You're On Mute: The Art of Knowing When to Speak Up
Navigating the delicate balance of when to speak and when to remain silent is a common challenge faced by consultants, especially those at the beginning of their careers. This episode delves into the pressures and complexities of contributing effectively in meetings, highlighting how clarity of purpose can empower individuals to find their voice. Mike and Ian discuss the importance of understanding context, building confidence, and recognizing personal styles, whether introverted or extroverted. They also explore the nuances of contributing expertise in discussions, particularly when feeling uncertain about one's authority. With practical tips and insightful anecdotes, the conversation encourages listeners to embrace their unique contributions while fostering a more collaborative environment.
Transcript
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Ian:Welcome to Consulting for Humans, a podcast all about life in consulting.
Mike:You're with Mike and Ian, and in.
Ian:Each episode, we'll be shining a light on a new topic that gets to the heart of what makes consultants happy and successful.
Mike:That's right, Mike.
Mike:On the Consulting for Humans podcast.
Mike:It's our mission to add just a little more humanity to the lives of consultants and, of course, bring some of the skills and perspectives of consulting to human lives, too.
Ian:So if you're a consultant who's trying to be a bit more human or a human who's trying to be a bit more of a consultant, then we think you're just our kind of person.
Mike:And you're really welcome.
Mike:Just like always, Mike, let's talk about today's episode.
Mike:We're going to be building on our episode last time about language.
Mike:We're going to be talking about when to speak and when to remain silent.
Mike:This is a big worry that I think lots of us have in consulting, especially in the early years of our careers.
Mike:We're going to talk today about, first of all, why it could be difficult and also, by the way, some of the reasons why it's easy.
Mike:We're going to talk about how much it helps us in these situations to have a purpose and a context for what we say, and we'll get into that.
Mike:We're going to talk about things that we've seen people try that didn't work and also share a couple of ideas for what does work.
Mike:And then finally, Mike, we're going to talk about the tricky task of trying to contribute expertise to a meeting when you don't actually feel like you're the expert.
Mike:So that's a lot for us to talk about.
Mike:Let's get into it, Mike.
Mike:Some people find this perennially difficult, but I've also worked with people who seem to find it the most easy, natural thing in the world to speak up, to be heard, to express a point of view, to kind of jump in and say what's on their minds.
Mike:What do you think is going on here?
Mike:What is it that makes it easy for us?
Mike:What makes it difficult for us?
Ian:Well, it's fascinating.
Ian:I'm looking back over my career and I'm thinking that I know what made it particularly easy to interrupt early on, and that's my extraversion.
Ian:You know, I was admired for Ring for.
Ian:I was just an off the chart extrovert.
Ian:So not having anything to say?
Ian:No, you know, come on.
Ian:Not having anything valuable, that's another subject.
Ian:But I could speak anytime and often did to.
Ian:To the point of getting advice not only from work colleagues, but from my therapist as well, to say, Mike, whenever you feel compelled to have something come out of your mouth, run it back to your brain a couple times.
Mike:Oh, well, Mike, it paid off.
Mike:What can I tell you?
Mike:As a loved one near and dear to me says, sometimes, how will I know what I'm thinking until I hear it coming out of my mouth?
Ian:Wow, that's me exactly.
Ian:Process out loud.
Mike:Okay, so it's easy when we're extroverted.
Mike:What else makes it easy?
Ian:Well, I think sometimes it's really easy because there's a silence.
Ian:And, boy, it just seems.
Ian:I don't know whether this is human nature or the nature of me and people like me, but I say so often people feel compelled to fill the silence.
Ian:And there's a lot of other good things that could be going on then, but particularly when we're junior, it's like, I got to jump in.
Ian:I've got to jump in here.
Ian:Maybe we haven't learned the value of that silence or to let that silence do the heavy lifting.
Mike:Right.
Mike:And I think it's easy as well for those of us in the team or people on the client side who feel like they have authority and status.
Mike:Like, if you feel like your role is to be there and to express authority and to give a solution, and maybe we believe that that's what's on the minds of our seniors.
Mike:If that's you and you believe you have authority, then it's easy to speak.
Mike:You could just kind of clear your throat and say, well, I'm going to jump in here.
Mike:And maybe that goes along with a certain kind of confidence.
Mike:There are people who have confidence maybe erring towards overconfidence, which we talked about in one of the early episodes of the show.
Mike:But maybe it's easy when we feel confident, like we.
Mike:Where we're in our natural place there.
Ian:Absolutely.
Ian:And certainly one of the easiest times is when you're absolutely certain that you have the right thing, the important thing, stuff that people absolutely need to hear right now.
Ian:And, boy, I think, as a lot of consultants feel that way a lot.
Mike:Yeah.
