Respectfully disagree in a meeting
Welcome to another edition of Sticky Situations, where your office dilemmas turn into productive leadership learnings. We’ll feature a situation submitted by you, with our advice on how to approach it. There’s no shortage of sticky stuff at work, so let’s get into it.
Today’s topic is about respectfully disagreeing, having courage to share your POV, and effectively communicating all while not breaking out in a full body sweat.
The Situation
I have been given feedback that I need to share my point-of-view more and speak up in meetings. I feel very uncomfortable openly pushing back or disagreeing with people. I also feel like I ramble when I’m nervous and don’t get my point across clearly so I would rather just stay quiet. Any tips to approach this feedback?
My Take
This is one of the most common pain-points people have so you are not alone! It can feel very daunting to voice your thoughts in a group setting, but communicating them effectively can be a huge game-changer for your career development.
The best way to tackle this is with practice, but the opportunities you have at work may feel too high stakes to try and fail. So you’ll have to take things into your own hands. Lucky for you, we have some tools to help out! Here’s what we recommend:
• Prepare and practice
• Get some allies
• Use the PREP model
Prepare and practice
If there is one thing that makes a clear, concise, and compelling communicator, it is PREPARATION. You must get clear on your thoughts and your POV before you can articulate it clearly. So up that preparation time. Whether it’s gathering your thoughts before a meeting, writing out some notes of what you might chime in with during a doc review, or knowing your data points before a presentation. Start by adding 10 more minutes of prep than you normally do. Adjust accordingly.
You can also prepare in more conventional ways like writing out notes, reviewing data points, anticipating the audience’s reaction, getting familiar with your environment, and physically practicing.
When we say practice, we mean practice. Get on a fake Zoom or sit in the conference room, say your spiel outloud, role play, etc. Record yourself and watch it back. You may be surprised that you were clearer than you originally felt (those “ums” are not as bad as you think!), or you may notice that you have RBF when you intend to be smiling. Just having self-awareness of these aspects will go a long way in addressing them in the moment.
Get some allies
Before your next meeting, engage a friend, mentor, or your manager to help you out. Depending on your situation, here’s how you can use an ally:
• Tell them the skill that you are actively trying to exhibit in your next meeting, and that you’d like feedback after. This way they are hyper-aware of your communication and can give you some pointed feedback.
• Ask them to tee something up for you. If you are afraid you won’t speak up, ask your manager to tee up a topic. Like “can you direct any questions about XYZ to me?” or “can you pass it to me to give the update on ABC?” Pre-align on this.
• Simply tell that person what you’re trying to do in your next meeting, like “I just want to say 1 thing” - let this be your accountability buddy!
Use the PREP Model
The PREP model is a great framework for answering ad hoc questions in meetings with a compelling and simple structure. It’s the perfect little reminder so that you don’t ramble on and on, and so you can effectively persuade your audience with a logical, concise flow. It can also be used for disagreeing with someone.
If you are disagreeing with someone, you start with acknowledging their POV and reasoning before jumping into yours. This allows them to feel heard before you go in and drop some knowledge on them.
Example: So let’s say you ran a marketing campaign and you tried out a new creative design. The campaign performance sucked. From your analysis, you know it was due to a targeting issue combined with a poor media placement. But your leader says “we really missed the mark on the creative.” You could say…
It may take some practice to get the hang of using this framework in the moment. Even writing down the letter “P” when you get asked a question will help you start on the right track. If you take away anything - the only way to get more comfortable and more effective at communicating is with practice. So let’s practice!
