Welcome to Edition #26 of Ask Gorick Anything. This AMA is part of Gorick's Newsletter, where Harvard career advisor and Wall Street Journal bestselling author Gorick Ng shares what they don't teach you in school about how to succeed in your career.
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→ Read time: 4 min
ASK GORICK ANYTHING
“Keep getting shut down in meetings?”
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Subscriber’s question:
“Hi Gorick, I am an internal consultant at a large technology company. For context I have a technical background and an MBA, also from a patriarchal & hierarchical cultural background. Throughout my professional career I have been asked to speak up and bring a PoV [point of view] to meetings. But when I pitched my recommendation and challenged the thinking of senior leaders in that meeting, I was told afterwards, “That's not a forum for debate.” Any tips for reading the room better, and balance between bringing new thinking to leaders and not over push them so they shut down?”
— “CB” from New York, NY, USA
Gorick’s response:
Hi “CB”,
I love your question because it proves that the career advice of “speak up!” is overly simplistic.
First, a shameless plug: You might find my book, The Unspoken Rules, Chapter 12 (“Master Meetings”) helpful because it sounds like you may have found yourself in a meeting where you were expected to be seen but not heard.
You’ll know the context best, but, if I had to infer what may have happened with the information you shared, this is what I suspect:
- You were in a meeting with higher-level decision makers
- Those decision makers either (A) had already made up their minds or (B) expected only people at their level of seniority to speak in the meeting
- Therefore, the time to influence the decision was before the meeting even began
- As a result, the people who got their way in this meeting were the ones who lobbied the decision makers one-on-one long before the meeting was even planned
- So, what you experienced was the end—and not the start—of the conversation
With the above in mind, let me now address your two other sub-questions:
- “How do I read the room better?” and
- “How do I bring new ideas to leaders without them shutting me down?”
1. “How do I read the room better?”
First, observe who gets to speak up in your meetings. (If it’s only the senior people who speak, there’s probably an unspoken rule that everyone more junior will simply take notes and keep their mouths shut.)
Second, observe who everyone tends to listen to and who everyone tends to ignore. (If a certain person always commands respect, they’re the one you’ll want on your side in future decisions.)
Third, if there’s a double standard where someone near or at your level is somehow allowed to do things you’re not (e.g., speak up), observe who they might have a relationship with and how they behave and spend their time.
(It’s hard to break into an “old boy’s club” if one exists, but maybe there’s something they’re doing you’re not, like quiet lobbying.)
Lastly, pay attention to how people communicate. Chances are, there are unspoken rules around not just when people speak, but also how people speak in terms of their sentence structure and tone of voice.
There is, for example, a subtle but big difference between saying “I don’t like this idea” and “My only pushback is…” Corporate America loves using indirect language and jargon (check out my dictionary here)—so getting good at “corporate speak” can also mean the difference between being taken seriously and being seen as an amateur.
2. “How do I bring new ideas to leaders without them shutting me down?”
First, start with your strongest advocate—the person you don’t even need to convince. Let’s call this person “A.” Get their input and incorporate their ideas into your proposal.
Second, ask “A,” “Who else should I also speak with to get their buy-in?”
Third, go to “B”—the person who takes “A” seriously—and tell “B” that “A” told you to talk to them (or, better yet, have “A” contact “B” on your behalf). When you meet with “B,” call out all of the ideas that you’ve taken and implemented from “A.” Ask for “B” to provide their input and incorporate their ideas into your proposal as you did with “A.”
Then, rinse and repeat with “C” and everybody else who will be a part of the decision-making process.
I know this is a lot of work—above and beyond what it would have taken for you to just raise the idea in the meeting itself. But, by doing this back-channeling, you’ll ideally not only have everyone on your side, but your idea will also hopefully be all the better because it takes into account different people’s perspectives.
Hope this helps! (Got other questions for me? Please fill out this form!)
See you Tuesday for our next story and unspoken rule,
Gorick
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