How to Be the Smartest Person in a Meeting
By: Wang Yip
Tags: Meetings, Work, Work Tips, Questions, Silence

How to Be the Smartest Person in a Meeting

Photo by Kristina Flour on Unsplash

Better to Remain Silent and Be Thought a Fool than to Speak and Remove All Doubt — Unknown

I stumbled upon these two strategies when I was working as a management consultant. When I was working my way up the ladder, I often found myself in meetings where I was the least senior person in the room. My role was to bring these smart people together, keep them to the agenda, make sure they had all the information they needed to take action or make a decision, and then capture notes.

The first strategy came out of me being introverted and not knowing how to contribute to meetings.

Strategy #1 — Shut up

I decided rather than trying to think of something valuable to say, I wouldn’t say anything at all. I would listen intently, taking notes. I would watch people’s body language as they told stories, presented data, made decisions, or asked questions. I would watch other people in the room to see how they were reacting, even if they weren’t speaking.

I learned a lot from shutting up.

When you are talking, you likely aren’t paying attention to the room. You aren’t taking notes. You temporarily forget about all things and concentrate on figuring out what to say and then what to say next.

When you shut up and observe, you hear things people don’t say (you hear between the words). You notice when people have micro-expressions that convey their authentic emotion. Finally, you recognize that others likely have more valuable things to say than you do.

But you can’t stay silent all the time. Especially when you rise in the company and now people are counting on you to take action, decide, or lead.

So now what do you do? That takes me to strategy #2.

Strategy #2 — Ask great, open-ended questions

As I was promoted and started leading and facilitating meetings, people around the room were looking to me for leadership. They were looking to me to guide how the meetings went.

I struggled for the longest time. Nobody teaches you how to lead a meeting, or how to read a room, or how to know when to stop the discussion or let the conversation flow. A lot of these things I learned from silently observing others in meetings. But it is very different when you are leading the meeting.

So one thing I quickly learned became my strategy #2, which is to ask great, open-ended questions to lead the discussion. You don’t have to know the answer (although it helps to have an answer in mind), but asking great questions is one way to lead a meeting.

How do you ask great questions? And what are some examples of good questions you can ask in meetings?

I find open-ended questions are better because they generate more discussion than ‘yes’ or ‘no’ questions, however, there is a time and place for both types of questions

Examine the breakpoints and endpoints. If you are presenting sales data to a company, a good question to ask is about the breakpoint — or a breakeven point. How much product do we have to sell to recover our costs? Or if you are recruiting students for a survey — how many students at a minimum do we have to recruit? Maximum? Note that you need a good understanding of the context before asking these types of questions.

Is the discussion getting too strategic? Too tactical? You can point this out and bring the discussion to the right level if needed.

What assumptions are we making here that aren’t valid?

If our customer was in the room listening to this, what would they say?

What are our immediate next steps?

How does this change if we look at this from a 10-year lens? 20 years? 50 years?

Final thoughts

Now the killer combo if you want to appear smart in meetings. Hit them with strategy #2 and ask them a great open-ended question. Then use strategy #1 and shut up.

I will tell you that the first few times you use this combo, you are going to feel uncomfortable. If you are used to talking, you will feel you need to fill in the silence. But don’t. Hold it down. Be comfortable with the silence. Suppress all attempts to speak.

I guarantee that if you hold long enough, someone will speak up. They always do because they are uncomfortable with the silence, or they have the urge to provide their voice at the meeting.