I had lunch with the FT last week…
Something a little different this week from Forthwrite. Whether you’re a blogger who’s landed lunch with your number one interview target, an advertising executive who has slotted an hour of face time with the CEO for the biggest pitch of the year or you’re a writer granted access to that career defining scoop with Henry Kissinger, this piece is for you. Because today we’re going to look at how to get your interview subject to divulge what you really want to know. We’re going to share the tricks of the trade from some of the best lunchers in town – the team who write the FT Weekend’s Lunch with the FT – and add a few of our own (we’re no slouches when it comes to lunching either).
Last Saturday, I went to the FT Weekend Festival. It was the first in real life FT event since 2019. My, it was good to be there. If, like me, you are a social animal and have been starved of human company, the exchange of bright ideas and good debate, you would have enjoyed this event. It was like fireworks for the brain. You could feel the excitement of everyone there, from Roula Khalaf, the FT’s editor, to every member of the audience. Even the security guards looked pleased.
The programme was a combination of the heavy (Afghanistan), the cultural (the last year’s most infra dig trend? Colour coordinated bookshelves – “a sign of both aesthetic failure and mental deterioration”). And the useful: the art of lunch. Having reloaded my mind with the latest economic data and sat in on the editorial meeting for the FT’s leader for Monday’s edition, I headed over to the post-lunch session on the art of the meal we’d all just enjoyed. The session was packed – standing room only, which was tremendously encouraging for an inveterate luncher like me because it means the appetite for this most powerful tool of doing business is back.
On the panel were Lionel Barber, the former editor of the FT, Harriet Agnew, the Paris based correspondent and the Washington correspondent, Ed Luce. Between them they’ve dined one to one with some pretty heavyweight lunch companions: Henry Kissinger (99 and writing two books, one of which is about the effects of AI on the geo-political landscape; I know, at 99!); Vladimir Putin; Hilary Clinton; Bernard Arnault, CEO of LVMH; Imelda Marcos (Ed’s first interview for the paper); John Bolton, ex National Security Advisor in the Trump administration and ‘liquidity-lite’ Sarah Ferguson.
What’s the secret of conducting a great interview over lunch? And once you’ve got it, what’s the process of getting it down in words so it records the really useful, interesting bits, is readable and conveys the character of the person being interviewed? This panel of expert lunchers swapped anecdotes and techniques, shared horror stories and triumphs, and along the way, imparted some nuggets of wisdom for anyone looking to either generate great copy or just find out what makes a particular person tick. We bring them to you in case you ever find yourself over the starched white linen from your dream date.
The first hurdle is getting the interview. The FT isn’t a bad calling card on the good and the great of the world, but even so, there are some very reluctant lunchers out there. Partly, that’s because the final article is a full page in the FT Weekend edition – a double edged sword for many interviewees: guaranteed high exposure on the upside. Guaranteed high exposure on the down side. Cagey, publicity-shunning business tycoons such as Bernard Arnault took 18 months to get a table. And when he did show up, he was on guard and refused to be drawn on anything to do with family, succession plans or other revelatory stuff.
Once you do sit opposite each other over the bread roll basket, here’s the recipe for making lunch a success:
The venue
Where you go needs to help the invitee and the interviewer. They won’t divulge anything if they’re being overheard by strangers. Go somewhere that they will really like or that they know very well. It relaxes people to be in familiar surroundings where they feel safe. The FT journalists – and I – pick restaurants carefully and know the ones they trust, both for food and discretion. (Networking tip: Roula Khalaf’s favourite is Meraki, just in case you need to bump into her.)
Don’t go in heavy
If you kick off giving your guest the third degree, they will shut down. You need to ease into the conversation. A good opener is “what’s been your most memorable lunch?” Ed Luce, easily the most entertaining of the three on the panel, recalled his lunch with Anthony Scaramucci (‘The Mooch’), the shortest lived Director of the White House public liaison and inter-governmental affairs in history. Scaramucci asked Luce where he was from originally. ‘Brighton in England’ came the reply. “What, you’re gay?” was Scaramucci’s immediate conclusion. “From that moment on, the interview went downhill. Which, for a journalist, means it went uphill – in other words, really well!” It is in these moments, these trivial parts of the conversation, that you see the real person on display. Before or after they have said what they have officially come to say.
