Impress in work meetings
Ever felt anxious in a work meeting? Holistic preparation is key to success.
How you show up in meetings will make or break your career. And first impressions are the ones that have the most impact. It cannot be understated just how important it is to have a good start in a meeting. A good start is a confidence builder and puts credit in the meeting bank, a bad start can be crushing. As a mentor once told me – if your first contribution is strong, attendees will cut you slack on the second. Follow these 5 best practices to impress leaders and peers in meetings.
1. Do your homework. Be sure you know not just the subject being discussed but also who every attendee is and what their role in the meeting is. If it’s an important meeting you should also consider doing interviews to find out the meeting preferences and behaviors of key attendees.
2. Be ready with your business introduction and first contribution. Most of us underperform on thinking on our feet. So be sure your first few interactions make you shine:
a. Introduction. Be able to introduce yourself in 30 to 60 seconds in any context. Prepare simple, credible and relatable self-descriptions that you can select according to audience. For example, in customer meetings I might introduce myself as a translator, bridging the gap between customer needs and technology capabilities. who used to work in the customer industry.
b. Contribution. A weak first contribution will put you on the defensive. After all - ideas in the moment aren’t thought through and our internal mental debate can cause us to miss the moment completely. The best way to mitigate this is to prepare 2-3 questions or ideas in advance that you can draw from in the meeting.
3. Control your body language and filler words. Learn the non-verbal cues and practice conquering them. For me some of the key ones are maintaining eye contact, never multitask, don’t cross your arms, roll your eyes, or make other negative motions. Learn how to avoid those filler words we are prone to say when we are nervous.
4. Speak with conviction. People assume you are an expert that can add value, so act like it. Never act or speak in a tentative or unconvincing manner. At the same time, if you don’t know the answer and need to check be bold and declare that or, feel free to state a hypothesis as such – just do it with confidence!
5. Support the meeting goals. Ensure your contributions are supportive of the purpose. I’ve seen many occasions where someone will start brainstorming in a decision meeting or debating an issue irrelevant to the goal. If you get a reputation as a meeting derailer, you will get less invites, have less influence and work will feel less engaging.
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