a few lessons he has learned along the way, including the importance of making the person with whom you are talking feel like they are significant, or that what they have to say matters most in the current moment. 

Dr. Yamada designates time to read and respond to email and to take and return phone calls, but he does so by focusing on one task at a time.  He does not carry a Blackberry!

His approach is interesting and encouraging.  It seems to me that the current business landscape involves multi-tasking each and every last thing that can possibly be multi-tasked.  I like the sincerity of his living-in-the-moment practice.

Says Dr. Yamada,

"What I've learned is that when you actually are with somebody, you've got to make that person feel like nobody else in the world matters.  I think that's critical.  So for example, I don't have a mobile phone turned on because I'm talking to you.  I don't want the outside world to impinge on the conversation we're having."

(Quote published in New York Times on Feb 27, 2010)