Managing Stress for Success

Motivational Speaker Carole Spiers
says that every business meeting can be a miniature stage performance

A keynote speaker should be the one to remind you that a business meeting is partly a workshop and partly theatre - a forum where your strengths and weaknesses are on show, and where you have a chance to influence others and promote team-building. Indeed your interchanges across the table with a top individual may represent a make-or-break moment in your career. And your handling of this personal image-building uses certain theatrical effects.

Important meetings are often recorded, affording a permanent record and playback of what was said and how the arguments were delivered. So a successful theatrical performance could ripple outward for your benefit.

In one big organisation, I worked with a brilliant man who believed that when you had nothing worth saying, you might as well just stay quiet. He was actually a very good speaker, yet his voice was heard much less often than the others, and consequently his promotion was slow. This indicates that his philosophy of silence was hardly beneficial to his career.

Assertion v. aggression

If you don't keep asserting your opinion, you may be overlooked. Even if you have no new points to make, you should consider responding to those of others ; paraphrasing the speaker's point demonstrates that you have not only been listening attentively, but also interpreting, and that gives you a good lead-in to your own response and continuing dialogue.

There are people who are so conscious of the dangers of silence that they lay down time-goals - no more than five minutes without speaking, or a certain key phrase (or slogan) to be worked-in before the half-hour mark etc., to ensure that their presence is registered and their importance asserted.

Maintaining the difference between assertion and aggression is crucial (not only in debate, but to avoid workplace conflict). Assertion should not be defined as a muted form of aggression but rather as a proactive informative attitude that respects the other person. Appealing for a show of hands, for example, might seem assertive but is, in fact inviting everyone's opinion and shouldn't be seen as aggressive behaviour. Interruptions, of course, can be either assertive or aggressive, and may upset the theatrical performance you had in mind. But your way of reacting to an interruption may enhance your image - like a judo expert using his opponent's weight against him.

Assertiveness at meetings - Summary

• A meeting is partly theatre, where you speak for effect
• Your words maintain your presence and build your image
• Assertion is a key factor in power-play

Another key insight from Carole Spiers, International Leading Authority on Corporate Stress,
Motivational Speaker and BBC Broadcaster.