This is an All Ears English podcast, episode 2496 three winning frameworks to speak up in a meeting with Anna Connolly.
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Even at the highest levels of business, we can feel nervous and clammy when we need to speak up in a meeting.
Today, our guest Anna, gives us three simple but powerful ways to structure what you want to say so that people understand you.
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Hello, Anna.
Welcome to All Ears English.
Glad to have you here.
How are you doing today?
Hi, Lindsay.
I'm very well.
How are you doing?
Good.
We're excited to have your voice on the show.
I'm just going to take a minute and introduce you to our audience.
So everyone today I have Anna Connolly on the show.
Anna Connolly is an accredited neuro language coach who helps senior managers reach their goals through her weekly podcast Confident Business English.
Anna's here today to share a simple technique to save you time and stress, especially when you need to speak up in meetings.
And Anna.
I am so glad we're talking about speaking up in meetings because I know it's a real pressure point for a lot of our listeners.
Absolutely.
Many people who are professionals, they have this feeling of pressure when they go to meetings.
So hopefully I can help you guys today with some really simple techniques.
Yes.
And especially as we get into the higher levels of an organization I know you work with a lot of senior managers, senior leaders the stakes get even higher, don't they Anna?
Absolutely.
And when you're in those high stakes situations, what we really want to do is try and make your life a little bit easier.
So hopefully I can help you do that today.
All right.
I love it.
So then today's key question is, Anna, what is something that senior managers can do or don't?
Sorry, what is something that senior managers do not do in meetings, but they should be doing it?
What is that thing?
Well Lindsay, I would say for me and in my experience working with a lot of senior managers, one of the biggest things that people forget to use are frameworks right.
Now, when I say frameworks, what I'm talking about here is just essentially a structure, a structure to organize your thoughts so that you can tell people clearly exactly what it is that you want to say.
Maybe that's for giving your opinion, expressing why somebody should do something.
But frameworks can be so useful in this type of situations where you need to speak up in meetings.
Yes.
And why do you think it's so powerful?
Is it because of that structure, Anna, that we kind of have memorized?
We know what comes after what we've just said.
Therefore, we can kind of relax and focus on the content.
Or what do you think makes a framework so powerful for us?
I think it's part of that.
I also think that when you have a higher intermediate, more advanced level of From what I've seen and the people that I've worked with, at some point it becomes less about the technical elements that normally you can more or less master, although that is a factor.
And actually it becomes a question of how you say things.
And when you're in these high pressure situations, like you mentioned before, you're already nervous.
And speaking in another language in a professional context is really hard.
People are literally paid to judge you and judge your competence.
You've got all of that playing around with you there as well.
And when you're speaking in English, maybe it's your second language, but it could be your third.
It could be even your fourth language.
So frameworks just make your life easier when you're in these situations that are more difficult, like high pressure meetings.
I love it.
So I think that today you are going to bring us three easy to use frameworks that we can rely on.
And we're going to have a deeper example of one of them.
But first, before we get into those exact frameworks Anna, can you kind of set the scene for us so that our listeners can maybe see themselves in this situation?
They know what this is like.
Can you describe the scenario where we might use one of these frameworks absolutely?
I'm gonna imagine a situation where your boss tells you okay john, in a couple of weeks you've got to speak at this meeting and it's one of those meetings where you're already nervous about it.
It's in two weeks time and you're already like spending some time thinking about okay, what am i gonna say?
How am i gonna structure it?
I want to make sure that i'm clear.
So you've got all of these things going around in your mind and maybe you're on the commute on the way home and you're kind of thinking about this and I want to make sure that I do a good job in English.
And you've got all of this kind of stress and anxiety about it.
That is the sort of scenario that I'm talking about.
Okay.
I love it.
And this is where it's a very key moment, because we could spend time spinning our wheels and wasting good preparation time, or we could use a framework that we know gives us that structure right away.
And we wouldn't have to spend hours and hours preparing this.
We're still going to spend some time, but there's a difference between going crazy and being disorganized versus using that framework and just putting the information in.
I love it.
So, Anna, can we get into what the frameworks are?
Can you introduce to us the first one that you've come up with here?
Sure.
So the first one on the list, and this is an absolute classic and this is great for if you ever want to give your opinion or your perspective about something.
And this framework is called PRES, which stands for Point, Reason, Example, Summary.
I love it.
I love it.
Prez.
