Getting Your Voice Heard

Welcome to the look and Sound of Leadership, an ongoing series of executive coaching tips designed to help you be perceived in the workplace the way you want to be perceived. I'm Tom Henschel, your executive coach, and today we're talking about getting your voice heard. Neela was known to be brilliant. She'd turned around two teams without seeming to have broken a sweat. As a reward, she was given a third team to turn around. Four months into that new role, her company reached out to me and asked me to be her coach. Her HR business partner made it clear the company viewed Neela as an enormous asset. They wanted her to be happy. They also felt she had more to give. They wanted her to share her knowledge, advocate for her group and advocate for herself. They wanted her to be bigger, more executive. Neela wanted all of that for herself, too. During our very first conversation, she told me, I've never been a good advocate for myself. It always felt icky to me, like I was bragging, I'm still that way. My work should speak for itself. I shouldn't have to tell everyone about it. I think your work does speak for itself, Neela, I said. The company loves you and in addition, they want you to advocate for yourself more. Would you want that? Want it? Yes. Will I do it? I don't know. I never have. That's certainly something we could talk about, Neela, I said. Now, she asked. If you like, I said, but I meant more like it could be one of the topics we visit regularly throughout the coaching. We could check in on your self advocacy and see how it's going. How would it go anywhere? It's not going anywhere now. Homework, I answered. I could give you homework. You'd go out, play with it, come back and talk about whatever happened. Homework? Like what? She asked, deeply curious. Well, I don't know you yet, so I don't know what you'll like. But it might be something like between now and our next conversation, note the number of times when you think of something to say and then choose not to say it. You don't have to do anything about it. Just keep track of where were you? Who were you with? Where did you feel it in your body? What did you tell yourself? How frequently is it happening? And then you and I would talk about all of that and that might be a piece of homework. What does that sound like? That actually sounds great. I could probably find examples of myself not speaking up this past week, but no, seriously, I'd like to try that. That's great. So then I come back to you and I tell you about it and then what? And then we figure out the next best step to keep building your self advocacy muscle. You know, wherever you're at, we add homework about awareness or about behavior. Just like you add weights on a machine at the gym and you begin to get stronger. She took a breath. I would love to build that muscle. My older sister has it. I watch her. She is so great about speaking for herself. She's not harsh or mean. She is just a straight shooter. I've always admired her for it, but it's not anything I can do. Well, until now maybe, I said. She laughed. Maybe I'm willing. Like I said, I admire it. Do you know what stops you? I asked. I don't like being the center of attention. Never have speaking for yourself turns the spotlight on your face and I would rather keep my nose down and keep plugging away. I asked, what happens when there's something you want a project or an idea or promotion to do? You advocate for things like that. A project or an idea maybe? Yes, a promotion. Probably not too personal? I asked. Exactly. When it's about something work related, that's easier. But a promotion is clearly something I want for myself and that's when it feels icky. That's when I want my work to speak for itself. Huh? I said. You know, normally at this point in this conversation I say something about believing that your work will speak for itself is like believing in the tooth fairy. You've got to get real about how the world works. If you can't advocate for yourself in addition to your hard work, you're going to stall. So that's my normal line. But you know, maybe you're the exception to the rule, Neela. Your hard work is being recognized and you don't seem impatient or unhappy. Well, she said, I did think this last move was going to come with a promotion or at least a bump in pay. And it didn't. I asked neither one. Neither one, she replied. And I asked, and what I understand budgets are tight and it isn't the right time of year for promotions anyway. I'm not going to raise a stink. Raise a stink? How would you raise a stink? I asked. I'm not going to complain about oh, there was no raise or there was no new title. Woe is me. I'll wait my turn, she said. And then she said, what? What are you smiling about? I said, I am thinking about your sister. I'm thinking I'll wait my turn is probably not a phrase you hear out of her mouth very Often. She laughed. That's true. It's not. And you're saying I shouldn't be saying it either? I'm not sure it's serving you, I said. Well, I don't know, she said, raising her eyebrows and rolling her eyes. I think it's serving me pretty well. It lets me off the hook from having to advocate for myself. That's a pretty big service, I'd say. Oh, that it is, I agreed solemnly. No, but kidding aside, you're right. I'll wait my turn. Shouldn't be my mantra, and neither should I. Don't want to make a stink. I think I have a lot of things like that that I say to myself, I offered. You could start tracking them. Are you giving me homework? She asked. I nodded. If you like. She considered and then said, you know where I'd like some homework? Steven's staff meetings. He's my boss. He has weekly staff meetings with all us department heads, seven of us, and he told me he wants me to speak up more in those meetings, and I think it's one of the things he wants you to help me with. What kind of homework