Hi, and welcome to the Awfully Quiet Podcast. Today's episode is all about meetings and the way we speak up in meetings. I know that as introverts, this is a common pet peeve. This is something that every introvert will have heard before, is you need to speak up more. You need to be more present. You need to be more physical.

You need to, you know, make your voice count. You need to make sure that. You get to speak up, but speaking up in meetings is not always easy, especially in the corporate world where there's often a high share of voice of the loudest people in the room, and there's often very little chance for. You to speak up if you are a quieter person.

If you're not the most outspoken, if you're not the most assertive, if it feels like you need to really fight for airtime and really fight to get a word in. It can be really difficult and you can be easily discouraged to speak up in the first place. Now there's obviously lots of different settings that we need to think about these days.

There are, you know, offline settings where you're in an office and meetings. What I wanna talk about today though, is mostly virtual meetings, like Zoom meetings, teams, meetings, and you know, benefiting from. How to speak up in the virtual world when most of your meetings throughout during the day. I actually calls and virtual meetings.

Now, there is a part of my Subtle Scripts pack that I just launched that covers meetings specifically, and that frankly covers lots of different types of meetings. From one-to-ones with your manager to peer conversations, team meetings, project meetings, Aligning senior leadership and stakeholders to project updates and lots of different scripts for daily work situations that.

Help you to speak up in the first place. And that almost give you the words to get a word in that. Give you the words to say something, share an opinion, share a wins. Share a progress, update. Share. maybe ask a question instead of, you know, speaking up with something that is more of a statement. I think the most underrated thing in the workplace for us introverts and you know, for everyone who considers themselves a little bit more quiet.

Is asking a really good question, but today I wanna jump into one specific part of this scripts pack that I wanna cover with you and give you as a little bit of an exclusive here. And that is all about quiet presence. Moves like quiet things that you can do to stand out in a meeting that don't require you to.

Push for air time or to speak up all the time or to, you know, be anyone that you're not or you know, try too hard because that can often feel this genuine, can feel unnatural. And I think whenever we speak up from a place of it feeling unnatural, it doesn't land. It is not worth it. And this is why I want to give you a couple of ways into a conversation and into a meeting that are potentially more subtle, a little quieter, but really effective and often underrated.

So where I wanna start is before the meeting, 'cause that is when there is a, a lot of space that, you know, people don't currently use or I don't see them, UII don't see them use them often. So, um.what I would definitely suggest you do is send a short context note ahead of the meeting, just with your thoughts of where you're at, what you're thinking.

Obviously it helps you prepare a little bit and gather your thinking and gather your thoughts around, you know, what you wanna contribute, what you want to show, potentially, what is your role in the meeting. It gets you thinking in the right direction in terms of, this meeting is going to happen today.

What do I wanna bring? What do I wanna say? What do I wanna give? And then instead of just, you know, leaving it all up to the meeting. You could drop a, a, a small note either via email if it's relevant or, you know, depending on the culture in your organization, you could put it in a Slack or in a teams message and say.

Look, here's what I would love to cover in the meeting today, or here are my thoughts for the meeting today. This is what I, what I'd love to show you. Let's ensure we have five minutes on the agenda to cover this. Now it sends a little bit of a signal. It shows you're prepared. It shows you're thinking about making, using the time effectively on that meeting, but it also gives you that first foot in the door and has people, obviously the meeting facilitator or the person who's set this meeting up now has you on their radar.

Now knows that you wanna share something, that you have something to say and that can feel like a natural way in for you. You could also offer to prepare the agenda in the first place, or you know, any materials to set up the deck to facilitate a little bit. Now, please don't take this the wrong way because I think that this is O one of the most underrated thing for introverts in the workplace.

We are natural born facilitators. Do not fight me on this. I know and, and I've seen introverts do this brilliantly, and I've heard extroverts talk about introverts being excellent at meeting facilitation. Why is that? Because introverts are often attuned to the room. They see who hasn't spoken up yet.

They prompt the right people to share their thoughts. They make sure that everybody gets a say. They call out the things that. Are potentially a little bit uncomfortable. They steer the conversation in the right direction. They will pull out some of the perspectives and some of the things that often get lost when extroverts run the room and when it's just the loudest people speaking to each other and nobody else really gets a say.

And so. For introverts to facilitate a meeting, to set up an agenda. Powerful, absolutely powerful. If you haven't seen yourself in that role yet, or if you haven't tried it out, give it a try. I think it gives you a powerful position too, in a sense that you are the facilitator, you're not on the spot. You make sure that the spotlight is.