Mike:And I know lots of people, many clients, and also, to be honest, some consultants who think, well, it's my job from time to time to make sure everybody knows that I'm here and that, you know, I'm part of the meeting, so I'm going to clear my throat and unmute or lean in and just.
Mike:Just jump in.
Mike:Because I feel like it's.
Mike:It's the moment I need to demonstrate that I'm here.
Mike:So these all become factors that make it easy, perhaps easier than it need be.
Mike:I'll say one other thing, Mike, that makes it easy to speak.
Mike:It's easy to speak when you know what the meeting is for or when you know what the call.
Ian:Right.
Mike:Is about.
Mike:And that's.
Mike:Well, we shouldn't take it for granted that that's always clear.
Mike:But I think when you know what the context is, it becomes much easier to decide when to jump in.
Mike:Right.
Ian:Well, I think.
Ian:And I think that's so important, Ian, you know, you know what the context is, you know what the objectives are, you know who the different people are, including people in your team, in the room, the people in the client.
Ian:But that, you know, a lot of the things we talked about early on the list are kind of almost little foibles and characteristics of this.
Ian:This is something, you know, knowing that that purpose of that part of the meeting is clear is something that we have to be very intentional about.
Ian:And.
Ian:And I certainly will tell you, I got a feeling that the overwhelming majority of meetings I've been in in my career, that wasn't always the case, right?
Mike:Yeah, absolutely.
Mike:So it's easy when all those things are in place.
Mike:Flip side, I'm going to speak up for the introvert tribe now.
Mike:It's hard right on the spur of the moment at any given time saying, okay, I'm going to jump in and take time and space and put my spoken energy into the conversation.
Mike:That's as natural as breathing for an extrovert.
Mike:If you have an introverted personality, then it takes energy.
Mike:It doesn't always mean that it's intellectually difficult, but you have to sort of screw yourself up to it, if you know what I mean.
Mike:So it is a little bit difficult.
Mike:And there's been lots of thinking and writing about extroversion versus introversion and about the impact that that has on all kinds of things.
Mike:But the easiest, most obvious point is when it makes it challenging for people to speak up in meetings.
Mike:And kind of going down our earlier list, Mike, by picking out some opposites, we can see, actually it's hard to speak up when you think that maybe your authority or your status is a little bit lower than others.
Mike:Especially in some cultures, there's quite a natural regard for hierarchy.
Mike:And if we feel like we're a little bit further down the hierarchy than is necessary for us to have the freedom to speak, then feeling that way is for sure an obstacle.
Ian:Yeah, you spoke for introverts and it's a hard lesson that I've had to learn that being married to an introvert, that not giving that space for introverts to process, not giving that space for introverts to contribute.
Ian:I've been amazed so often about how the best thoughts in the room were not the ones that were jumping off the page.
Ian:And that by changing the way we interacted, we really got to some gold there.
Ian:And you also talked about feeling like you have low status or low authority.
Ian:And I think that's easy when you're a junior to feel that way.
Ian:It's easy when you're new to a team.
Ian:It's easy when you're, you know, you've changed jobs or changed companies that way too.
Ian:And then one other one is that feeling like you have to be the expert in order to be allowed to speak.
Ian:And if you've got, I think one of the things that propels so many consultants, imposter syndrome.
Ian:Everybody else in the room is always smarter than I am, or at least there's going to be a few key people that are the experts and what am I doing in this meeting.
Mike:Right.
Mike:And that's such an important driver, I think, of difficult point of view moments, difficult awkward corners to navigate in conversations.
Mike:Such an important moment that we're going to come back to it in the show.
Mike:Meanwhile, Mike, I also think there are some special situations where it gets difficult to speak up.
Mike:For example, just speaking after a colleague.
Mike:If you're a consultant and consultant A has just spoken and you're consultant B, then do I jump in?
Mike:Do I add something?
Mike:Do I contradict slightly?
Mike:Do I redirect the conversation?
Mike:That's tricky because it implies something about what you think, about what your colleague just said.
Mike:It implies something as well about what you think your client's going to want to hear next.
Mike:So that's a tricky moment.
Mike:Anything else that you've encountered when people are speaking around their colleagues?
Ian:Well, you know, speaking, as you say, in disagreement with a colleague, particularly tricky in front of a client, but also gets into a lot of issues, even in internal meetings.
Ian:And it depends a lot on the culture there.
Ian:I mean, we, we know from evidence that the best teams are the teams that can really take different sides and contribute opposing views and then get to a great solution.
Ian:But handling that, always kind of tough, even tougher up a notch when we're speaking in disagreement with the client directly or people from the client.
Mike:That's a whole category of a challenge all by itself there.
Mike:Right.
Mike:Saying something that the client fundamentally disagrees with.
