[0:11] Welcome to Do Something Different. I'm your host, Rusty Gaillard, and this podcast is for smart, ambitious people who've done everything right

[0:19] but want even more, impact and fulfillment. We bring you skill set and mindset to break old habits that are in your way and take new action to accelerate your growth. We are talking today about executive meetings. Because let's be real, like an executive meeting is your opportunity to shine. Or even non-executive meetings, but meetings where there's a wide range of people, where your positioning in the meeting might be a little bit uncomfortable. Because these are great opportunities. But there are five reasons, I want to talk about these five reasons why a lot of people hold back in this kind of situation.

[0:59] Now, think about yourself in one of these meetings. And I've got multiple examples of clients I've worked with trying to figure out how do I show up? So let's take one client in particular, that's someone that I'm thinking of, who tends to be a little bit more on the introverted side. And this is one of the reasons people don't speak up in meetings. Because they say, well, you know, it's okay. I don't feel like, you know, the conversation is going just fine without me. Now, this person was often one of the more senior people in the room. Even when there's not a whole other audience, they're one of the more senior, maybe their peer or a boss or someone more senior than them is in the room as well. But this person sees themselves as introverted and is more comfortable being quiet. Now, just listening to that, you can understand right by hearing it that that's kind of undermining themselves. This person is undermining themselves by not speaking up. And so this mentality of thinking of yourself as introverted, maybe just feeling a little uncomfortable in that kind of environment, that can be one of those reasons that people don't speak up in a meeting.

[2:04] A second reason that people don't speak up in a meeting is because they feel like they're empowering their team. So when you delegate to your team, you ask your team to be presenting something, oftentimes people don't want to undermine them. And so they figure by staying quiet, this is their internal dialogue now, by staying quiet, I'm supporting my team. I'm giving them the opportunity to shine and to step forward and to present and to take the credit and the responsibility for how that meeting goes.

[2:33] Now there's obviously a very positive argument to that because you want to be supporting your team and empowering your team is one of the key elements of success of any good leader but on the other hand you can see how there's a little bit of risk in there both for yourself personally but also for your team that they're kind of out there on their own if you're not actively participating in that meeting so that's one of the second reasons that's really the second reason that oftentimes people are quiet in a meeting when they could be speaking up more.

[3:01] A third reason is that they feel like they've got nothing to add. It's like, well, everything's been discussed. And so this often happens when you're in a meeting with your peers, sometimes with people above you in the organization, you're listening to the conversation and saying, there's not really anything that I have to add to this conversation. All of the key points have been set. And so you stay quiet because you don't want to be repetitive. You want to add value to the conversation. You don't want to just repeat something else that has been said already. So you stay quiet. That's really the third reason because you have nothing to add. A fourth reason that's very, very common is you don't want to look dumb. I mean, just to use kind of blunt language, saying something wrong, getting the wrong answer, saying something that is obviously a mistake, it's one of the most vulnerable things that can happen in the workplace. Survey after survey demonstrates this. Of all the things that people want to avoid. It's making a mistake, looking dumb, saying something silly in front of the boss. And so anytime you're in that kind of position where you're self-evaluating, I've got this thing that I want to say, but I'm not sure I can say it, or is it going to look dumb? Am I going to sound stupid? Has someone already already said this? This whole internal dialogue gets in the way. And it's one of the reasons people don't speak up in a meeting.

[4:20] And then finally, the fifth reason is that there's an authority figure in the room. Now, there's a wonderful article, and maybe I'll put a link for it in the show comments, that talks about all the things that make you dumber at work. And it's not actually just at work, but it's in general, the things that make you dumber. And two of the things on the list are number one, social pressure, and number two, an authority figure. And you think about it for yourself. Now, most of us high achieving kind of people, ambitious kind of people have a deference to authority. And we've got some kind of attunement to the social environment. Because if we're high achievers, we want to be successful in the context of this environment and well respected by this authority figure who's in the room. And so when you're in that kind of environment where there's social pressure, there's an authority figure in the room, you're way less likely to speak up, to share your ideas, especially if you think there's some risk to it.

[5:19] So five reasons why people often don't speak up in a meeting. Number one is they tend to be on the introverted side. Number two, they think they're empowering their team and delegating. Number three, they think they have nothing to add. Number four, they're afraid of being wrong or saying something wrong and being vulnerable because of that.

[5:38] And number five, there's an authority figure in the room or some social pressure in the room. So five reasons why people don't speak up. But of course, I don't like to just talk about problems as a part of this podcast. I want to encourage you to do something different.

[5:54] So think for a moment about what is the value of speaking up in a meeting. Now, you want to speak up because having a voice is one of the things that makes you noticed, that gives you credibility, and creates more impact. Now, I talked about this in my earlier podcast about three things about how to get promoted. And the third one is to have an opinion. And one of the ways you express that opinion, of course, is to speak up more in meetings. Now, I'm sure all of you have a model in your mind of what it looks like to successfully participate in a meeting. To do so with confidence, with authority, to say enough, but not too much, but not to be too silent either, but to strike that right balance of participation.

[6:37] Now, that's going to look different for every person. I acknowledge that. And one of the things I do when I'm working with my clients is to find what it looks like for you. But here's what I notice. Time and again, my clients tend to be too far on one side or the other. Times tend to be either too quiet and they don't participate enough in meetings or much more rarely, but occasionally clients speak too much and dominate a meeting. And the key always is to find that middle ground, to find that place of balance, if you will, where you're participating enough, but not too much. And this is true in almost any dynamic where there's different levels or different extremes you can take. And the question is, how do you find that right middle ground? So think about for yourself what it might look like to participate with the right amount in meetings. Not too much, not too little.