On the right people and, and on, you know, on for everyone to, to say something and share their perspective. So you are naturally involved. You're naturally present, but the spotlight isn't on you. So maybe this is something that you could offer ahead of the meeting. Now, during the meeting, there is a couple of things that you can do that don't exactly require you to speak up immediately.

You could potentially use the chat. To drop in some thoughts, to ask, to raise questions. You could say something like, you know, for later, let's think about this. Or, here is what I'm,wondering. We should, you know, also consider, or let's capture this. Obviously, I, I wouldn't share thoughts that are too long or too lengthy or that derail the conversation and don't have anything to do with what's currently being discussed.

But I often think those meeting chats can be so powerful to like steer the conversation in the right direction. Sometimes I'll be, sometimes I am in awe of what people put in the chat in terms of, you know, not just reactions or gifs or, just kind of, you know, cheddar. But actual questions that steer the conversation or you know, really powerful stuff that then gets a lot of likes and a lot of hearts.

And then people on the call will suddenly say, oh, this in the chat, this was, this is a really good shout. And then this is a natural way in because then you're being naturally asked to, you know, elaborate and talk more about it. So I think. Honestly another, you know, introvert, absolute quiet power move is like to put something in the chat.

It resonates, it gets a lot of likes, and then you get to naturally speak up. Power move. Absolutely brilliant. Now there's, if you do wanna speak up, and if you do wanna make a point and you're trying to find a way in, there's a couple of phrases and sentences that you could potentially use that. Are not too rough and not too hard in, instead of just saying, oh look, I wanna say something too.

Or instead of just cutting into somebody else speaking, you could say, you know what? I would love to offer a perspective here, or one thought that might help sharpen the direction, or that might help steer the conversation. a quick. S layer that I wanna add or a quick thought that I wanna build on what somebody else said.

I have been following the conversation. Here is something that I think we need to factor in. Like some of these sentences really help. Cue some softness and, and bring to life. Look, I have something to share. I have a perspective to add. I have a layer to build onto this, and it just kind of cues you up to say, this is going to be something important and that you should be thinking about.

You could also just, you know, riff off somebody else's point and summarize what's being said and add your point. This could look like, you know, building onto what, Rebecca just said, here's another angle worth considering, or here's something else that we should be thinking about. Or, just kind of like, you know, picking up what somebody else said and said, look, I've.

This stuck with me. This really resonated. I have recently experienced X and so I think we should, you know, really think about Y. It shows that you're listening and that you're thinking strategically. It shows that you are not only there to speak up and to share your perspective and your opinion, but you're also listening to what everybody else is saying and.

You are, you know, using some of what they've been saying to elaborate, to build on. It's not necessarily just to speak up and make your own point. And then one of the things that I already mentioned initially is asking really good questions, like strong clarifying questions. You don't have to perform here.

I think obviously you need to hit the right tone, and you always need to be really attuned to. You know, the culture, the vibe in the room, the mood, but I think a well-placed question can really steer the entire conversation can sometimes be gold in meetings that are going nowhere. And sometimes it could be calling out the uncomfortable or something that, you know, nobody's really saying.

It could be, asking, you know, or coming back to what was the objective of this? What was the intention of this meeting? Are we still going in the right direction?or, you know, potentially asking something that's a little bit uncomfortable and saying that, look, what if we thought about it differently?

Or what if, we, you know, brought in this additional angle, whatever it looks like. But, I always feel like as introverts and obviously being introspective, by nature, what that gives all us is a lot of. Observation power. I think we're very good at observing the room, feeling the vibe, the mood, what's being said, what is not being said, even more so and so, we're often very attuned to what's happening, what's going in the wrong direction, what feels off.

Then being able to call out what feels off in the moment in a very tactful, very calm, very composed, genuine, polite way. Killer move. I gotta say, I experienced this every once in a while and I almost get chills just talking about it because I think that this is introspection, observation, power at its best, and we need more people like this in the room, period.

Now the only other thing I will say for, during the meeting and I sometimes speak about this, is body language showing presence. And especially in a virtual context, there is so much to think about. Now, what I will often experience is, people coming onto calls or onto, you know, bigger calls, especially where people will just be off camera, on and on mute all the time.

and I know that this is a safe space to be in. I know that I'm calling out a lot of, fellow introverts in saying that if you're joining a call off camera and on mute all the time, you might as well not join in the first place. This can't be a call that you should be on. you know, if it's just a call to listen in.

