Management meetings/field research is more important than ever. Assume 75% of the work you do at your desk for 8-12 hours a day will be done better by agents running 24/7. Being on the road more should be part of the job description for analysts. Model build tests as a screen to hire analysts will eventually go away and perhaps be replaced with mock management interviews or mock information synthesis. Being a nob in shared meetings, sabotaging yourself and those you share with will become fatal. Every possible input into the numbers inside one of the three financial statements  – product, sales, distribution, input costs, discretionary opex, balance sheet utilization, capital allocation, etc , etc, etc  . . . .  seemingly always fall into one of two buckets.    1.)      Things within management’s control.   and   2.)      Things outside their control.   When given the opportunity to meet with company executives, it’s almost always more productive, when faced with limited time, to ask specifically about things they control.   There are certain questions only management can answer.  Ask those questions first. Too much time in management meetings is spent asking execs to speculate on short term things outside of their control.