Mike:Not just that they mildly kind of have a different point of view on, but they fundamentally disagree with.
Mike:Can happen.
Mike:It should happen, but it's a really difficult moment.
Mike:I'll add one interesting secondary one, which is that if we are speaking a language that's not your mother tongue, like if the business is being conducted in English and you're not a first language speaker, or the same for any language, I've seen that be a reason why people will hold back and postpone the moment they might speak in.
Mike:Sometimes wisely, sometimes not.
Mike:And Mike, let's go back to the one that wrapped up our initial list.
Mike:We said that it's easy to speak up when you know the purpose.
Mike:Flip side of that, of course, is that it's hard to find the right moment to speak if it feels like the meeting is a free for all and there's not a purpose and there's not a clear objective.
Ian:Yeah, absolutely agree with that.
Ian:I think sometimes too you want to float an idea, but again, I'm floating an idea.
Ian:And this could be absolutely wrong.
Ian:But sometimes those floated ideas turn out to be fabulous.
Ian:Sometimes they just fall flat.
Ian:And so, you know, when you're, you know, even 50% sure of yourself, it's like, do I, do I not?
Ian:Is this the right time?
Ian:Is this the right people?
Ian:Am I all of that here?
Ian:So I think those are.
Ian:There's so many of these things that are critical as juniors, critical as new leaders, even critical as seasoned leaders, where we're always kind of trying to adapt these things.
Mike:Indeed.
Mike:Now, if it's a challenge for juniors and it's a challenge for leaders, it must have been a challenge for some of the great thinkers in life.
Mike:And Mike, as you and I were researching this, we came across some great quotes.
Mike:We've got quotes from the, from the cream of the crop, I think, of world leaders and admired individuals.
Mike:One of the best that I heard was Nelson Mandela.
Mike:Tell us what you noticed about the stories about Nelson Mandela.
Ian:Well, you know, you've got Mandela stories told by everybody.
Ian:I loved hearing some of this.
Ian:Simon Sinek always comes back to this, this idea that Mandela learned from his father, father who was a tribal leader.
Ian:He would watch and a couple things would happen.
Ian:One, he would, he was out talking to people.
Ian:He put them in a circle.
Ian:And I think we'll come back to that.
Ian:And he always spoke last.
Ian:And I remember going back in my own mind and thought, what leader did I ever work with who always spoke last?
Ian:And the one situation that I can remember, it was Almost infused with, oh, he's kind of evaluating each of us before he tells us the right answer.
Ian:But I think Mandela and his father and cynic are all saying, no, no, no, that's not at all the purpose behind this.
Ian:Of leaders who learn to speak last.
Mike:Right.
Mike:And presumably selfishly, Mandela's father and Mandela himself learned that there was important stuff to be gained from the conversation and they might as well benefit from, rather than by trying to jump in and preordain the outcome of the conversation.
Ian:Yeah, so many things.
Ian:I mean, everybody in the room now feels heard you as a leader have gotten this opportunity to get a lot of, you know, where are people in this conversation?
Ian:What are they thinking?
Ian:I might have some new ideas.
Ian:I might understand some sensitivities.
Ian:I might actually get clear on the fact, like we've alluded to earlier, that the purpose of the meeting is not clear because everybody's chiming in on different things.
Ian:So many things that can come out of that.
Ian:How about you, Ian?
Mike:Well, it's funny, I haven't got a leadership quote, but I've got a client that I particularly remember about this, whose kind of voice rings in my head anytime I'm debating how the team that I'm working with needs to manage their time and share their contributions on a call.
Mike:And I was leading a project, and this particular client was a very wise guy, and he said, well, I'm noticing, Ian, that there are one or two junior folks in these calls, and I'm not hearing from them.
Mike:And first of all, I thought he was complaining that these people were burning our fees and he wasn't seeing it.
Mike:But that wasn't his concern.
Mike:His concern was, first of all, there is a brain in the room.
Mike:And by the way, it's a brain that he's paying for, but there's a brain in the room, and I'm not hearing from this person.
Mike:And he was also saying it makes me feel bad.
Mike:He said, I think these people have probably got something to say.
Mike:There's plenty of chance in all of the meetings and calls that we have on this project for us to chip in.
Mike:So why don't these people chip in?
Mike:I'd really like to hear hear them.
Mike:And I remember it, and I remember having a conversation with a couple of the analysts who are on the project saying, let's see if we can do a better job.
Mike:And I worked hard on projects that came after that to make sure that the juniors had a way into the conversation, not only because it was good for them and for their development and confidence, but also because I understood that clients appreciate it, too.
Mike:They appreciate seeing the brains of the whole project that they've retained, not just the brains of, you know, one individual who seems to be the lead.
Mike:So that's.