All right.
It's good to have an acronym, isn't it?
Yeah, right.
That helps a lot, you know, it just helps you memorize it in the moment.
Yeah.
And are these frameworks that you kind of came up with as you were teaching English to business professionals?
Or are these frameworks you found somewhere?
Or where do they come from?
Have you tested these out yourself?
Yeah, so these are things that I've picked up along the way.
And these are communication frameworks that are actually available for anyone speaking any language.
But there's something that I've tested out with my clients for the past couple of years now, because I had so many people in these situations.
I was like how can I make their life easier?
And these work really well.
And a lot of people tell me they're like you know what?
That's so helpful, because when I walk into the room okay, maybe I.
I'm not a hundred percent confident.
It might still be a little bit nervous, but at least I can be sure that I'm giving myself the best shot to get across something clearly.
Oh my gosh.
A hundred percent.
You know, you've prepared, you know, you have it together.
And so then yeah, maybe your mind will kind of go crazy a little bit.
Your stomach might be turning, right?
The adrenaline might be pumping through your body, but you have some kind of anchor, some kind of structure.
So good.
Okay, so the first one Anna, and we're going to come back to this one once we hear about the other two and really go through an example to understand it.
But just to recap, you said it's PREZ, point, reason, example, summary.
Is that right?
Yes, correct.
Absolutely.
Awesome.
All right, let's go into number two.
What is the second framework that our listeners could think about using?
So this is a slightly different context, not necessarily giving your opinion, but this is when you want to persuade somebody, or convince somebody to do something, which is a little bit different.
And here I'm going to offer you another framework, but this one has three steps, and they all start with the letter B, which is also helpful because it helps memorize it.
So we're going to call it the three Bs.
And this is where you can structure what you're saying, to first touch on believe, benefit and back up.
So essentially state your belief, what do you think they should do?
Tell them what the benefit is for them from their perspective, and then you can back it up with some of your experience or examples that have worked in the past.
Yes.
And this kind of scenario at the senior leadership levels or as we move up an organization are super common to have to do this.
You're always kind of persuading or convincing in a sense.
Right.
We're getting our team members on board or maybe making a sale on something super important as a skill.
Right, Anna?
Absolutely.
And it can be really hard to do that in the moment and also to feel confident doing it, which is why I love that framework so much.
Because I think it just gives you a little bit of a boost when maybe you have to do something that's a little bit tricky.
Somebody might be disagreeing with you a little bit.
And you want to be firm about why you think something is a good idea.
And I think that gives you a little bit of confidence with that framework.
Oh, I love it.
I wish we had time to go into deep detail about all of these frameworks.
But let's see what the next one is.
And then we'll come back to the first and really get into some nitty gritty details here.
So what would be the third framework?
This situation is also an absolute classic.
I don't know whether you're listening to this and you've ever had to go to an executive meeting and give an update on what is happening.
Right, this is really common.
This framework helps you focus on what are the most important things, because when you're in that room with those executives, really they need to hear that high level stuff.
They're not interested in all the detail.
They need you to get to the point and get to the point quickly.
So this framework is actually one which is taken from the US Army.
This is where it originated.
And it's called BLUF.
And this stands for Bottom Line Up Front.
And essentially what that's getting across is Bottom line up front.
Tell me what's important at the beginning.
So you start.
Let's take, for example, if it's a project, you state the key result immediately.
Then you could go on and give a little bit more context and some more detail about the situation.
Then you finish up with some next steps and that's a nice, super concise way to update your executives in a meeting.
Yes.
And this is incredibly important, especially I'll speak for American culture.
That's the culture that I know the best.
Incredibly important in American business culture to get to the point.
I mean, people will get really irritated with you if you waste their time.
What do we think culturally?
Do we think that these frameworks, especially the BLUF, the bluff framework, does that also apply, let's say, in doing business in parts of Asia?
Or are these cross-cultural global frameworks, do you think?
Or are there certain places they might work better in the world?
I think that's a really good point.
And I think you're right to bring that up, because I think there's definitely some cultural sensitivity here.
Maybe there might be some situations where okay, actually we need to give a little bit more context first, before we come on and hit them with kind of the key message.
It can be a really universal framework, but of course, you know best, right?
You need to judge that situation for what you think is most appropriate, but this is a tool that you can use if you think it would work well.
Yes, I love it.
And the reality is these days we are doing business with people from all different cultures.