Vladimir Putin likes to keep his dining companions waiting. Five hours of waiting, so lunch becomes dinner. With Putin, Lionel Barber wanted to signal that he was different from the standard western media hack and also to send a message to a president very used to being interviewed via an interpreter that the dialogue would be directly between them. Barber opened in fluent German and the whole interview was conducted in that language. He knew that Putin had been a KGB operative in East Germany for five years and that therefore they could both meet in a common area of understanding. Putin complimented Barber on his German and asked where he had learnt the language. “I studied languages and modern history at Oxford” came the reply. “What is modern history?” enquired Putin. “Anything after 1989’, replied Barber, with a twinkle in his eye. A thin smile played across Putin’s mouth. Barber had signalled that he was a man who wouldn’t be manipulated but also knew how to flatter a man as important as the president of modern Russia.
All journalists put their phone on the table and record the conversation. The guest sees the phone and knows this is the protocol. Everything is out in the open. The phone is then left alone for the duration of the meal. That could be quite off putting, so it is important that the guest knows you are not trying to trick them.
Lunch is done in good faith. There are no trip wires.
This is not interrogative. It is a convivial conversation. That said, the format of lunch relaxes people and these three experienced diners say that it is always preferable to persuade your lunch companion to drink: not to loosen up their tongues, you understand (heaven forfend),just because ‘you want to wish them well’.
To help cement the trust, let the interviewee ask you a personal question or two. Answer honestly. It’s humanising and also disarming if you are open and frank. It plays to the reciprocity inherent in all of us and builds trust quickly. There is something of the confessional in a good lunch and, unlike with your priest in church, the sacrament of bread and wine in this context is two way.
However much you might want your companion to let loose with gossip or indiscretion, understand their motives. The most difficult people to open up are corporate CEOs because they are obsessed with effects they can have on the share price if they speak out of turn and it gets into print. A good tactic for these lunch guests is to be outlandish and outspoken yourself. Sometimes, by doing this, you will move your buttoned up, slightly paranoid guest beyond their tightly defined script. Which is, of course, the interesting territory.
Another person notorious for refusing to be drawn to insult other people is Henry Kissinger. But you have to understand why before you get frustrated. And you have to accept that some people will not reveal all. (Although their little asides might reveal more than they realise, as with Scaramucci.) Kissinger will not dish the dirt on anyone in power because he will never jeopardise his personal access. Access to the top most levels of government, of finance, of power. Access is his most valuable asset. Therefore, you will never get him to divulge what he really thinks of, for example, Trump. However hard you try. Because he cannot have his phone calls go unanswered. But this is, in itself, a very real reveal on the nature of the man. And that is all you are trying to reveal.
What you are trying to do is build a picture of what is important to this person. What makes them tick. And sometimes that can come from knowledge gleaned away from the lunch table. For example, Ed Luce met Kissinger’s younger brother. His younger brother speaks American English so unaccented that he ‘could well have been raised by Disney’. So why is Henry’s speech so Germanically accented, guttural and distinctive? Because he’s cultivating a deliberate image. This, too, is germane to a deeper understanding of your subject’s motives and character. Much of the art of lunch is reading between the lines as well as recording the actual lines spoken.
All three journalists said that if you listen, the article writes itself. They all record and transcribe the whole interview and then go through the transcript with marker pens to pull out the top ten most interesting things that came out of the lunch. The panel’s exhortation was to stay there until the end. Never rush or be rushed. Think of the lunch as a piece of music. It will have natural rhythms, go fast, go slow, but don’t mentally check out as you approach the end – because you might miss the crescendo if you do. When it comes to ordering the coffee, you might get the real insight…
“Can I have a double espresso and a small jug of steamed milk on the side please?” Ed Luce enquired.
The waiter took the order. John Bolton’s moustache, on the other side of the table, bristled. When the waiter left, Bolton, with a look of utter disdain on his face asked:
“What’s with all that about ordering your espresso separately from your milk?”
Oh. Well, usually, if I order a macchiato, it comes out not with the right ratio of coffee to milk that I like, so I order it in a way that let’s me do it myself, so it’s just right,” explained Ed Luce.