Mike:That's who's on my mind now.
Mike:The behavior of consultants together as a team on these kind of calls is something that clients, I guess, notice a lot.
Mike:What have you noticed, Mike?
Ian:Well, I hearken back.
Ian:I think McKinsey used to call this the anxious parade of knowledge that sometimes we just so overshare, especially when we're junior.
Ian:We want to tell you everything we know, everything we did, all the process, all the methods, every detail.
Ian:And I see that in conversations, not just with clients, but also trying to brief people on the team.
Ian:Let me show you that.
Ian:And it flows all the way to creating decks, whether it's updates or something.
Ian:It's as if we are trying to show our worth by all the energy we expended, as if that our personal worth is based upon the volume or the weight of what we've done.
Ian:Just all of it, you know, blah.
Ian:All this stuff.
Ian:Look at all this stuff I have.
Ian:And as if maybe the client is going to assess us the same way that this project's worth, the engagement worth, the firm's worth, is the volume of what we've delivered as opposed to the value of what that is.
Ian:So being able to target to deliver value here.
Mike:Very good.
Mike:And it's easy to say less is more, but it's really hard to understand the fundamentals.
Ian:Yeah.
Mike:So we've got some good insight, then, into the kind of things that we're talking about when things go wrong, where we're either under sharing or oversharing.
Mike:We've got some good insight into when it's easy to get it right and when it's hard to get it right.
Mike:We said earlier on that having a clear purpose is a good hallmark of the situation, being ready for us to speak up.
Mike:What kinds of purposes do you think, Mike, might justify somebody jumping in and contributing away from what's on the slide?
Ian:Well, I think a situation that always calls for jumping in and delivering is difficult news.
Ian:I mean, that can be kind of internally.
Ian:Sometimes we've made a mistake.
Ian:And there's that tendency to say, I kind of want to hide that.
Ian:I want to bury that.
Ian:Whether I'm kind of talking about, I don't want to tell my project manager that I screw this up, or as a project team, we've done something and we don't want to tell the client that we've screwed that up.
Ian:But this is absolutely time for the direction approach, you know, to kind of fess up, to make this clear, to help build trust in that relationship and you know, to do damage control quickly.
Ian:Now when we do that to a client and how we do that with the client is not something we want to, especially as a junior take on for our own.
Ian:But I think the best advice is this is a time to speak up appropriately here.
Mike:It's a really good point.
Mike:That delivering uncomfortable news thing, we sometimes called that ugly baby syndrome.
Mike:Right.
Mike:If you think the client's baby is ugly, they're going to want to hear about it right away.
Mike:We talked about that a little bit in the conversation we had with Ann a few weeks ago where we talked about delivering numbers and if we fudge or avoid or hedge a little bit.
Mike:So it's going to be important to be able to speak clearly when we've got something important but potentially unpleasant to say.
Mike:Yeah, I think, Mike, it's also going to be important for us to speak up anytime we've got something that's irrelevant or new insight.
Mike:If we find a problem or an opportunity that isn't explored on slideware, somewhere isn't scheduled to be part of the conversation.
Mike:But if we've got something new to share, then it can be a really, really important moment.
Mike:Key insights on certain projects don't only appear when you're kind of scrolling through all of the desk research and when you're analyzing all of the content that we've gener.
Mike:Sometimes insights come in the flash of a moment and they come in real time and sometimes it can be important for us to share them.
Mike:So Good Looking Baby syndrome as well as Ugly Baby syndrome.
Ian:Absolutely.
Ian:Similarly clarifying misunderstandings.
Ian:I think sometimes, you know, it's, it becomes sometimes not immediately clear.
Ian:But if it, if it is immediately clear, all the better.
Ian:If it's not, we realize, oh, there's been a misunderstanding here.
Ian:You know, maybe it's about scope or timely or deliverables or even the remit of what I've been asked to do or what I've told somebody else to do.
Ian:You know, speaking up to ensure clarity.
Ian:Really, really important speaking up.
Ian:For example, when it's clear, you know, the client's expectations we now see have either divulged from the original project parameters or maybe, you know, we kind of, you spoke over each other or you know, had a miss somewhere in the handoff there.
Ian:So it's a great time to catch this now and to speak up and, you know, we could figure out how to raise that judiciously again.
Ian:Are we speaking directly to the client?
Ian:Are we speaking to somebody else on the team?
Ian:How do we do this?
Ian:But let's catch it early and address it early.
Mike:Yeah.
Mike:And similarly, Mike, if someone in the consulting team realizes that one of their colleagues inadvertently put a foot wrong, if they made a mistake, then this could be the right moment to fix it, right?
Mike:I'm going to say could, because it might not.
Mike:It might depend on the relationship with the senior.
