Have you ever come out of a difficult meeting or negotiation situation regretting the way you handled the communication? I have yet to meet anyone, male or female, who hasn’t experienced this in their work or their family life.
On June 13 and 14, 60 women representing 19 companies participated in TechLeaders: Strategic Persuasion and Change Leadership. Our host was ABI Visionary partner Microsoft Corporation. The workshop was led by Dr. Lee Warren and Nancy Houfek, both from Harvard University.
Participants got to re-enact meeting situations that had gone badly, and with the presenters’ and audience coaching, re-play the meeting with different communication tactics.
An example of a difficult meeting situation from a participant: “In a meeting, someone was supposed to give information and wasn’t well prepared. When others asked questions, that person got defensive and rude. Before I could realize it, I got furious. I said we cannot continue this meeting, I have seen unprofessional behavior. Then I felt upset that I had gotten upset – how could I have handled that differently?”. Sounds familiar?
Some of the key takeaways to make communication more effective:
- warming up the body and the voice before important meetings
- identifying your purpose for the meeting and identify potential allies and those who may react negatively ahead ot time.
- expanding the repertoire of communication tactics you can use – we all tend fo default to a single mode of communication. The workshop made us realize that we have a lot of different modes at our disposal we can tap into to achieve our purpose. Some of the tactics we talked about: drawing in, aknowledging, thanking, pausing, offering help, standing your ground, pushing back.
- the effect on your posture on how you are perceived in a meeting is really astounding; you should sit with your feet firmly planted on the floor, at the edge of your seat, shoulders down and back, and occupy the meeting space physically (such as through leaning forward)
- the important role of strong, clear eye contact.
- de-personalizing attacks – pause, stop, and breathe and be aware of the situation, then decide which tactic to use in your response.
- we also talked about tactics for phone conferences, such as standing up even if they can’t see you, which makes your voice more powerful.
During the evening reception, I had the opportunity to talk to the participants about ABI programs and our impact. One participant told me that since attending a previous TechLeaders workshop she asked for and got an important promotion. It was powerful to witness how ABI programs contribute to inspiring and furthering these amazingly talented women in their career.