How to be most persuasive, when required, during a board meeting.
This is a skill to master sooner rather than later, whatever the size of the organization.
Not mastering it, often means letting the door widely open to other more
convincing stakeholders armed with not necessarily better suggestions.
Yet these individuals have learnt how to persuade an audience, a board, a team.
These are my 4 tips that will make your proposals count :
✅ 1) Prepare, prepare, prepare, as in the "Art of War" by Sun Zi. Check
beforehand which participant(s) in the audience may have potential
objections to your proposals and on what ground. Look for ways to
address these issues in your speech.
✅ 2) Your speech is prepared - During the meeting, start calmly with a confident smile and
articulate your points in a concise and extremely clear manner.
✅ 3) Following your points, use some rhetorical formulas that may include
metaphors, repetition, rhymes even slightly sarcastic humor.
✅ 4) End your presentation with a call to action that may include a
suggested timeline. Introducing the notion of time has often the benefit
of bringing the audience back to the "here and now".
Our "Communicating with Confidence" series will continue with almost daily tips for the coming few weeks.