How to turn daily interruptions into leadership moments

Executive overview

Most leaders treat interruptions as obstacles to real work. With 100–200 interactions per day — and more coming — that instinct is losing battle.

Reframe interruptions as the work itself. Each one is a chance to clarify strategy, reinforce accountability, and connect with people. Managed well, they compound into a leadership reputation that outlasts any role.

Douglas Conant, former CEO of Campbell Soup, built this approach into a decade-long practice — reversing a cultural decline at a 20,000-person company through what he calls TouchPoints: small moments of interaction that, handled intentionally, create powerful leadership connections.

What a TouchPoint is

• Any interaction where you have a chance to move an issue forward and have a positive impact
• The mental shift: these are not interruptions to your work — they are your work
• Leaders with 100–200 daily interactions cannot afford to treat most of them as noise
• "The action is in the interaction" — Conant's framing from the book

The TouchPoint model

• Bring a "how can I help?" mentality before anything else
• Listen — to what's said and what's not said
• Frame — understand the context before responding
• Advance — help the person move their issue forward
• Identify whose issue it is: yours, mine, or ours — then act accordingly
• On things that matter most, show up on demand; don't default to scheduling it away

Being fired in 1984 — the origin

• Conant spent nine years at General Mills keeping his head down, letting work substitute for relationships
• When his division was eliminated, he had no network outside those four walls
• Outplacement forced him to build relationships deliberately — some still active 30 years later
• Core lesson: knowing the outside world makes you more effective inside it

The handwritten note practice

• Started in 1984: outplacement counsellor told him to write a note to every person who helped him — the receptionist, the assistant, the executive — and mail it within 24 hours
• It revealed how many people genuinely want to help — and gave him a way to reinforce that behaviour
• At Campbell Soup: 10–20 handwritten notes per day, six days a week, for 10 years — over 30,000 notes to 20,000 employees
• Notes celebrated specific contributions: projects delivered on time, strong customer meetings, meaningful work — not generic praise
• After a near-fatal car accident, thousands of employees wrote back unprompted — many had never met him
• The practice embodies the core stance: tough-minded on standards, tender-hearted with people

Advice for newer leaders

• Leadership does not require a title or a turnaround story — everyone has experienced a great leadership moment at the hands of a teacher, coach, or parent
• Recall those moments: someone who listened carefully, challenged you, and showed up authentically. Be that person
• Example: Ram Charan told a 21-year-old Conant, "You have great potential. You can do better." Six words. Forty seconds. Still carried 40 years later
• The companion habit: bring "how can I help?" to every interaction — not as a slogan, but as the actual question

Developing leadership as a craft

• Leadership requires deliberate practice — not talent alone (referencing Geoff Colvin's Talent Is Overrated)
• Three things to cultivate:
  1. Head — build a model for how you want to show up before you're in the moment
  2. Heart — show up with authenticity when the moment arrives
  3. Hands — practise the model consistently until it compounds
• Start small: improve one or two interactions a day. It scales geometrically
• The shortcut: model yourself on the people who shaped you most