would you give me there? Well, I can think of two things off the top of my head. They're related. The first one is speak in the first 10 minutes of the meeting. It doesn't need to be much. Something like good idea or I can imagine that that would count. Speak in the first 10 minutes. That's the first challenge. What does that sound like? She said. The first 10 minutes is usually Steven doing an update to all of us, so I'm not sure I could just start tossing comments in. Does anyone speak while Steven's talking, or is everyone quiet? I asked. I think everyone's quiet. I'm pretty sure I'm right. Well, if no one speaks except Steven, then I'm not suggesting you be the first person to break that rule. But I would challenge you to look for opportunities. There might be conversations as the meeting's getting started, and that would count. Get your voice in the room in in the first 10 minutes, she said. I suppose I could even talk before I sit down. I usually don't chat much. I just come in and sit down. Or I'm on Zoom where no one speaks up anyway. But yes. Maybe when we're in the office I could do that. I'll see. Okay, that's the first one. Talk in the first 10 minutes. What's the second one? The second one is a variation on talk in the first 10 minutes, but this one is about frequency throughout the whole meeting. Here's how it goes. Imagine you have an AI assistant who follows you around when you're with people, like in Stephen staff meetings or a project meeting, or one on one, whatever. This assistant is going to capture everything and create a transcript for you to review. And when you review it, you are going to note how often your name shows up as the speaker. If pages of transcript go by and your name's not there, you need to get yourself on the record more often. You need to speak up more. Your name should be showing up regularly. She asked, and if I were speaking up more, what would I be saying? Well, you might have an idea and choose to say it out loud instead of staying silent. Turn the spotlight on yourself. Oh, that. She said. But look, it also could be an interjection like before. Good idea. Or I can imagine that there are lots of those. That's interesting. I hadn't thought of that. I like that. Just speak your experience. She looked down, chewing her cheek a little. After a minute, she said, I'm thinking about Stephen's staff meetings and who speaks up and who doesn't. I'm wondering if this is a gender issue. Are the men speaking up more than the women? What do you think? I asked. Well, let me ask you first. What would you expect? In my experience, on this issue of self advocacy, I coach as many men as women. Really? She said, I wouldn't have expected that. I would have thought you'd coach a lot more women. Well, I want to be clear. In the world at large, I think more women than men do struggle with speaking up in rooms where the gender is 50, 50, men often speak up more than women. Yes, that is true. But in my world, in terms of who asks for my help to find their voice, it's as many men as women. But you were thinking about gender in Stephen's meetings. What were you thinking? Are women speaking up less than men? I don't think so. She said. If I'm right, everyone's about equal except me. I don't think this is a gender issue. I think this is a me issue. Neela turned out to be a fierce student. The homework I gave her often made her uncomfortable. She would report back how difficult, difficult some of these assignments were for her. But she pushed through her discomfort, which moved her toward the look and sound of leadership. I ended up really impressed by Neela. Like I said, she was a fierce student. She loved homework. She loved having something specific to focus on. As our work was ending, she asked me if I could teach her how to keep making homework assignments for herself. And I ended up coming up with three questions that she could ask herself. And this would be as a way to help her build her muscle around speaking up. Subsequently, I've used these same three questions with other clients and people find them helpful. So I thought I would share them here. I want to be clear what I'm talking about. I'm talking about how to improve anything related to the look and sound of leadership. Maybe you want fewer ums, clearer stories, better questions, better listening. Any part of you that you want to develop, ask yourself these three questions as a way to build muscle. Here's the first question. What am I going to pay attention to? This is about awareness. This is you thinking about your thinking you're going to build muscle by building awareness. You're going to start paying attention to things you have not been noticing before. What are those things? What do you need to see in order to build your muscles? So do you remember when I asked Neela if people spoke during her boss's updates? And do you remember what she said? She said, I think everyone's quiet. I'm pretty sure I'm right. She didn't know for certain if people were speaking up or not. Neela was a very strong introvert and she often did not take in what other people were doing. She needed to pay attention to what was going on around her. She also needed to pay attention to what was going on inside her, right? Was she speaking up in the first 10 minutes? Was she on the record enough? Was she choosing to be silent for you too? What are you gonna pay attention to? And there's no right answer. The act of choosing is beginning building muscle. So just make a choice. Commit yourself to paying attention to something specific. That's the first question. What am I going to pay attention to? Here's the second question. What specific behavior am I going to stop or start? So maybe you already know the answer to this question for self, you know, maybe you've decided that you're going to stop prefacing every sentence with some catchphrase. Or maybe you're going