How high-achievers articulate ideas in critical meetings

Have you ever wondered how some people

are just so good at speaking under

pressure at work? Maybe it's your

manager, or maybe it's a co-orker that

you know who just always seems to know

exactly the right thing to say at the

right moment in order to achieve a

certain outcome. Today I'm going to

share with you in a video that's less

than 20 minutes something that's taken

me over four years of messing up at work

left and right in order to realize and

that's how to articulate your ideas

effectively in high pressure meetings.

If you're new to the channel, welcome.

My name is Matt. I've spent the last

four years working in roles across big

tech, management consulting, and

banking. And on this channel, I

basically share with you everything that

I've learned in my professional career.

And so, if you're here today, thank you.

But if you're still with me, make sure

you lock in full screen the video and

follow along. Let's get into it. I first

want to start by defining what a high

pressure situation even is. And I know a

lot of you are probably like, "Dude, of

course I know what that is." But a high

pressure situation, specifically a high

pressure meeting, is typically one where

you are not indifferent to the outcome.

What this means is that you care a lot

about achieving a certain outcome or

convincing the audience in the meeting

to take a certain action. A common

example of this at work could be, for

example, if you want to get promoted

this cycle. And so you're about to go

into a meeting with your manager where

you're going to ask them, "Hey, can you

put me up for promotion this cycle? You

know, I've been working so hard over the

last six to 12 months, really just

putting in all the hours, being in the

office before everyone else, leaving

later than everyone else, being a really

big team player, and all that jazz. And

you really want your manager to put you

up for promo. And so, you're not

indifferent to that outcome. Uh the

outcome actually has a lot of meaning to

you. And so I'm going to walk you

through the three-step process that I

still use to this day in every single

meeting that I go into uh at Google

where I need a certain outcome or I need

to convince the audience of a certain

action that I believe they should take.

And so step one is you need to clarify

the objective. You need to clarify the

goal. Now what do I mean by this? A lot

of times you have a general idea of oh

yeah I want to get promoted or oh yeah I

want to convince them to to take this

action but what are you actually trying

to achieve in that specific meeting. Say

for example you're trying to get

promoted. You're not actually trying to

get promoted in that meeting. You're

trying to convince your manager in that

meeting that they should basically put

their neck out for you by putting you up

for promotion. The way it works for

those who are unfamiliar with how tech

promos work, typically your manager has

to put you up for promo and then there's

some sort of higher level committee

that's going to decide, but obviously

your manager isn't going to put you up

for promo if they don't believe that you

are someone who who would reflect

positively on them. And so you're

essentially trying to ask them to put

their neck out for you. Now, the second

question you should ask though is why do

you care? And in the example of the

promotion, it's probably pretty clear,

right? Of course, I want to get promoted

because I want to make more money. I

want to maybe have a a cooler title. I

want to have more responsibility, what

have you. But what I find is it's never

a bad idea to reflect on why you

actually care about the outcome that

you're trying to drive. And finally,

this is the step that most people miss,

which is why should they care? And you

should really, really think hard here.

Why should your manager care about

putting you up for promotion?

It's very clear to you, of course, but

what's in their interest to take that

action that you're trying to convince

them of? And this requires you to have a

little bit of empathy and put yourself

in their shoes. But if you do that,

you're just going to be that much more

convincing because you'll be able to

tailor the argument in a way that speaks

to them. But once we've accomplished

step one, which is to clarify the goal,

let's move on to step two, which is to

start whiteboarding the dependencies.

Now, I personally am biased and I love

whiteboards. So, I always come into a

conference room at work and I just start

writing stuff and it really helps me to

visualize my ideas. But you can do this

on a piece of paper, you can do this on

your computer, it doesn't really matter.

The main thing here is you need to think

about what steps need to happen leading

up to that meeting where you want to

come in prepared. And so the structure

that I typically follow is to achieve X

I need to communicate why to person

being the audience. Now in order to

communicate and convey why to the person

effectively and in a way that he or she

actually understands

that means that I need to bring Z. Now

what is Z? It could be many different

things right to have Z prepared I need

to do AB and C. And so typically there's

going to be a number of things. Now to

make this more concrete let's take that

example of getting promoted. So to

achieve X, X in this case being to

convince my manager to put me up for

promo this cycle, I need to communicate

that I've done a good job over the last

12 months and that I've demonstrated

improvement against whatever feedback

they gave me last year to my manager. I

need to show them that I've improved.

And in order to to communicate that I've

improved to my manager effectively and

in a way that he or she understands, I

need to bring probably examples,

specific examples of things that I've

worked on or projects that I've

contributed to, that have succeeded,

maybe even positive feedback from other

stakeholders that I've worked with. And

so in order to have all of this body of

evidence prepared that shows that I've

improved at my job and you know other

people also think that I have done a

good job and therefore should be

promoted. I need to do A, B and C. Now

A, B and C in this case could be many

different things. It could be let me go

back into my notes from previous

conversations with my manager where he

or she was giving me feedback and we

talked about my action plan to improve

on that feedback uh six months ago,

right? Or it could be conversations that

I had with other people, other

stakeholders that we worked with where

they said good things about the work

that I had done or they expressed their

gratitude to me for the work that I did.

And it could even be something like

going back and looking at all the

projects that you did, all the

presentations that you worked on over

the past year and compiling them into a

consolidated list so that your manager

can very easily visualize all of the

things that you've worked on, all the

things that you've accomplished. Right?

So that's how I would apply this

framework. And doesn't matter if your

situation is not you trying to get

promoted. This works for literally any

situation uh at work where you need to

convince someone, especially if they're

more senior than you, of something that

you believe is true. So, you know, you

want to communicate uh an idea, you want

to get them on board. And so, typically,

you need to bring evidence, which

requires you to take a certain series of

actions to gather that evidence. But

once we have accomplished step two, now

we move on to step three, which is the

execution phase. So how do you actually

come prepared to the meeting and take

all the action steps that was laid out

in the previous step? First things

first, you need to commit to doing

everything that you laid out right here.