Mike:I've worked with plenty of seniors who will say, if you hear me make a mistake in front of the client, please kick me under the table.
Mike:But then please interrupt and tell me.
Mike:Hold on a second, Ian.
Mike:I think something went.
Mike:Went wrong there.
Mike:Some cultures, some seniors.
Mike:That works.
Mike:Not all cultures, though, right, Mike?
Ian:No, no, it really doesn't.
Ian:It's fascinating.
Ian:I was absolutely in the camp of the way I used to tell team members is say, if we're out to dinner with a client and I've clearly got spinach in my teeth, you know, from.
Ian:From the get go, don't tell me in the parking lot after dinner is over, I can't do anything about it then, except feel bad for how all night I've been doing this.
Ian:But I use that as an example to say, let me know early.
Ian:However, I've had, as you say, counterparts who said, are you kidding me?
Ian:If, you know, if somebody corrected me in front of a client, I'd fire them on the spot.
Ian:So, you know, I think understanding there's a.
Ian:There's a good time to speak and to find out is understand early on, what are the parameters?
Ian:When do we do this?
Ian:You know, when do we talk?
Ian:When do we remain silent?
Ian:How do we talk?
Ian:How do we communicate things?
Ian:That's an important one.
Mike:It really is.
Mike:So, Mike, we've defined the problem a little bit here.
Mike:We've talked about why it's difficult, why it can be sometimes easier.
Mike:We've talked about some of the moments when we should be able to speak up.
Mike:Let's talk about how people actually do it in practice.
Mike:Because if it's a difficult moment, I've seen people handle it in a way that works out badly.
Mike:What have you seen people try that simply didn't work?
Ian:I think one, for me, Ian, that's a faux pas, is interrupting by talking across somebody else.
Ian:What do you mean, like that?
Ian:Yeah, and I say that because I resemble that remark.
Ian:I mean, it was with my adhd, I just.
Ian:That extroversion combined with the adhd, I would find myself stepping on people's sentences and that is not helpful.
Ian:Going up, down, sideways, clients, internal teams, and absolutely let people finish what they're saying.
Mike:Right.
Mike:I've also seen people interrupt and then draw the conversation off into a preamble.
Mike:You know, they're obviously interrupting when they either haven't finished their thought or their thought is still spinning in their heads.
Mike:And we get a long preamble and all of a sudden everybody's energy kind of sinks.
Mike:And what that looks like, I think to me, is somebody interrupting and then demonstrating that even though they would like to be listened to, now they're interrupting only to demonstrate that they themselves have not been listening very well.
Mike:Yeah, And I think that the skill of speaking and speaking in your right moment is really closely aligned with the skill of listening.
Mike:And I've seen some people interrupt just to demonstrate that they're bad listeners.
Ian:Right.
Ian:We used to joke about consultants having two primary modes of communication.
Ian:Right.
Ian:Speaking and waiting to speak.
Ian:So this is somebody who's been sitting there waiting to speak but not listening.
Ian:And, you know, we compound that sometimes to ourselves.
Ian:You know, we jump in, we haven't been listening well, and then we apologize for interrupting and we anticipate being in the wrong.
Ian:I'm really sorry to interrupt.
Ian:This is probably nothing.
Ian:I'm sure you've already considered it, so feel free to disregard this.
Ian:It's like, oh my gosh, you know, let me just shoot myself in both feet in your sight here.
Mike:That's the very British English way of doing an interruption as well, isn't it?
Ian:Yeah.
Mike:Well, it's funny, another one that I've seen that cuts across cultures is what I call blue on blue.
Mike:I once heard somebody who was X, Bane calling this Bane on Bane.
Mike:And what this means is consultant one says, oh, I think X or Y is true.
Mike:And then consultant number two says, well, I think A and B are probably actually more like true.
Mike:And then consultant number three says, well, C and D and E are also true.
Mike:And then consultant number four piles on and says, well, I think what my colleagues are trying to say is X is B and A is G.
Mike:And all of a sudden four consultants have spoken.
Mike:None of them have clarified anything.
Mike:The client has probably now none the wiser.
Mike:But all we've done is demonstrate that we're all a bit anxious and, you know, over eager to take our airtime.
Mike:So piling in on an out of control consultant one after the other I think is a great way to get this wrong.
Ian:Yeah, yeah, I I also have been guilty of, you know, I've gotten feedback from assistants who said, you know, Mike, I love typing up.
Ian:This is back in the day when I used to do longhand a little bit and say, you know, they'd say, I love typing your stuff up.
Ian:So that when we finally get to the end, I understand what you were trying to say.
Ian:And I thought, ah, boy, here's a takeaway.
Ian:And the same thing, you know, when we're jumping in, what doesn't work is leaving everybody hanging to the very end.
