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Welcome to the powerhouse Revolution Podcast. I’m Lucy Gernon, ex corporate leader turned CEO of my dream business, helping corporate female leaders just like you to create your dream career and life. At 40 I quit the corporate world as I was tired of doing a job that no longer led me up and wanted to live my life my way. I created the power house Revolution podcast, to give you simple, actionable tips and strategies to help you create the perfect career and lifestyle that you and your family deserve. So if you’re a corporate female leader or manager who is ready to step into her superpowers and live the life you were born to live, you are definitely in the right place. Because life is way too short to dread Mondays. Okay, let’s jump into today’s episode.
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Hello, gorgeous. Welcome back to another episode of the powerhouse Revolution Podcast. I am so grateful for you being here with me today. Genuinely the podcast is growing at the moment. And I’m so happy because I pour so much energy and time into this podcast, trying to give you free content to help you to be more successful to help you to have better work life balance, and to help you to own your worth and be more confident so that you succeed in your leadership role without burning yourself out or missing out on life. And it brings me so much joy when I get energy back and I get reviews and I get emails from you guys. And I just want to say I appreciate you being here with me today. And if you haven’t already, could you please rate and review the podcast on Apple podcasts, all you need to do is go into the podcast app on your phone. It’s the purple one, if you’ve got an iPhone, go into my my show powerhouse revolution. And scroll down a few episodes I think we’re in six or seven. And you’ll see where you can actually click five stars and write a little review and I will give you a shout out on the podcast when you do that for me. One of my listeners Taz 160675 said that Lucy’s podcast is packed full of information and practical advice for women in leadership. Thank you, Lucy, that just makes me so happy. Like honestly, just to get the feedback is amazing. So like I said, if you would pop on and do that I would be so grateful. Or if you’re listening on Spotify, you just literally click those five stars and just help me spread the word about the podcast. So let’s get down to business. Today we are talking all about strategies for effectively communicating up in your organization. So what prompted me to record this episode is in my mastermind group, every single time we meet we do kind of hotseat coaching, where I go around with the group in our call, and they share what they’re finding challenging, and then I’ll share any resources or tools I have with them for their specific situation. And then the group will kind of help as well in terms of their experience in experiencing the problems. And one of the ladies in the group was saying that she was finding it difficult to influence change when it comes to communicating up. And I have heard that many, many times, I’m sure you can relate to that as well. And what was really transpiring was when we kind of dug into it was that she didn’t really have a, I suppose a focused strategy on how to actually make her point known. So the group were given tons of their insights, because some of them are at higher levels to this lady, and some of them are at the same levels, it doesn’t really matter, actually. But just to get the different perspectives is amazing, actually just to have that one above you. And then the people the same as you or maybe even below you to give you little nuggets.
And what I love about the mastermind calls is that everyone always takes away something different. Because they get everyone to share their key takeaways. And yeah, it’s really, really cool to hear that. So when we were talking about this whole thing, I thought, why not just hop on the podcast, and give you some tips on how you can be more effective in your communication. So effective communication really is critical to your success, and also the success of your organization or your area of business. What is especially important when you’re communicating up. And unfortunately, many people struggle with this type of communication, including people on your team right now, who can’t who are not communicating effectively with you, which is leading to conflict, misunderstandings, stress, anxiety, it’s also important to be an effective communicator for you it can lead to missed opportunities, and they can just lead to tension, right. So, I was doing some research for the podcast and I found that McKinsey said that the average employee spends 28% of their work week on emails, meetings and other communication tasks. And yet this significant time investment money people still struggle to communicate effectively especially with their bosses and other higher ups. But don’t worry, I’ve got you covered. Because today I’m going to share five strategies that can help you to improve your communication skills and achieve greater success when communicating up. Okay, first, let’s talk about your mindset. So let’s talk about the fears and the nervousness that may come up for you. When you are thinking about having to go into a board meeting or have that phone call to communicate something really important. That’s really important to you. It’s totally normal and totally natural to feel anxious. Okay, first of all, but you’ve got to be able to reprogram that mind of yours. Okay. So what do I mean by that? What I mean by that is, you are going into a state of fight or flight. So your mind is basically sending a signal to your body that there’s a threat and your brain? Is this a narrative going on a story in your mind about what might happen? You’re probably catastrophizing, you’re probably thinking things like, what if I look stupid, what if they don’t understand what if I say the wrong thing, all those kinds of things can happen in our minds. But I want you to note, the very first step in effective communication is learning to control your mind. So how you can do that is simply by oil as a couple of things. And it’s not simple. So I won’t let us back up, the first thing you need to do is you need to really own your power. So the fear and anxiousness nervousness is normal, but you need to calm yourself down. So how you can do that is by using your body. So even just if you’re feeling nervous, I want you just to even just take a few deep breaths before you go in, do a little grounding exercise with yourself, even just by sitting in a chair, putting your feet firmly on the ground, putting your hands on your palms of your hands on your lap face up in a receiving position, relax your jaw, relax your shoulders, and just breathe. And just visualize the meeting going your way, literally visualize everyone looking at you, everyone interested, nobody’s judging, Everyone’s curious.