So it's less so that we're going to travel from the US to Japan and just do business with Japanese people.
It could be a mix of people in Zoom meetings from all over the world.
Right, Anna?
So you're right.
It's an individual level to decide what is the right way to present the info.
But Great frameworks.
Let's talk more about number one.
Can you give us some details, the PREZ framework?
Can we go deeper into this?
Definitely.
I'm going to share with you a typical example, because I think this is the best way to explain how this works.
So let me refresh again on the steps.
You're giving your perspective, you're giving your opinion, point, reason, example, summary.
So let's imagine Lindsay, that I'm an HR manager and I need to give my perspective on a new training program that the company wants to roll out.
And I've been asked to share this in the meeting, and I'm going to give you an example using the framework.
Okay.
So it could be something like this.
Okay.
I've taken a look at the proposal for the new company wide training program and honestly, I think we need to roll it out team by team rather than all at once.
From my perspective, I think that a phased approach is going to let us adapt a little bit more and respond to some real-time feedback rather than maybe wasting our time and resources if something doesn't land very well.
And actually based on my experience.
When we launched this last year, We piloted a similar approach in the marketing team and it enabled us to spot a few mistakes and save a little bit of confusion later down the line.
So in this case, I would be pretty keen to go for a stage rollout, as I think that will give us better data, more control and a stronger program overall.
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I love that.
What I liked about that, Anna, was that it was balanced.
It felt like you moved through.
I was tracking the right point.
Now she's moving on to example.
I can see that she's using moving to example because we're using different vocabulary.
And then summary, it moved along.
It flowed really nicely.
Right.
It didn't give a tiny bit of time to one piece and then too much time to another.
It was well balanced.
Yeah, that's what I loved.
And the best part is about these frameworks is at the beginning.
It does take some time to get used to them.
And yes, you have to think, okay, what am I going to put in each section?
But as you get more and more used to it, it can become a little bit more on autopilot and you'll find that you'll go into meetings or you'll just kind of start doing this naturally.
Anyway, and as you saw, I mean I got through that in what I think it was a couple of minutes.
You know, just because it's a four step framework doesn't mean that it needs to last a long time.
And there you know that you've got through your opinion, you've really expressed it clearly.
What is my point of view?
Why do I think that?
What's an example?
And let me reinforce it.
Oh, it's so good.
It's so clean.
It's so clear.
So for our listeners, guys go back, listen again and try to label when Anna moves from point to reason, to example, to summary.
I think that'd be a really good learning experience to go through.
Use this episode and start to fill in your own example.
That would be the next step for our audience today to fill in their own example for whatever they're trying to communicate an opinion on.
All right.
That's fantastic, Anna.
What would be for you as we wrap up today.
What would we like to leave our listeners with today?
I'd like to leave them with a point about confidence, because sometimes people think you need to feel confident before you do something.
And the thing is is that sometimes in these big meetings where there's a lot of pressure, you're always going to feel a little bit nervous, because it is an intimidating situation, as it is right.
Totally normal.
But in order to build confidence, sometimes you have to do things even when you're not feeling that confident.
And that's actually the route that's going to get you there in the end.
So, in a way, if you're nervous about speaking up, maybe you're nervous about making that comment or asking that question.
It's actually in that moment exactly that you should do it and repeat that several times.
And in the end, you will get to a point where, rather than staying quiet and being frustrated after the meeting because you didn't say anything, you will just speak without thinking about it.
And that's really the point that you can get to.
And you should get to because you deserve to feel confident when you're at work.
Yes, I love it.
So empowering.
It's a counterintuitive approach, right?
If we feel like we're curling up and we're nervous instead, that's when we should expand and therefore change that pattern in our brain that tells us to be nervous.
That's the thing to do to get out of it is actually doing the thing.
I love it.
So good, Anna.
Anna, tell us about your podcast and how we can find it or where else we can find you online if we'd like to hear more from you.
Yes, if you'd like to hear more from me, I have a weekly podcast called Confident Business English.
And I release episodes every week where I really take the problems and issues that I see with my clients who are senior managers every day and give you practical solutions for how you can overcome that.
And lots of tips about confidence as well along the way.
So the best place to find me is look for my podcast, whatever platform you listen to.
Confident Business English.
All right.
Excellent.
It's been great having you on the show, Anna, and I hope to have you on again soon.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Bye.
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