Ian:And, you know, then after all of this stuff, it's a little bit of your preamble, It's a little bit of being off topic.
Ian:You know, basically what I was thinking is.
Ian:Or devaluing it at the end too, saying, I gave you all that, but that's, you know, anyways, that's just something that was going through my mind.
Ian:Wait.
Mike:It's easily done.
Mike:It's easily done with good intentions.
Mike:But doesn't it take the energy and the direction out of the conversation?
Mike:And another one, Mike, besides letting our brains get out of control, another thing that I've seen people do that clearly doesn't work is letting their emotions get out of control.
Mike:And maybe it's because they've been all kind of pent up and frustrated that they couldn't get airtime, or maybe they've got this really burning point that they want to make that's in contradiction to somebody else.
Mike:And when they get their moment, it comes out in this kind of storm that it comes out.
Mike:Maybe they think it comes across as passionate, but to other people it comes out as anxiety.
Mike:It comes out harsh or even sarcastic.
Mike:And it can be really hard if you haven't got self awareness.
Mike:It can be really hard to know how you come across when you're at your most vehement.
Mike:And I know that I can be vehement and sound much less appealing than he is, than what I'm hearing in my ears.
Mike:So I think that's a thing for us to be careful about.
Mike:If we let our emotions get out of control, we make the other people feel in a way that completely overbalances the things that we wanted to say.
Mike:They don't remember what we said.
Mike:We do remember how we made them feel.
Mike:And that's bad if they feel confused or put upon or bullied.
Ian:I couldn't agree with you, Maureen.
Ian:Even walking into a meeting, you know, how many times have you been in a physical meeting where somebody clearly has come in, perhaps they're late, they're Stressed, they're just there.
Ian:But that whole energy comes into the meeting with them or maybe even before them.
Ian:So that ability, as you say, to get a bit centered, realizing that if I'm super stressed right now, this might not be the best time for me to say what I'm going to say or to breathe deeply and then, you know, then start.
Mike:Yes, breathing is a great tip for everybody in all situations here.
Mike:So, Mike, we've got a list there of things that we try that don't work, or basically all the.
Mike:Or different flavors of dysfunctional interruption.
Mike:We can make a long list of tactics that do work, and I don't think we have time for it here.
Mike:We're going to go through some of our detailed tips in the Luminaries episode this week, so watch out for that.
Mike:But let's pick out a couple of highlights.
Mike:Mike, first of all, what's your number one tip for getting your point in and getting it across clearly?
Ian:Well, I think, you know, having listened, having thought about what you want to say, you know, you want to get right to the point of what it is you want to say.
Ian:Don't add a lot of extra stuff on the front end or the back end.
Ian:You know, just make the point and leave it there.
Ian:So that, that means, you know, like I've said, you've been quiet, you've been listening, you've been thinking it through, and boom, here we go.
Ian:Here's.
Ian:Here's the point I want to make, and this is the right time to make it, because I haven't just been thinking about that point.
Ian:I've been listening, actively involved in that conversation.
Ian:For me, a quick tip is when I have an idea like that, I jot it down as opposed to blurting it out.
Ian:And then I think I'm good that point.
Ian:I'm not going to lose that point.
Ian:Whether I make it in this meeting or make it after the meeting.
Ian:I've got it.
Mike:Yeah.
Mike:Great.
Mike:And I think there's a really great secondary point there, which is be okay with the idea that your time might not come and that you might get your moment, like you say, Mike, in follow up afterwards.
Ian:Right.
Mike:My top tip, I think, is going to be what comes after that.
Mike:It can be very difficult for somebody to just drop a big knowledge bomb in the room and say, okay, everybody else, deal with the shrapnel.
Mike:Now, it's a really smart thing, like you say, Mike, to have your single point and make it clearly and then have something ready to turn it back to the rest of the group or Even to one person.
Mike:So make it clear that you're done speaking and then give someone else the chance to respond like, that's me done with saying my piece.
Mike:Mike, I wonder what you think.
Ian:Nice.
Ian:Nice.
Mike:As a way just to kind of make it clear that you've taken focus for a little while and you're ready to give focus back.
Mike:And I think having something clear to say and then knowing how to turn it back into the rest of the conversation, those are two really, really great tactics.
Ian:Well, you know, a lot of consultants earlier in their careers ask how do I contribute to a meeting so that I sound like an expert.
Ian:I think maybe it's helpful if we all just realize, especially early in our career, we're never the expert.
Mike:Well, do you know what, Mike?
Mike:As you get more senior in your career, you're actually still surprisingly rarely the expert.
Ian:Right, exactly, exactly.
Mike:If you're an expert in something, it might well be that the thing that you're an expert in is not what we're talking about today.