[7:29] And I want to give you three different mindset changes that you can take to think about changing the way you show up in meetings. Number one, the first mindset change. Most meetings that you are in, I encourage you to think about them as a conversation, not a presentation.

[7:51] So many people go into an executive meeting in particular, any kind of meeting where you're meeting with someone above you in the organization, thinking of it as a presentation. Now you produce a slide deck, you prepare, you've got a talk track, you know how you're going to navigate the meeting. All of those things are good. You want to do that pre-planning. But once you're sitting in that meeting, this is not a presentation. This is a conversation. So think about it that way, because you want to encourage dialogue. You want to work together with the people in the room. You don't want to be, for the most part, you don't want this to be just you presenting an idea. So I encourage you to change your mindset around this. Now, I say this also with the assumption that most of the meetings you're in are geared towards decision making. because when you're making decisions in particular, you want the best ideas to surface. And so you want more conversation, you want more participation, and you want to be able to react and adjust to what you're hearing in the room. If you're thinking about this only as presentation, you tend to be very linear. You're trying to drive to a particular goal. You're trying to get through your slides and your talk track, tell the story in the way you have in mind, and you don't react. You don't think on your feet. You don't adjust to what's happening in the room. So mindset shift number one, Think of this not as a presentation, but as a conversation.

[9:10] Change number two. I want you to change your default and go back to this exercise I gave you a moment ago to think about what is the appropriate balance for you about how you want to participate.

[9:24] And assume for a moment, just pretend for a moment that you have the confidence and the ability to execute against that and to make that your default. To make that your default saying, I am that person that participates with the right amount of airtime in this meeting, with the right amount of support for my team, with the right amount of comments, with the right amount of words. I'm not overly verbose and I'm not so short in my comments that nobody really understands and I'm not having an impact. But see yourself in that way and default to that as your mode of participation. So I'm going to give you a little background behind this because so many of us think well let's take my client who saw herself as introverted, she would come into a meeting saying, I'm introverted, but I need to participate more. So she'd see this gap and she'd say, I've got to cross this chasm. I've got to fill the gap. I've got to say, how do I go from being introverted to participating more? And the mindset shift I'm encouraging you to take is just assume for a moment that you've already crossed that gap. Assume that you're showing up and participating in a meeting in a confident and active way, and you're already adding value. Just jump ahead in time, a year, two years, whatever it is for you that you need to get to that point and imagine yourself there, confident, participating well, actively engaged in the meeting.

[10:46] And see yourself as that person and start there. Say, okay, what does that person do? How is that person thinking? What kind of comments is that person making? And see yourself in that place. It's much easier to come from that place of success than to be over here saying, oh my gosh, I'm introverted. How am I going to get from introverted to successful? see yourself as successful and then take the actions that that person would take so that's the second tool i'm giving you the third piece that i want to give you is to focus less on yourself in the meeting and more on the goal of the meeting what is the business objective you're trying to accomplish in this meeting and then you play the role that's necessary to deliver on that objective so many of these concerns that i talked about well i'm introverted or i want to empower my team, or I'm afraid I might say something stupid or we wrong, or I'm nervous about how I'm going to show up in front of authority. Those are all very internally focused thoughts.

[11:41] So this third tool is to change your orientation, change your perspective. Don't be internally focused on yourself. Focus externally on the business problem that is there to be addressed. And then participate in a way that addresses that business problem, that gets the response that you need. Now, you know, meetings can take different formats. They could be an informative meeting. They could be a feedback meeting where you're getting feedback. But a lot of meetings are oriented around decision, where you're conveying information, you're hearing information, and the goal is to bring the group to a decision about what the next steps are and how you move forward. Now, see your primary role as getting to that decision. And if that means you need to say something that is not being surfaced in the meeting, but you see it and no one's talking about it.

[12:29] You can say that. And when you put it on the table, you're helping to get to the business decision that needs to be reached. Now, focusing less on yourself, focusing instead on the business decision. So these are the three key mindset shifts that you can take to shift the way you're performing in the meeting. Number one, to think of it as a conversation, not a presentation. Number two, to change your defaults so that you're coming from that place and you're seeing yourself as confident and successful and effective in the way you present.

[13:03] And number three is to be focused on the business outcome rather than focused on you and how you're presenting in the meeting.

[13:12] Take these and try them. Because listening to this, getting some ideas, hearing this, even if it feels inspiring or motivational to you, that's great. But if you do nothing with it. It's just entertaining. It's just cool. And you walk away feeling good, but you don't do anything. I want you to put these into practice, do something different, shift your mindset and let that shift your behavior. Now, in this podcast, I deliberately did not give you specific skills for how to do this because my belief is that you are smart, accomplished, successful. You don't need new skills. You've got all the skillset you need to execute this effectively. What's standing in your way is not lack of skill. What's standing in your way are some of these other five factors that we talked about. And you can address those with these mindset shifts. And when you change your mindset, you change your perspective about how you're coming into this meeting. Naturally, your behavior will follow.

[14:10] Try one of these, put it into action, and see what happens because it's all about doing something different. That is how you learn. Have a great week. Thanks for listening to Do Something Different. Make sure to subscribe, like, comment, and share with your friends. You can also find us on your favorite podcast platform. If you want additional content beyond what's on the podcast, make sure to follow me on LinkedIn and at my website, rustygaillard.com.