Do you deserve attention or how to get people listen to you

Posted on September 14, 2007
Filed Under Coaching

Lisa, a friend of mine and a young pretty woman, has always been shy and had a quiet and thin voice. Several times over the past few years she told me sorrowful stories about herself trying to say something aloud and nobody paying attention. Usually the scene of action was at her work.

meeting She is a technical writer and works on hardware and software projects. Part of her job is to sit down together with technical specialists and walk through particular topics. Also they have regular team meetings and ad-hoc discussions within their small team of writers. And in addition they usually have regular staff meetings for managers, technical people, analysts, marketing and sales people and writers where it is expected that main news get circulated, issues get raised and ideas and opinions are expressed. Any kind of planned or ad-hoc meeting usually became a severe ordeal for Lisa.

It happened so that the majority of Lisa’s colleagues always were men and apparently many of that people were on average less timid than Lisa. Also there often were quite a few of highly qualified experts on the team. Their opinions were respected and welcomed.

The situation is quite common. Lisa is not along struggling with the fear of expressing her thoughts in front of other people.

What can less stellar participants do to draw attention to their opinions?

Here is a list of simple tips to start from.

Imagine that another person has just came up with the same great idea as yours. They may utter it now straight away ahead of you. (Have you ever had such experience?)

Choose the right time. Wait for a small pause in discussion when people around you are not over-busy with other matters.

Be succinct and clear. Think of a happy event in your life (to gain more of positive mood) and say loudly that you’ve got an idea. And now express the gist of your idea briefly and clearly in a few words. Try to speak a language meaningful to your audience (e.g., technical or business people).

Be persistent. You may need to repeat your idea a few times. Show enthusiasm and involvement and deliver your message.

Be polite, don’t interrupt. Let other people finish their statements.

Remember that everyone sometimes tells a stupid thing. Even that stars on your team get wrong from time to time. When it happens with you, it’s your strength to be able to promptly admit you are wrong and move forward.