Mike:So Mike, I think that's great advice.
Mike:Get over ourselves a little bit.
Mike:You don't need to be an expert to make an expertise worthy contribution.
Mike:And you don't need to be an expert to set aside this feeling that, you know, I'm, I'm anxious because I'm not worthy because I don't have perfect knowledge in my head.
Mike:It is a really common situation.
Mike:I think I can remember feeling it as a junior consultant.
Mike:I still feel it to this day, even as a very experienced consultant.
Mike:I think some of the hints that we've already given there might give a good steer to anybody who's wrestling with this.
Mike:Like if you feel like you need to be an expert, then do first of all remember to be a good thinker, live in the conversation.
Mike:Do remember to be a good listener as well as a good speaker.
Mike:Don't just focus on speaking for its own sake.
Mike:You and I were thinking about this, Mike, and you came up with some really nice ideas here for other things that you can do besides bolstering your expertise that will basically help with the feeling of confidence that goes along with that.
Ian:Well, I agree, Ed.
Ian:I remember being so uncomfortable in a lot of these situations and talking to other people about how they've dealt with that and everything.
Ian:You know, there are lots of non verbal contributions that we can make.
Ian:For example, I don't just have to be the speaker, I can be the recorder.
Ian:I was amazed sometimes at client meetings when we would all walk out and go, ah, so what do you think about that, how that meeting went and everything and realized that nobody was taking really good notes.
Ian:Yeah.
Ian:And boy, one of the best things in the world was somebody a junior on the team said, actually what we agreed to was.
Ian:But then we.
Ian:And here it is, great set of notes.
Ian:So that person I found was also learning a lot by being the note taker rather than worrying about this stuff.
Ian:So you know, that recorder role, you know, sometimes we're letting it all go to, you know, transcripts of Zoom meeting.
Ian:We're letting AI give us the high points.
Ian:As a junior person, you can learn a lot by being sure to listen, by taking some notes and learning how to summarize and get to key points in that.
Ian:So a great way to do that.
Mike:I want to just pick up on something you said right at the end there.
Mike:Besides making the notes.
Mike:The skill of summarizing.
Mike:Yes, great.
Mike:Like if I've got somebody on my team who can get to the end of a 90 minute call and give a 90 second summary, that's great.
Mike:Even if they get it wrong.
Ian:Right.
Mike:So if somebody corrects the 90 second summary, we've just reinforced that little extra bit of, of active understanding and active listening.
Mike:And that's again something that you don't get from AI.
Mike:So I think that's really cool.
Mike:Yeah.
Ian:Ian, what else?
Mike:Well, Mike, if you're thinking about taking notes, this sounds very mundane, but be also the person who's responsible for the follow ups.
Mike:Like if you're the person who knows we agreed to do these three things, then be the person who's able to remind the group next time that the consulting team are sitting down.
Mike:Do you remember, guys, here are the three things that we said that we were going to do.
Mike:Take responsibility.
Mike:Not for owning all of the actions because there are project managers and all kinds of other people to do that, but just for being the conscience of the group and saying, here are the things that we said that we would do and I think playing these other roles, the non verbal, non speak roles, and seeing and appreciating the need for them, those are both great ways to make a difference to the team.
Mike:And they bring and support their own kind of expertise.
Mike:Expertise in the process rather than expertise about the content.
Ian:Absolutely.
Ian:I remember some folks on teams who were phenomenal early on about, you know, queuing up some of those follow one actions.
Ian:You know, somebody would say to me, you know, Mike, you promised to send this, answer this question, get back to this.
Ian:I've gone ahead and drafted the beginning of some things with some key points.
Ian:I know you want to make this your own, but I thought this might be helpful.
Ian:Boy, before there was AI, there were those teammates who were like, wonderful.
Ian:I just love.
Mike:So I think part of the origin of this question as well is about the feeling of confidence.
Ian:Yeah.
Mike:So besides exhibiting something that looks like expertise, there's also the internal feeling of like, I'm confident and I'm okay being here.
Mike:What have we got, Mike, that might help with the feeling of confidence?
Ian:Well, I think there's nothing better than jumping in early, but starting small.
Ian:So low risk contributions, working up to more substantial stuff, and you'll get of it.
Ian:A lot of advice about making contributions in the first few minutes, and particularly those.
Ian:If you've been to business school and you've been working a lot of case studies, that's it.
Ian:I want to chime in very early.
Ian:Balance that, balance that here.
Ian:Yeah.
Ian:I think.
Ian:Don't necessarily jump in and think, you know, we're all the smartest people in the room.
Ian:And I'm gonna.
Ian:I'm gonna demonstrate that right this minute.
Mike:Yeah, it's really good advice.
Mike:And I also think that if this is a skill, confidence comes from having done it a few times, just like driving a car.