And really just set yourself a vision for what you want the meeting to go. Like, what that’s going to do is that you’re actually telling your mind what you want to happen. And I promise you, when you do that, it is most likely going to happen because you have given your brain the program. And when you give your brain that program, you actually admit a different energy, because you’re going in with more confidence, okay? So literally deep breathing or even like positive self talk, remembering times where you were effective, where things did go your way, really just give yourself a pep talk beforehand, and remember who the hell you are. Remember who you are and what you bring to your organization, because you have a voice, you have points that you need to make that are absolutely valid. And one thing I would say offer to you too is, if they don’t accept your point or your viewpoint, it doesn’t mean you were wrong. It doesn’t mean they’re right, it was just a difference of opinion. So try not to take it personally. So you can really build your confidence and composure in advance through practice, and just preparing really can go a long way as well. And get really prepared for your presentation. If that’s going to help you to get more, I suppose feel more confident going in. Personally, and this is something I’ve taught myself is I actually don’t over prepare. I’m one of these people that I don’t like brag about it, but I just maybe I should get more prepared. I prefer to speak from the heart, I prefer to kind of have an idea of what I’m going to say have my points like I do a lot of presentations, a lot of training, I try to give myself points, but then I just trust, that’s my favorite word, I just trust that what’s supposed to come through in that moment is gonna come through, and it always does. So make sure that obviously you have your slides, you have your data to back everything up and that you are feeling confident. But try not to like be prepared. But my advice would be to don’t over prepare, because then you can put so much pressure on yourself to get it all right, that you might end up getting it wrong. So just trust yourself, you know what you’re doing. Next, let’s discuss how you articulate your point of view effectively. So if you are going in, in a meeting where you have a presentation, just make sure that you have key words or bullets that are going to prompt you to say what you want to say. So avoid putting tons of text on slides. I’ve seen that and like not what’s happening when people are reading your slides or not listening to you. So if you’re multitasking, come back to me.
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If you have too much information on your slides, people can’t focus on both and their attention and curiosity is going to go to the lovely shiny slides you put up. They’re going to be reading that and they’re not going to listen to you. So only put on your slides like the data or the supporting points that you need. And to be able to articulate what you want to articulate. If you are not using slides, it’s really important that even if you are just in general conversation, if you’re in with your boss, and you need to tell him or her something that’s super important, you want to be really clear and concise. So how you can do this is by getting your thoughts organized in advance and presenting them in a logical order. So what I mean by that is, first of all, and in my programs, actually, I have a training I call the set method, which is how to have an effective conversation. So this is really about this three step method that I teach my clients where really, you want to get really prepared before the meeting, organize everything. But the most important thing you need to get clear on yourself is What do I actually want to get from this meeting? What’s the outcome I am looking for, and then you kind of reverse engineer it. And there’s a good few critical steps that you don’t want to miss in there, too. So once you have your thoughts organized, just make sure that you’re taking your time you’re breathing, you’re telling a story, like that’s so important, don’t just jump to the jugular, get in and tell your story and make sure that you you know, you speak slowly. If you’re like me, maybe you’re not I speak quite fast. So I have to try to slow my mind down and realize that it’s not a race, take my time and try to present what I say in a logical order. And if you mess up, that’s okay. If somebody needs clarification, that’s okay. It doesn’t mean you got it wrong. And when you are communicating, it’s super important, especially if you are at a higher level we hear a lot about executive presence.