to start asking more open ended questions. Those are very specific behaviors, behaviors that you could measure. Those are great. When you ask yourself, what specific behavior am I going to start or stop? Be specific. People say all the time, oh, I want to be more executive. To which I say, great, how? How are you going to do that in your workplace? And we explore specifically in their workplace, what does executive look like? And the answer can be anything, right? It could be collaboration, but that's not quite behavior yet, right? How will you display collaboration specifically? You know, will it be about responsiveness or about sharing information or about connecting people? Now we're getting down to behavior, right? How responsive was I? Am I remembering to share what I know? Who did I last introduce to each other? B. Behavioral. And to put it in a little hall of mirrors, you can only do that if you are also paying attention to it, right? Having awareness. So question two, about what behavior really doesn't exist without question one, where do I pay attention? Which brings us to question three, how will I measure success? So I'm just going to cut to the chase here. I think there is one way to answer this question that works in every case and I have never found an answer that's better. How will I measure success? By 5% improvement? If I can build my awareness. 5%, that is fantastic. If I can display that new behavior 5% of the time. That's Herculean. If you want to build muscle around getting your voice heard or whatever your goal is, be an encouraging coach to yourself. Notice wins everywhere. And it doesn't mean there aren't lessons to learn. There are, but you are in learning mode, which means mistakes are the way you will learn. Don't let those mistakes be the focus. Focus on the 5% improvement. 5%. I gotta promise you it takes effort to do that. It is not an accident. Celebrate when it happens. That's the third question. How will I measure success? So the three questions ask yourself, what am I going to pay attention to? What behavior am I going to start or stop? And how am I going to measure success? I'm going to do a little zoom out for a second. In the episode with Neela, I gave her four pieces of homework and I want to be sure you hear them because if you're working to get your voice heard, these could help you. Number one, Count the number of times you have an idea and choose not to say it out loud. Number two, Listen for your self limiting beliefs. Look for patterns that trigger them. Who are you with? What's the setting? Number three. In meetings, speak in the first 10 minutes and in meetings get your name on on the record with regularity. I hope the homework ideas are helpful. They are in the show notes if you want them and I hope the three questions are helpful. I want to end the episode by telling you about a pattern that I have noticed when I'm working with men and women about getting their voices heard. And I will share it with you right after this month's gratitude Gratitude this month to those of you who responded to my conversation with Lois Rankel on last month's episode. Thank you for your support. Thank you for your encouragement. I passed along your kind words to Lois. She says thank you too. I'm glad you liked the episode. It was really fun to do something different. Thank you. Gratitude to the folks who reached out to me this month to explore coaching. It is always such a pleasure to be in touch with you. It's great to hear your stories. Thank you. And thank you to those who email me with so many kind words about the show and how it's helped you. That's why we do it. Thank you very much. Okay. When Neela and I first started talking, she had a lot of self limiting beliefs. And you heard her, she reeled them off one after the other. My work should speak for itself. I don't like being the center of attention. I don't want to make a stink. I'll wait my turn. Which by the way did not mean her taking her rightful place in line. It meant her stepping aside and letting other people go first. Right. Neela was really driven by her self limiting beliefs. Here's another way it showed up. This is letting other people go first. Do you remember when she mentioned about not getting a pay bump or a promotion and then she immediately diminished herself. She said, oh, I know budgets are tight and oh, it's not the right time. Everyone was more important than she was. That's a self limiting belief. When I'm working with people on getting their voices heard, self limiting beliefs are almost always part of what's stopping them. That almost always. That's the pattern. I notice something they believe stops them from being bigger, being more executive. And it's not, you know, an illness. These are high performing people. Neela was really pretty amazing and her beliefs were holding her back in this one part of her growth. When I call her a fierce student, what I mean is she knew she had those beliefs and she just plowed through them. It was impressive to watch for you. In addition to giving yourself homework, asking yourself the three questions, listen to yourself. What makes you uncomfortable? What's stopping you? And whatever your answer is, challenge yourself. Is it real? Really? Most of the time self limiting beliefs are not real. Like my work should speak for itself. Really? Says who? That is something you believe, but it's not real. Challenge yourself. If you want more help exploring these ideas, three categories in the podcast library might help you developing new behaviors. Executive presence and for women. And five specific episodes you might listen to how to show up inhabiting executive presence, leadership and self deception, self awareness and self management and self limiting beliefs. Really interesting episode. That's it for me. I'm Tom Henschel. Until next time. Thanks so much for listening, Sam.