Ways to speak up and interject politely in a meeting

Ways to speak up and interject politely in a meeting

Interjecting in a meeting with few colleagues and your boss with your perspective, an update, or correcting a matter or even seeking clarity so as to contribute to the discussion can seem extremely difficult for many of the early career and mid-career professionals. You wait for the moment when it feels appropriate to butt in, but the moment never comes. You may try to build up the courage to speak, only to struggle to find a way into the conversation. You may even fear that if you interject it would seem pushy or your contribution may not seem as relevant.

So, what do you do, you keep silent and after the meeting you kick yourself for it.

Sounds familiar?

Whatever the reason, it’s essential to interject politely to assert your confidence, leadership and influence.

Here are some phrases you can use to speak up, contribute and be noticed.

Look for natural transition points early in the discussion:

  • Before we move on, let me add...
  • Excuse me, I have something to add here...
  • Do you mind if I jump in? I have an idea that relates to what you just said...
  • I’m glad you brought that up. I'd like to further add…

Put a stake in the ground:

  • Have we thought about….
  • Did anyone mention…. As I recall….report specifies….
  • Another option you may want to consider is….and that will push our timeline to...
  • It is worth revisiting last week’s minutes of the meeting….

Disagree without seeming disagreeable:??

  • I respectfully disagree with this assessment…..
  • My experience has been quite different….
  • To play a devil’s advocate here for a moment….what if we were to consider ….with so and so approach

Confused and you want to seek clarification:

  • Forgive me, but I am little confused about which program we are talking about here
  • I am not entirely sure I am following you. Could you please recap?
  • I am sure I am supposed to know this already but….
  • This may be a dumb question, how would you…..
  • This may be a dumb question, why we are not using .…instead of ….?
  • I apologise if this is totally obvious to everyone here, what does…stand for?

Dinesh Gupta

Deputy Manager - Corporate Communications

2 年

Wonderful Insights

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Onkareshwar Pandey

Chairman - Observer Global Media Group; Founder - Commonwealth Thought Leaders Forum; CEO - Golden Signatures;

2 年

This is quite familiar. Thanks for sharing Varsha Chainani

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Virendrasingh Ghunawat

Senior Vice President I - Media Relations @AU Small Finance Bank | Communication Strategist | Former Investigative Journalist |

2 年

Lovely. Thnks for sharing these valuable inputs

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Purvi Shah

Public Relations Professional | Corporate Communication |Investor Relations | Strategic | Events | Financial Communication

2 年

Superb

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Nikhil Dey

Executive Director - Adfactors PR & Founder - soul2sole coaching

2 年

Should I, shouldn't I.... still struggle with this, so by that logic, the good news is I qualify as early or mid career :)

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