It has to do with WHO is conveying the idea, as opposed to the merit of the idea itself.
In an ideal world, you would be always taken seriously. Your idea would be judged purely on its merits. Unfortunately, we don’t live in an ideal world. We live in a world where your gravitas, or executive presence, determines whether you will get taken seriously or not.
So, how to level up?
Ask INSIGHTFUL questions; how?
1) Do your homework on the meeting topic. If someone sends out some documents to be discussed in the meeting, study them carefully while using your sharpest critical reasoning skills. Don’t read but analyse.
2) Do your homework on the people in the room. Who is attending? What do they care about? What frustrates them? What are they biased towards? Against?}
Gravitas is not a universal attribute. You have gravitas with specific people.
3) Ask Insightful Questions / Make Insightful Observations. Insights come from asking about or noticing the second-and third-order implications of a proposed course of action. Every action has logical and natural consequences. All an insightful question does is to ask what those consequences are before they happen.
The key to doing this is to do your homework before a meeting (even if the topic of discussion is not your area of primary responsibility) and to think about “what happens next.”
When you do this consistently, a few things happen:
· Rather than being a passive meeting participant, you inject useful thinking into the dialogue.
· You’re going to spot or at least reveal that certain problems haven’t been thought through.
· Senior executives will notice that you added value to the meeting.
· If you do this just two meetings in a row, people will notice. 95%+ of meeting participants don’t do this; they just listen quietly passively.
Thanks,
Source: Victor Cheng; Founder, CaseInterview.com