I don't really think that this is worth your time. And I believe that there is a lot of untapped potential in just being on camera. I think, if you were, if you're not gonna speak up, at least be on camera, what it does is it shows them your face. It shows that you're listening. It show, it shows that you're tuned in.

hopefully it shows that you're not doing email in the background, which I am sometimes. Guilty of, but I always try to be on camera and to be present for the majority of the meeting. What that looks like is to be, you know, to be focused on the screen. You could be nodding along, you could be writing things down, you could type things in the chat.

It's a lot about body language and about. Showing like visual cues that you're listening, that you're following along, and even just that is really powerful. Even if you don't speak up at all, be present, show your face on camera, and then every once in a while, unmute yourself to ask a question, to participate, to, to share an opinion, or as I said initially, drop something in the chat.

Make sure that you're on the agenda. Make sure that you're being prompted to share what you have prepared in advance. And I feel like this is something that is really, really important that get often gets underestimated. And I know that we're on a lot of calls collectively. I hate back to back, back-to-back meeting days and.

The, the first thing that I would, obviously it's a lot more comfortable to be off camera and to be just at home by yourself. And I get that it's not needed for a lot of meetings.but I just feel so strongly about, especially when we're, you know, for us, you know, quieter, not as outspoken, not as vocal. I feel like presence, meeting presence and body language.

It's the minimum that we need to really give in order to be, in order to be present and in order to be seen and remembered of being at that meeting.there's a couple of things for after the meeting that I also find extremely interesting to share with you. one of the things, again, something that often gets confused as an admin task or confused as something that you only should be doing early into your career, and that often gets confused with intern work or something that is not worthwhile doing, but sending a short recap or a message.

Could be, you know, again, a message by our teams in the chat of the actual call, or it could be an email to just kind of capture some of what has been discussed or to add something that you didn't get to say. Sometimes what happens is that some of the thoughts or perspective comes up after the meeting like a couple hours later, and then you think to yourself, you know what?

I should have really made this point in the meeting. Why not send a follow up email? Why not say, look, this conversation really stuck with me. I had a couple of other thoughts. Here's what I wanna share with you, or what I wanna share with the group just for consideration and as a follow up. And it just kind of pulls things together and it keeps the conversation alive live.

it could also be creating a resource or a document that supports the next steps. It's like. I think in this day and age, obviously there's a lot of tools that we can use to, you know, you know, do minutes and actions and write, follow up emails and so on. But I still think it's a skill that is. So powerful people often remember the person who sends follow up emails that are actually being read.

Somebody who can make sure to not only facilitate a meeting well, but also make sure that actions are being taken, that people follow up, that people stay engaged, that the conversation is not over after the meeting, that things continuously happen and that the right. You know, stakeholders are involved and that information flows in the right way.

It's all about communication, engaging people, leading without authority, making sure that things happen, and almost like pulling those invisible strings. This is what I see when I think about. Post meeting notes, follow ups. You know, creating a, a nice, clean, super sharp with lots of clarity document with next steps or actions or whatever it looks like.

Make it yours again. Underrated. Absolute killer power move. I will often, this is how I stood out in the first place in corporate by doing by. Honestly, beautiful PowerPoint docs. Not beautiful in a sense of like fancy, but just clean, simple. Putting complex things in a, you know, in a very simple succinct way, communicating clearly, making sure people have the right information.

It is such a power move. I cannot tell you how much I believe in this, and it's often underrated because people quickly think, you know what, I'm not here to, to take the notes. I'm not here to do this kind of admin tasks, and there is so much power in it. And again. As somebody who potentially didn't get to speak up in the meeting as much as they wanted to, didn't get to share their opinion to the extent to which, you know, some of the more outspoken vocal per people did on the call.

Do this. See what happens. I dare you. I, I promise you this regimen, this meeting regimen is the, the quiet code to stand out at work without even having to speak up all the time without being the most vocal person in the room. It makes sure you're present. It makes sure you're sharp. You're being seen as strategic.

You're being seen as. Like taking ownership, leadership, you're steering the conversations, you're pulling the invisible strings. It is quiet influence at its best, and it's my favorite thing to talk about. You can almost tell by my voice and by my passion. This is where the untapped potential is. This is where the magic lies.

For anyone who is like me, more of a quieter, introspective, observing person, that doesn't mean I never speak up. I'm, there can be meetings where I potentially speak too much because again, too passionate about, passionate about it. But this is what I wanna leave you with this particular regimen. Try it out.

See what happens. Do not forget to send me a message to say how it went. Any questions that you have, we can always dive deeper and, that's what I wanna leave you with this week. Slay those meetings, like bring you a quiet, bring that introspective observation, power, and pull some of those invisible strings.

I can't wait to hear what happens. Thank you so much for tuning in. I'll see you.