Shine in High-Stakes Meetings - Master Executive Communication

Here's Gillian Fox again for Part 2 of our conversation. Again, you will find information about all the great work Gillian does and her podcast, Your Brilliant Career, in the show notes.

SUSAN  For part two, what I want to ask you, "What is one of the most common challenges that women bring to the RISE programs when they are working with you? And what related advice would you give to women reading this blog?"

GILLIAN  One of the things that I hear a lot from the women is the challenge of getting more comfortable and having an impact with senior stakeholders. In other words speaking with senior stakeholders (or what's called Executive Communication skills). It's just a common challenge for the women that I work with Susan. And I think it's understandable because again, no one teaches us this it's part of the unwritten rules of career advancement  and senior leaders, senior executives. They are the toughest crowd for sure.

They're impatient. They have a lot of high stakes decisions, , to make. They have limited time available to them. So they have this tendency to interrupt, to have a very, , almost difficult looking expression on their face sometimes. And it's a different style of communication to them than your peers.

And I remember last time you and I spoke, You gave a fantastic example of this. We were talking about when you're conveying a result and it was,  do you present the data or talk about the people first? Do you remember this? Yes, I do. Yeah. And, and, and you said when you're talking to executives, you're always going to talk data as the headline and people second, but if you're talking to your team or your peers, you're going to reverse that.

And that is just such a simple. smart insight on how you need to tweak your approach with senior leaders. ,

the things that I think are most important just to get very practical for the women who want to improve in this environment. is A. Understand the business context better. Because I think so many women sit there making assumptions about what the senior leaders are thinking or wanting or doing.

Sometimes they put them on such a pedestal instead of being interested in the business. You know, what are the strategic imperatives? What's important to these leaders right now? Like just understanding that business context. And I think the second part is how you convey your message.  And with that, I think it's everything from body language to being succinct,  to using data to create value, great questions,  all of that.

SUSAN  . I love what you say, of course, about  the business context, and it's an exercise that if you have been working on your business savvy and the understanding, as you put it,  the role that you as a woman have in being committed to adding value, then you can You have a literally a leg up as you try to put yourself in the shoes of that senior executive.

It's important to be able to look through their lens at what they expect of you. And, and they don't expect a long explanation of how you got to some important recommendation .  That is not of interest to them. They want to know what the recommendation is and to the point you just made how it fits with the strategic imperatives.

So I would tweak a little bit for our listeners. What what Gillian is talking about when she talks about data is really talking about the numbers, it's not giving them I don't think the long analysis that you went through, but it's right. She's shaking her head.  Yeah, it's it's what's the bottom line but the bottom line AS it connects to the business. FAIR

 GILLIAN

 100%. It's got to be the headlines, the succinct, um, summary. I read a piece of research, it was only a couple of weeks ago, Susan,  and  I did have a little giggle because it was so true. It was about women, and when they are talking in more senior environments and experience, the nervousness that we can all experience sometimes, , their capacity to use so many More words  to explain something comes in full flight, and we need exactly the opposite.

You know, we need exactly the opposite. But this rambling is something that happens to all of us when we're nervous, which is why preparation is so key in these situations. meetings. And I think when people are thinking about how do they harness their skills in business meetings, you know, choose just one meeting that is important to you.

Maybe it's a weekly or fortnightly meeting and really focus. Do YOUR prep, do all the things to set yourself up for success and see how you progress. Um, and it's, it's over three or four months because I bet you'll progress really well. And if you can just isolate it to that, it feels digestible and you'll be much more action orientated.

SUSAN  What a great tip. And I'll  any, most of the women who are listening to this have those important meetings, whether it's the quarterly ops review  even their annual performance review, or whether it's progress updates. Thanks. That they have to deliver And, and the to pick one that really matters and practice in delivery.

So, so recap again, what would you want them to be practicing.  being succinct is definitely on the list, but what else?

GILLIAN  Absolutely.  , I think, and there's a great quote,  successful people ask better questions. , I think asking good questions is great too, because we just focus on delivering our part of the content.

, but you look at the best leaders and they, they ask good questions, which allows them to get good answers. And I think that needs to be built into the repertoire as well.

I think there's some great wins also around, your body language and your voice, Susan, because you can cultivate confidence.  through those things. There's a lot, there's a lot of research that connects, you know, what is your emotional state based on how you're sitting? Yes. And, you know, just being, having that open, comfortable language. And there's other research that says, you know, women don't take up much space. And I will say to the women sometimes like, Just push your notepad out a little bit,  uncross your body, you know what I mean?

And you can feel it like there is something that, you know, you're sitting up straight. Your voice is going to project more. You look more confident sitting around that table. There's a calmness in that body.

And I think those things are very important as well. And I think the other thing is, When we do get nervous, particularly as women, our voice can be faster and a lot more higher pitched.

And it can make us sound less authoritative when we want to be our most authoritative. Um, so having that conscious  effort around just slowing down a little bit,  yeah, I think is equally important.

SUSAN  Yeah, yeah.  Back in my day. If I wanted to practice, I could do it in front of a mirror, yes, but if I wanted to be able to do something like turn the sound off and just watch my non verbals or turn the visuals off and just listen to my audio, that required me getting in a room with a camera. and a camera operator. Things are so much easier when it comes to doing this practice around our voice, around our posture, and importantly around our message, because we have these  things called smartphones.  

GILLIAN  And it's great, right, to be able to do that quick Okay. Self analysis and self evaluation on what you can do better.

, I, I think it's great. I think going into those senior meetings as well, as trivial as this might sound.  Get in the right head space, you know, get into it before you arrive at the meeting.  So it, I mean, like it's, it is that preparation all the way through to walking down the hallway and thinking about your posture, being very present and walking into that room and connecting with people and sitting down with boys.

Cause what most people do in a frenetic work day, you know, they come. roaring through the door of the meeting, they throw their books down and then they're like, where am I? Okay. Hi. What, what have we got today? You know, , don't be that, be very present. So you're ready to roll and present your best self in that meeting.

SUSAN  Yeah. Great tips. So let me try to summarize. Cause there were so many, ,  lead with the business information that they care about.

 Be prepared to ask great questions, to generate a conversation,  work on tone of voice. open body language, coming in at ease and centered so you can exude the confidence that you have. Practice, practice, practice ahead of time. And did I forget anything?

GILLIAN  No, I think that was an excellent summary. Well done.

S USAN:  So in terms of what's a woman to do, Listen to what I just said.

Thank you so much.

GILLIAN  And maybe be kind to yourself. Maybe I should add that. Because, you know what I mean? Just, you're not going to nail it overnight. It takes experience and practice and reading the room. Even with all those tips, perfecting all those tips. There's, there's just things that need to be experienced.

SUSAN  Which goes back to your first point, pick a meeting and make improvements on that over time.  Well, Gillian, thank you so much for part two, I am looking forward to part three.  

G ILLIAN  Me too, Susan, thank you so much.

SUSAN Thank you.