“I just order a coffee”, Bolton said, dismissively, making Luce feel like a pretentious SOB.
In these little exchanges, in these asides, you get the real insight into the person’s character.
The ‘third character’
Lastly, don’t forget the food and don’t forget the ‘third character’. The food is what’s supposed to make it enjoyable, so take the time to enjoy it and notice it. The third character could be the waiter – usually because they keep coming back to you right at the wrong moment to ask, for the umpteenth time, if everything is to your satisfaction. (Right at the point when your guest is about to spill the beans.) Or it could even be God, as it was with a certain well known sporting politician from Pakistan. Pious over lunch in Islamabad, regular at Annabel’s night club when in London. The discrepancy between what is said and what is done can often be the really memorable morsel from the meal.
However sloshed you are when you return from the lunch, immediately write down the moment or phrase that sticks in your head. The impression as well as the insight. For there will lie the gold you seek. You will then write a fascinating blog, win the pitch or break your first scoop to the world. And you will remember that long after the bill is a distant memory.
Word up
We would be doing our readers a disservice if we failed to pass on the nuggets of wisdom on the world according to the commentariat at the FT Weekend festival. Every hour there were at least five sessions. The whole event lasted from 11am to 6pm. That adds up to a lot of words, lively debate and pearls of wisdom. Contributors from the stage included ex- PM John Major, novelists Ian McEwan and Elif Shafak, the historian Simon Schama, chief economics correspondent, Martin Wolf, Yalda Hakin, from BBC World News and Nader Mousavizadeh, CEO of Oxford Analytica. Amongst many others. Distilling what I saw down into a bite-sized summary, here’s the state of the world:
We’re in a state of ‘new world disorder’. By common consensus, the withdrawal from Afghanistan by the US and other western allies effectively leaves Pakistan as the victor in the region with China set to benefit most economically – the ‘belt and road’ strategy is an asian land based initiative and will result in China being able to transport its goods to Europe overland rather than by sea (thus making it much cheaper to export). This will all add to China’s wealth, reach and influence.
The US quit Afghanistan in order to pivot attention to the Indo-Pacific theatre (ie China). Some feel that leaving Pakistan with the upper hand over India in the region has left ‘the major chess piece on the board’ vulnerable and angry with America for doing so.
The Biden administration in Washington has a very jaundiced view of Europe and the UK is lumped in with that group. They see the European powers as ‘free riders’ and the UK, since leaving the EU, is not necessarily seen as the able lieutenant that it once was. The ‘special relationship’ isn’t that special, anymore.
In terms of messaging, the claim made by Biden that ‘America is back’ has been dealt a fatal blow by the recent debacle in Kabul. If America is happy to say ‘follow us to the land of democratic milk and honey’ and then quit the field overnight without consultation, leaving everyone who followed them in the proverbial, what message will that send to places like South Korea and Taiwan?
Obituaries for American power and influence in the world are very premature.
Britain’s best hope of influence resides in finding common cause with a post-Merkel Germany. And Europe’s new region of influence will be Africa.
No one seems to have much faith that anything will come from COP26 this November in Glasgow.
Quote of the conference (obviously, from a writer)
“I hate that saying: ‘you have to break eggs to make an omelette’, as if the eggs don’t matter and can be ignored. Why? Because those eggs are always the women, the dispossessed and the poor. They are the ones who always pay the price.”
Elif Shafak, a Turkish-British novelist, essayist, academic, public speaker, political scientist and women's rights activist.
The last word
Everyone is talking about crypto currencies and their investment potential. In case you were thinking of investing your hard-earned proceeds from writing in them, the FT seems very cynical:
“Crypto currencies are assets. All assets are regulated. These aren’t, so you’re in the Wild West.”
Martin Wolf, Chief Economics Editor
More colloquially, a fellow panellist said:
“When your waiter starts making investment recommendations, you know it’s time to get out.”
Joke of the festival (in our Covid times)
“What doesn’t kill you, mutates, comes back and tries to kill you again.”
Forthwrite consists of co-founders, Mark Jones, David Kean and Kerry Smith, all of whom are as passionate about teaching businesses the art of good writing, as they are a good lunch.