Did you miss this? Our long-read from the summer issue of Education Executive magazine: Do you find yourself struggling to be taken seriously in meetings? Keystone Knowledge has some important ideas on how to get your voice heard in meetings
Love them or hate them, meetings are an essential part of professional life. Good meetings effectively utilise the knowledge, experience, and skills of those around the table to create solutions and foster great strategy. Bad meetings waste people’s time, promote partisan behaviour and don’t make progress – which can be frustrating for all involved.
If you leave thinking, “I wish I had said X or Y but I just didn’t feel able to”, if you find it hard to be taken seriously in meetings or you’re often talked over, here are some tactics that you can use the next time you want to make your voice heard in a meeting.
Read ahead
Reading the paperwork before a meeting is one of those obligations that everyone puts to the back of their to-do lists. Although the additional reading before a meeting can be tedious, try to think of it as an opportunity to get ahead. Use this extra time to ruminate on the questions that you would like to ask, or information you would like to bring up, and write down exactly what you’d like to say. This will make it easier to remember what you’d like to say if you find yourself getting flustered.
Speak early in the meeting
When any group of people come together to discuss anything, there will always be differences of opinion; when people are as passionate as they are about education, tensions can run high and this can lead to people talking over each other.
Speaking early in your meeting can help to establish your presence and make it easier to talk later on. If you find yourself struggling to be heard in a meeting, be confident (fake it if you don’t feel it!) and raise a point in the first few agenda items. If you are interrupted, wait until they have finished and begin again, but always remain calm and polite. State the behaviour you want from others – “I need you to listen to what I have to say and then to respond with questions once I have spoken”.
Asking questions and seeking clarification
Asking intelligent questions, and asking the speaker to clarify, can help you to understand the subject better and can gain you respect amongst your peers. Keep your questions short, concise and to the point. If you are the lone voice asking for clarification in a meeting and others are getting impatient, introduce your question by saying “I am almost ready to join the consensus of opinion; in order for me to do so, I just need to understand X, Y and Z”. This signals that you are a team player but that there are things that are important to you.
Avoid starting your questions with, “I’m sorry” or “This might be a silly question”. These starters will make you seem less authoritative and assertive.
Staying focused on the tasks at hand
If a colleague makes a point you agree with, and illustrates it with an example or anecdotal evidence, avoid the need to add weight to their argument by adding your own anecdote. Simply say, “I agree with X, as that example chimes with my experience/ understanding”.
If you are chairing the meeting, keep things on track by ending each agenda item by asking, “Are there any more issues arising from this item?” Once any lingering issues have been aired, you can be confident in shutting down any attempts to move back to an item later in the agenda. Hopefully, as adults, we have moved past using the ‘speaking spoon’ to determine who is talking but it may also be helpful for the chair to have a timer and restrict speaking times to prevent meetings from going over time.
Foster good relationships with others
The old adage ‘It’s easier to catch flies with honey than vinegar’ still rings true. In his classic, How to Win Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie said, “Success in dealing with people depends on a sympathetic grasp of the other person’s viewpoint”. Finding common ground with those around the table will allow you to build a good, personable relationship with them. Including everyone in discussions, standing up for those who are being talked over, and becoming the calm voice of reason will help you to be seen in a positive light.
Keystone can help with external reviews of governance. As well as auditing your governance procedures and policies, we can sit in on meetings to monitor behaviour. From there, we can provide solutions to ensure that your meetings work toward the thing that matters most – improving outcomes for your pupils.
Be the first to comment