Mike:So I pick low key, easy conversations in which to practice the skill of choosing your moment and making a point.
Mike:When the stakes are low and when you know that there are people around who can observe and give feedback and give you some prompt idea of how it's going.
Mike:You won't get better by sitting silently on mute feeling anxious about it.
Mike:You will get better if you use any interaction with other people as a chance to improve your skill at making a point at active listening and, you know, following up.
Mike:I think those are really, really good moments as well.
Ian:Yeah.
Ian:Ian, you mentioned feedback, and I think that's a great thing.
Ian:And they're kind of two models for me.
Ian:One is feedback in the sense of, can you give me some feedback on what I did there, what I could do better?
Ian:Even better.
Ian:I also love the model of feed forward, not just feedback.
Ian:Rather than just giving me what worked well, what could be even better in what I just did there?
Ian:Asking people who are likely to know and people who you like to know, how they see this, how they think.
Ian:People who do this really well do it.
Ian:What are some of the key points, the key actions, the key behaviors.
Ian:So that's feed forward instead of it being about me and what I just did, it's about what good looks like.
Ian:And sometimes I find people are a little more willing to Give that.
Ian:And you know, they're not making it personal.
Ian:And sometimes I find people, including me, are able to hear that a little bit better because it's not about, you know, we so often don't lead with the positives.
Ian:We don't set people up, you know, but this way we're talking about the positives and giving a real good definition of what good looks like.
Ian:Not just, you know, I, I'm going through puppy training right now and you know, one trainer was really great at demonstrating to us when they walked in the group and just said, no, no, stop that.
Ian:Nope, not that.
Ian:It was like, not learning much, don't know what to do.
Ian:And it was like, here's how we're going to do this.
Ian:And I think that Feed Forward is a little bit of that too.
Ian:Last piece for me is find models, look at people who do this really well and just, just, you know, little moments of it.
Ian:Not a person who's necessarily an all time expert guru about, but wow, I like how they just did that.
Ian:What did I just about that.
Ian:What worked?
Ian:Well, ask other people about that too.
Ian:It's kind of a variation on feedforward and then feel free to go approach them and say, I noticed this.
Ian:Help me a little bit more.
Ian:You know, I've had people who ask great questions and I was really, you know, I was convinced that they knew the answers and they were using the questions to lead.
Ian:And I thought, I can't answer questions like that because I don't know the answer.
Ian:And they were saying, I had no idea what the answer was.
Ian:I was just curious.
Ian:And that really opened up a lot of possibilities for me.
Ian:So that kind of thing, those models talking to people that do those and just kind of filing that away and doing some imitation, doing some practice with that, tremendously helpful and never stopping, you know, one of the best CEO speakers I've ever met.
Ian:You know, when I talk to him about how he does that, how he got there, what happened?
Ian:Said Mike, I go every year, every year to a coach on doing this, and I stay with that coach for as many years as they help me and then I move on and I find a new one.
Ian:So that little practice, that improvement thing, that finding models, always a great thing.
Mike:Fantastic.
Mike:And Mike, we're learning a lot here about how to come across as an expert.
Mike:Our goal is actually not to sound like we have expertise that we don't have, but it is our goal, I think, to add value in a way that's appropriate to what we know to be honest about what we know and to build confidence and being able to project a little bit of confidence is useful for us.
Mike:We talked about that in one of our early episodes.
Mike:This label of being an expert is a difficult one for us and I think we've got to be quite broad minded about all the different ways that you demonstrate expertise.
Mike:Anyway, Mike, I think that's our show.
Mike:Let's just say thank you to the listeners.
Mike:Thank you all for being with us.
Mike:We'd love to hear from you as well.
Mike:So get in touch with the show, Send us your thoughts, send us your questions.
Mike:And above all, don't forget that the Luminaries show is going to give you some great additional resources on this topic of when to speak.
Mike:Mike, give us a flavor, would you, of what's coming up in Luminaries right now.
Ian:Well, we're going to talk a bit about what causes some of the stress and the anxiety that we have about speaking up.
Ian:We're going to talk also about reasons to stay silent sometimes, even if you want to speak.
Ian:And then, Ian, we've got a little advice for seniors as well, right?
Mike:We're going to talk about how project leaders can organize meetings and calls so that this balance of speaking and listening works out, right, so that the client gets what they need, so that the project gets its needs addressed and everyone's thoughts get brought to the table.
Mike:So, Mike, once again, connecting consulting with humanity is something that we're reaching for and we are really looking forward to doing that in the Luminaries episode.
Ian:Please join us next time on the Consulting for Humans podcast.
Ian:The Consulting for Humans podcast is brought to you by P31 Consultants.
Ian:Salty.