You need to commit to everything in your

work. And I tell people this all the

time, don't be lazy, but also make sure

you're working smart. And so it's

probably going to be a lot of work if

you try to go and manually look at all

of your past meeting notes and sift

through like email threads that are like

6 months old and you're like digging

through your inbox and everything. But

nowadays there's a lot of helpful tools

that can actually speed up this process.

And so something like Granola for

example, which is a AI notepad.

Basically granola helps you to

transcribe every meeting that you're in.

And it's not just a notetaker. after the

meeting. It also helps you to synthesize

the key findings. You can even chat with

the transcript. There's this really

awesome AI chat transcript feature where

you can ask it questions about the

meeting. And so if this meeting happened

like 4 months ago and you barely

remember what happened, you can just ask

it, hey, tell me about what we talked

about, what were the key takeaways, what

were the action items that came out of

this and who was in the meeting, things

like that. This allows you to remember

all of the things that you've

accomplished in the past and to come up

with a compelling argument based on all

the past meetings that you've been a

part of to bring to your manager. In

addition to that, it's also just really

helpful because it allows you to fully

focus on meetings. And so you don't have

to be taking notes the whole time. You

can and it'll synthesize those notes

along with the transcript, but you don't

have to. And so it allows you to fully

focus, especially in these high stakes

meetings where you want to be listening

attentively and not just taking notes.

And you want to be able to respond

effectively and give your full attention

to the other person. Now, there's a link

in the description if any of you are

interested in using a tool like Granola.

There's a free plan, so it's completely

free to try and personally found it

extremely helpful in my workflows, and I

think you will, too. with that. Once

you've gathered all of the data that's

required, let's say you've prepared all

of the evidence. Now, how do you

actually effectively turn that into a

successful meeting? Well, there's a few

steps here that I want to walk you

through. Now, the first is go into a

conference room or go into a room where

no one else is and where it's quiet and

where you can think. And I want you to

start thinking about three things. The

first is what is the structure of the

meeting going to look like and how do I

want to run this meeting. The second is

how am I going to communicate the ideas

in a top- down way that my manager or an

executive would understand and the third

is what sort of implications you know

takeaways and action items do I want

this person to take away from this

meeting. Now let me break down each of

these because it's really important with

meeting structure. A common mistake that

junior employees make and that I

personally have made so many times in

the past is going into the meeting with

only a vague fuzzy idea of how I want to

run the meeting. And then what ends up

happening is I go in and I know that I

want to talk about one thing but then

you know the other person my manager

brings up another topic and then the

conversation goes in this direction and

then things get completely derailed that

way and you end up not really

controlling or driving the conversation

forward which is what you want to happen

uh in a high stakes meeting. You want to

come prepared. You want to show them

that you've thought through what you

want out of this meeting and how you're

going to get there. And you want to also

take the pressure off of the listener so

that you know they know that you're

driving the conversation forward. They

don't have to take up the burden of

really pushing it to the next stage. And

so a very simple structure you can

follow is something like, hey, I want to

open up with a little bit of small talk

and then I want to transition into

talking about why we're all here today.

I want to lay out a quick agenda and

then there's uh three main ideas I want

I want to dive into with each of these

having a specific example. And then

finally, we'll talk about uh action

items and next steps based on your

reaction to what I present. Sound good?

And then you dive into it. Okay? Even

something as simple as that. And then

when you end the meeting, you want to

basically say, "Okay, awesome. Well, it

sounds like as a next step, uh, this

person should do this. Uh, this person

should do this. I will do this. And, uh,

we'll maybe we'll circle back and find

time next week to reconvene." Even

saying something as simple as that,

which is just like a line or two,

demonstrates a lot of initiative and it

also makes you come across as having

your together and being a more

organized person, which is again going

to work in your favor. Now, the second

point here though, top- down

communication. Uh, in consulting, every

junior consultant knows this. You're

taught that you should communicate in a

top- down way. And what this means is

you always want to start with the main

idea first before branching down into

the sub second order supporting ideas

and the evidence that supports those

ideas. And so the reason you do this is

to avoid getting bogged down in the

details. Especially if you're talking to

someone who's more senior, they have a

very short attention span. They've been

in meetings all day. They do not want to

be bogged down in the details. They just

want to know what the heck does this

person want for me? Why should I do it

for them? And like what specifically are

the next steps? And so if you can just

communicate why this matters to them,

what you're asking for, and then what

you specifically need them to do, then

your meetings are just going to go so

much smoother. But finally, this leads

to the third point, which is the

implications and the AIS. And I kind of

just talked about this, but essentially

every executive and you know, every

manager that you have is always going to

be thinking about what are the

implications of what Matt is saying to

me and what are the action items that

are coming out of that? Like what why

does this matter to me? What do I need

to do specifically? And if you can just

explicitly make it clear to them what

the implications are without them having

to think about it themselves, that's

just going to take more mental load off

of them, which is always a good thing.

At the end of the day, the mentality

that you should have is a ownership

mentality. And you want to be that

person that really pushes the

conversation forward. Especially if this

is a meeting again where you want a

certain outcome to come out of that

meeting, then you should by all means do

whatever it takes to push the

conversation in the direction that you

want. Because if you don't, then you're

going to let the other person drive the

conversation in a different direction

and it may not be the one that you are

looking for. But anyways, that's all I

got for you guys today. Hope this was

helpful. If you have questions, of

course, always drop them down in the

comment section below. and I will see

you in the next