May Busch* says it can be nerve-wracking to put your point across and speak in a large gathering, but there are three helpful steps you can practise to help overcome nervousness.
Meetings are important opportunities to show others what you know, how you think and what you’re like.
In many cases, meetings are where your colleagues and senior managers will spend the most time with you.
Yet, speaking up at meetings can be stressful.
It can be downright nerve-wracking to put your point across and speak in a large gathering.
And when it’s with a group of very experienced people and subject matter experts, that only adds to the nerves.
To speak in meetings with confidence and authority, here are three steps I’ve found helpful in my career.
Step 1: Manage your mindset
Instead of putting so much pressure on yourself to ‘perform’ at meetings, how could you reframe them to be more energising for you?
Could you think of meetings as places where you get to share your perspective?
It can be extremely valuable to get a new person’s thoughts to keep ‘group think’ from taking hold.
I like to come from a place of curiosity and contribution rather than critique.
Remind yourself before each meeting that you’re there to learn as well as share your thoughts.
It’s not about critiquing each other or yourself.
Fear is the oldest part of your brain trying to protect you from harm.
Seth Godin calls it the ‘lizard brain’.
It’s the self-protection instinct that kept your ancestors alive long enough to produce you.
It means well, but now that there are no life-threatening sabretooth tigers lurking out there, those instincts no longer serve us so well.
To defuse that natural instinct of fear – acknowledge it, thank it for doing its job and tell it that you can take over from here.
The more I deny my fear, the louder it gets.
So, the better strategy is to face your fear, love it, and send it on its way.
Step 2: Prepare your points
It helps to prepare what points you want to make, especially if you want to establish yourself as an expert in your particular area.
A good idea is to use the ‘rule of three’.
Research that shows the human brain can only keep three ideas at a time.
When you go beyond that, people won’t retain everything you say.
So, make it a habit to bucket everything you want to convey into no more than three main points.
When it comes to making your points, think about the words and phrases you want to use.
Do they make your point powerfully or do they make you sound tentative?
Which words and phrases do you want to use?
And which do you want to avoid?
For example, “In my experience …” conveys authority while, “I guess …” does not.
If you’re talking to a group of analytical people, they’re more likely to respond well to, “I think …” rather than, “I feel …”, whereas it would be the other way around for a more emotionally attuned group.
When you start with an apology like, “I may be completely off base but …”, you undermine everything that you say afterwards.
This is especially common for women.
Instead, get in the habit of going straight to your point without a long preamble that essentially says, “I don’t really know what I’m talking about but here goes anyway”.
There’s nothing like practising out loud to help you feel confident in what you’re going to say.
There’s something about hearing yourself make the point that builds confidence when you get in the room and have to say it in front of others.
If you find it hard to break into the conversation during the meeting – especially if you’re on a conference call – ask the meeting organiser to give you a slot on the agenda.
Or enlist the help of a colleague to ask for your input during the meeting.
Step 3: Stay present to spot opportunities
Every meeting has three parts to it: the beginning, middle and end.
And the kind of comments and questions that happen in each part are a little different.
The key is to recognise where you’re most comfortable speaking up.
The beginning is an easy time to make a point because you can be sure no-one else will have made it yet.
And if you’re nervous about speaking up, jumping in right away is key.
The middle is a great time to build on someone else’s point (they’ll appreciate it!), share your three points, answer a question or ask a question.
Open-ended questions are the best for inviting discussion.
And if the group is getting stuck on an issue, you could ask an innovation question like, “What if …” or, “How might we …” to unblock things.
The end is a great place to show your authority by synthesising and summarising what’s been said and drawing the meeting to a close.
This is also a more advanced way to contribute, so cut yourself some slack as you practise this skill.
The spot you choose may be different for the various meetings you attend and it’s likely to change over time as you become more comfortable and as your role evolves.
As you go through the meeting, a great way to keep your energy and confidence up is to manage your physiology.
Breathing is important because your brain needs oxygen to function well and breathing rhythmically has been shown to calm the nervous system.
Physical movement is also helpful to reduce stress and manage your nerves.
This could be getting up for something to drink or stretching in your chair.
It’s also about keeping good posture so you’ll look and feel more alert, and your voice will carry so you can be heard.
When it comes to speaking up in meetings, what matters is that you jump in and start experimenting.
The longer you stay silent in meetings, the harder it will feel to speak up.
* May Busch is former COO of Morgan Stanley Europe and an executive coach, author and entrepreneur.
This article first appeared at maybusch.com