So what is executive presence really executive president’s presence? All it is is like confidence and commanding the room in a an authoritative, yet professional, yet friendly way. These executives who have they seem to have charisma they just have, or what’s the word self after they call? Oh, God, somebody’s listened to me gone? Oh, what is this? gravitas? That’s the word I was looking for. And they have this gravitas about them. And it’s because they’re doing a couple of things. So if you’re multitasking, come back to me, you want to be using your body language. So there was I read a study recently two about TED Talks. And the most, there’s more successful TED talks are by speakers who engage their audience by actually making eye contact with them, like walk around the room, if you can look at everybody, not just the person you’re speaking to, if you’re in a meeting, and even now, as I’m speaking, I’m doing something else. I’m using my hand gestures, I am commanding space, I am standing with my shoulders back with, you know, looking tall, my body is strong. And I’m walking in there feeling assertive, and I’m feeling confidence. Do I always feel that way? No, absolutely not. I had to do some events back in March for International Women’s Day. And that was one of the events I was feeling a little intimidated. It was kind of triggering something in me around my past life in the corporate world. And I was feeling intimidated, kind of as a prepared for this event. And then I just had this mindset shift, and I went, Wait a minute, like, all I can do is be me, Does nobody else I can be only me. And yes, there’s going to be some people in that audience who do not resonate with what I have to say and maybe don’t like me, but that’s totally okay. You can’t please everybody. So I think it’s so important to be yourself, but also to make sure that you are using body language that shows your authority. Okay, so next, let’s talk about you getting heard and actually getting feedback. So again, if you were if you’re communicating with your boss, or your boss’s boss, or you’re presenting to a board, or people who are more senior than you, what’s really important is that you capture your audience’s attention and keep them engaged, especially when you’re communicating with those higher ups. They are so busy, you are just another person looking for their time. So there’s a few different strategies that you can do to keep your audience engaged. Okay, the first thing that you can do, and again, if you are multitasking, come back to me because this is so important. Do not just go in there and get straight down to business. Okay, you’ve got to build a little bit of rapport first, like say, hi, you know, don’t be all fake. Like, I hate this whole, fake corporate persona stuff. Just be you be real and walk in and you’ll be a breath of fresh air. Go in as yourself, tell a little story. And even as you’re doing your presentation, use humor where you can use storytelling and if you can be inter interactive and ask for their opinions. Like, you know, I mean, I teach this my programs to for the women who need it just on how to deliver effective presentations. It starts by captivating your audience and getting them engaged at the very start by asking a powerful question, because when you ask a powerful question at the start of your presentation, you are going to literally you’re inviting them into the conversation with you. Okay. So, again, another really important part of this is, if you want to be heard, you’ve also got to listen. So you have got to realize, I think it was a Tony Robbins says, and I love this quote, to be able to influence people, you’ve got to already understand what’s influencing them. So how you can do that is by actively listening. So active listening, again, is something I teach on my programs, because we do a lot of Coach Training for some of the leaders when I work with you. And active listening is not just listening with your ears, active listening is really placing your full attention on somebody, it’s listening to what they are saying. It’s listening to what they’re not saying. It’s watching their body language. So you know, you hear about people read the room, I have seen speakers go on and on and on. When people are on laptops, they’re looking out the window, they’re looking down, you’ve lost your audience, right. So you have got to read the room, you’ve got to look for body language, and be willing to reengage them. Or maybe you are going on to dog, maybe you do need to just be succinct and get to the point, like I said to you earlier, okay. So if you want to be able to influence those above you, you’ve got to listen to them actively. You’ve got to know what’s influencing them and ask for feedback. So when you are in the communication situation with them, whether you are presenting or whether you’re in a conversation, and you’re trying to influence them. If it doesn’t go your way, find out why like what was missing, like, what what, because sometimes I hear like, I know, we need to do this, like this is so important for our company, but they just don’t seem to listen, it’s because they don’t have the same perspective that you have, they don’t see things through your eyes. And it’s your job as a leader to be able to communicate what you see, in a way that translates to their language, you may not be speaking their language. And the reason you’re not is because you’re not listening, that you focus on yourself and what you want to say, Okay. The fourth thing is then is the importance of being articulate and confident when presenting your ideas. So if you don’t believe in what you are going to say, your audience are not going to believe it. So you need to walk in there, knowing the facts, you need to be so unshakable in what you want to say that there is no way that they are not going to listen to you. Whereas a lot of the mistake I see leaders make is you’re nearly going into the room with senior people looking for their permission to execute an idea. And when you go in with that energy, what are you going in as you’re going in on the on the backfoot? Right, you’re
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not going in with equal power, you’re seeing them as the decision makers, when actually, you hold an awful lot of power if you can articulate your point of view and what you’re trying to achieve in a concise articulate manner. Okay. So believe me when I say as someone who spent years in the corporate world and now works as a coach, where I speak on stages, I speak at events, I have my podcast, I you know, I train people, I know firsthand the power of clear and concise communication. And to achieve this, what you need to do is, you know, you can rehearse your presentation, you can practice your delivery, speak to yourself in the mirror. And really just like I talked to myself a lot in the car, or I might be in the mirror, if I’m especially if I’m feeling nervous, I might just literally look at myself in the mirror, and I’m like, Lizzy, you can do this, there are only people, it’s okay. And then I just kind of let myself go quiet and really think about, okay, why am I doing this? And even for you, it’s like, what’s the goal for you? Like, why is this so important to you? And if it’s a cost saving initiative that you’re really trying to get them to see, or you really need new resources, because if you don’t have the team are going to walk out because they’re so stressed, you need to be able to articulate that in their language. So you need to ask yourself questions like, what data or data do they need to see, so that they are able to make a good business decision. It like we make decisions based on emotion by the way, 80% of the time, but you need to have the data first.
