Be Conversational

When you are speaking up at a meeting it is apt absolutely critical that you appear to just be speaking.

If you seem like you have memorized something and you’re kind of following a script and you’re not really focusing on people it’s not going to seem like you’re totally there.

It’s not going to seem like you’re incredibly confident.

It may seem a little artificial state.

Now I’m not talking about it when you’ve been asked to give a 10 minute presentation.

It’s fine to be prepared for that to have notes but to simply ask a question or to weigh in on a particular issue of the day that’s being discussed in your group.

You need to sound conversational you need to sound like you’re thinking and talking at the same time now it’s OK to have thought about the ideas that you want to convey in this meeting whether it’s a dissenting opinion on a new product release.

But it shouldn’t sound memorized.

It shouldn’t sound canned.

You need to sound like you’re just thinking and talking the same as if you bumped into a colleague in the hall someone you’ve known and worked with for a long time and you’re having a casual conversation.

That’s how you need to sound when you’re talking in a meeting.

Now this can be a major trade association meeting and there’s two thousand people in the room and you have to stand up for the microphone.

It’s still going to come across better when you have it completely conversational tone.

So that means don’t try to memorize.

Now the problem of course is it’s easy for me to say this but if you’re already nervous about public speaking you’re already nervous about speaking up at meetings.

The natural inclination is to try to give yourself a crutch to give yourself cover and that can mean trying to give yourself a whole script that you’re reading and hand holding up or that you’ve memorized.

I’m warning you to do it.

It doesn’t matter if you stumble over a word occasionally.

I’ve stumbled over words in nearly every lecture in this course but I don’t obsess over it.

I don’t apologize.

I don’t look like I’m ashamed or guilty and chances are you don’t even notice it.

It’s not important that your sentence structure is perfect that your grammar is even perfect when you’re speaking people’s ears don’t catch mistakes the way their eyes do.

What is important is that people perceive you is just talking thinking and talking and displaying a confidence in your ideas.

That’s what I want you to think about.

And confidence is where we’re going next.