Need To Get Noticed? Do Something Crraazy!
Have you ever been in a meeting, getting down to the bottom of a long list of boring objectives for the day, when your boss suddenly says an exciting new word and boom, everything changes? You may have just heard your words uttered by someone else. This article is about taking any instance of not getting noticed and turning it into an opportunity for you to shine. We won't stop at talking about taking chances in meetings either! There are other ways to get noticed that doesn't require making eye contact or being on time. Sometimes all you need is some creativity.
I've been coordinating and managing many working groups for regional banks, I've had a lot of those types of meetings. From the point that I joined all those groups, the first thing I do, is announce who's on the agenda for the next meeting. So at 6:30 on a Monday morning, I'll either leave a note for myself or make sure that I get ahead of time that these are our upcoming meetings. Either way, what happens next is not so much a matter of some "fancy" shit, where people try to throw out their ideas in front of the whole group (which is kind of weird) but it's more about just being present and putting yourself in front of people when you need to be. And when I say 'putting yourself in front of people' this could simply mean calling them from the hallway before the meeting starts, or it could mean 'bumping into' them in the office kitchen.
I was having a meeting about a year ago with a group including 4 senior managers and one assistant manager. The agenda for that particular meeting was based on what was going on with a major account that we were all working together on. My objective during that meeting is to merely to make sure that everyone knows what's going on with this account and that they are talking to each other, because if they don't then they will all make different decisions based off of different sets of figures. It's important to make sure that this account is not going to implode. One problem I found during this meeting was it wasn't getting noticed. The assistant manager was not allowing any of the other managers to speak. It got to the point where he no longer wanted them in his office at all, he just wanted to meet in my office (2 of 3 assistants had gone home, it was just me).
When I heard this I had a thought "now what should I say? He's not listening and talking."
To get out of my own head and think about what to say, before taking a deep breath, I just said 'hey you know what? Let me give everyone a chance. Who wants to go first?'
The assistant manager looked hesitant, but he said 'Me'.
We got to his office and he was really nervous, almost shaking. He was thinking 'what do I say? Where should I start? What do you want to talk about?'. He was really awkward though, so we put him at ease by saying that it didn't matter what he had to say. The whole point of the meeting was for everyone else to be able to talk about what they were working on. So just be yourself from the beginning and don't worry too much about what you have to say later (which is where a lot of people get stuck). After he got into the habit of talking to me, I was able to figure out a real plan of attack for this particular client rather quickly.
The point here is to think about what you can do to help yourself get noticed. Who has seen you having an awkward morning? Has anyone seen you working in your office with a specific manager before? You should try to get those managers to the front of the room or at least know that you're trying really hard and what it is that you want them to say. But if they don't want anything then just ask them why they don't want that opportunity. Managers will tell you exactly what they want if you just ask them.
How would you take this advice in your office? Let us know in the comments below!
Signing Off,
Emmanuel Pierre-Louis, Investment Banking Professional & CEO of I Love You Guys Advisory Group. <3 To learn more about me and make sure that this is not my last article, feel free to 'Like' my Facebook Page or follow me on Twitter at @E_P_L or Google+ at https://gplus.to/EmmanuelPierreLouis .
Conclusion:
When you're attending a meeting, you might need to think about what's missing. What do people want? What do they need? Do they need to be more involved or less involved in the conversation? These are all questions that will help you get people talking in meetings. We've all been in meetings where no one says anything and it takes us an hour to figure out what we should be doing. Don't let this be you! The best way to avoid these meetings is by being proactive and simply asking people what they want from the meeting. People are normally happy when someone comes to them for their opinion on something, but no one likes it when someone makes them feel stupid or like they're irrelevant.