So always present your data present your facts show the recruitment costs, show the impact on the business, pull out studies from Harvard pull out data to support like Simon Sinek is amazing. And Adam Grant all those guys, they talk about this, like, you know in terms of being resourced the bloody regulations, and a lot of companies say you should be adequate resource, but the reason you don’t get them is because you can’t articulate it in a way that is compelling enough for them to take action. So it’s it’s data but then it’s about the storytelling and all of that behind that as well. Okay. A. And then finally, because this is the final point I would make is, again, it starts way before you go into that meeting where you’re trying to influence. It starts way before that. It starts with building relationships and trust with those in higher positions. So it’s really important. And this is why, again, I, I work with this with a lot of my clients too when we do our personal branding exercise. And when we look at like your networking strategy, like if you’re walking into a room for the first time, and this is, you know, you only see these people when there’s a problem, like you don’t have a poor you don’t have, you know, I talk about this piggy bank analogy where you want to be in a business of filling people’s piggy banks, okay, you want to be in the business of giving so much to those people that you’re looking for a decision from, that when you try to take something, you fill their piggy bank so much with good stuff, that they are ready to listen to you, they’re ready to give back. Whereas a lot of people are in the business of withdrawing from the piggy bank, and they don’t fill it up. So it’s really important that you build trust and relationships. And remember, they’re just people just like you, they’re only people, okay, so I would say establish rapport with them by you know, if you see them on the corridor, just say hi, have the chitchat, you might even ask for, you know, regular meeting just in terms of your career progression to learn from them. And just above all else, be real, be genuine, be you. Because if you can’t be you, you can be nobody else. So that is it for this week’s episode very, very quickly, just to recap on everything that I said, the first strategy is to let go of fear and nervousness. And the way you can do that is by working on your mindset, doing your breathing and remembering who the hell you are. Okay? The second thing is to be articulate in your point of view. So to be really clear and concise, and get clear on what you want to get from the communication in particular. The third thing then is it’s really important to capture your audience’s attention. So that you are heard and to be willing to actively listen and read the room and be able to get feedback afterwards as well. The fourth thing, then is to walk in there with confidence and to be articulate, and to be concise when you’re speaking and believe in what you’re trying to put across. And then finally, in advance of all of that, it’s super important that you make time for networking, it’s super important that you build trust with these decision makers. So little exercise you can do after this event is just take a second just to think about, okay, who are the five most influential people in my organization that I need to strengthen my relationship with? How might I do that? What’s one small step I could take today towards that. And I promise you that is the way forward. So we are at the end of another episode of the powerhouse Revolution podcast, I hope you found this one valuable. If you did, please just jump on to Apple or Spotify right now and give me a five star review. And if you could send this episode to a couple of female leader colleagues who you know, don’t listen to my podcasts and really think that they could do with listening to the strategies I’ve shared, you would be given them a gift and you would be really helping me grow with this podcast too. So I hope you have a wonderful, wonderful rest of your day, if you’ve any questions, or I can help you at all, but anything, you can always email me at hello at Lucy gardens calm or Instagram or LinkedIn, I’m just Lucy Gernon. And if you’re interested in joining my mastermind for women in senior leadership, we talk about this kind of stuff all the time. Or if you’re interested in one to one coaching, obviously, reach out to me for that as well. We can just have an exploratory conversation and see if there’s a fit for us to work together in one of my programs. So I’d love to hear from you. So don’t delay, reach out to me today. That was a little rhyme. I’m gonna go now before I start making the show myself. Have a wonderful, wonderful rest of your day and I’ll talk to you again next week. Bye for now.
