1. Raising your status
What meetings are really about
The first thing to understand about meetings is the primal nature of what's going on below the surface. Human beings are social creatures and our position within the hierarchy is enormously important to us for reasons linked to survival, reproduction and other big evolutionary drivers.
So manoeuvring and positioning is an unstoppable part of the dynamics that emerge whenever a group gathers together. When you are one of the more junior people at a meeting it can be tempting to switch off or to decide that the power politics is childish and resolve not to engage with it. But to do this will rob you of influence and consign you to a working life peppered with frustration and wasted time.
I describe on the home page of my website billbritten.co.uk the two systems the brain uses for processing information and decision-making. ‘System 1’ is the automatic, intuitive, instantaneous evaluations we make of people and situations and ‘System 2’ is the intentional, considered thinking done by the conscious mind. While we like to think System 2 is in charge, the overwhelming majority of our decisions are actually made by System 1.
Status
The significance of all this, in terms of meetings, is that although discussion may appear to be conducted with logic and reasoned argument (System 2), people’s behaviour – including yours and mine – is dominated by System 1. This includes decisions about whom to listen to. And the single biggest influence on System 1 is the other person’s status.
By status I do not mean simply position within the organisational hierarchy. I’m describing a much more subtle assessment of social dominance and influence. Most people automatically defer to those with higher status and expect deference from those with lower status. The assessment of others’ status relies on many small cues, only one of which is job title. And since it’s System 1 that’s doing the assessing, these cues mostly go unnoticed by System 2: eye contact, vocal tone, posture, gesture, timing and speed of speech, etc.
Think about a meeting you attend regularly. You could almost certainly name those with the highest and lowest status. With some people this will be partly a reflection of their formal role, at least in a healthy organisation. But some people will be punching above or below their weight, holding higher or lower status than others who are technically their peers. You could probably rank those who attend and what’s more, assuming you’re neither the top dog nor the whipping boy, you could probably say fairly precisely where you are in the pecking order (it’s interesting how many animal metaphors there are for status).
So if you want to get your voice heard more, you have to affect others’ System 1 perceptions of you and, in particular, you have to influence their perception of your status so you are viewed as someone who merits attention and airtime rather than someone marginal whose opinion counts for little. Many people make the mistake of assuming that the only way they can raise their status, other than by getting promotion, is by the intelligence and usefulness of what they say. While these things certainly count, just as important is the question of how one behaves and speaks.
Status at meetings is not a zero-sum game between you and another individual. There is usually no exact hierarchy, so by raising your status enough to get your voice heard, you do not necessarily have to push others down. Having said that, if others feel their own status is threatened by a change in yours, they may oppose it. So you should look to increase your status subtly, such that those around the table do not consciously notice. Occasionally your neighbours, in status terms, may sense the shift. But they won't know what you’ve done or – if they don’t like it - how to resist.
If this is all sounding horribly Machiavellian and contrary to your generosity of spirit, let me add that not only would I discourage you from using it in a malign or egotistical fashion, I think that doing so is ultimately counter-productive.
You may well know someone, an ‘operator’, who is extremely good at manipulating meetings for his or her own purposes. You may even have the misfortune to work in an organisation where such behaviour is accepted or even rewarded. Just consider for a moment your own emotional reaction to that person. Do you trust them? When they seek your help, do you want to offer it? If they were in trouble, would you rush to their aid?
In most circumstances System 1 is very sophisticated and accurate at reading the intentions of others. So if your purpose is negative or destructive towards somebody else, they will probably feel it. What I am offering you is tools to raise your profile and get your voice heard. If you use them deviously, people will experience you as devious. But if you use them to make a positive contribution, then this is what people will intuitively recognise.
The good news is that a few simple changes can make an enormous difference. And it’s the aim of these blogs to help you grow your awareness, raise your status and thereby influence the perceptions (and behaviour) of others so that they welcome your contributions.
Let’s start with something really easy to put into practice. Compare these 2 photographs:
Simply by placing my hands on the table, I acquire greater authority and status. I’m more likely to be listened to when I speak and your expectation is probably also that my voice will be stronger, louder, firmer.
It’s a simple demonstration of an important principle when it comes to raising your status: space is power. In the picture on the right I have territory: I own my portion of the desk. In the picture on the left I don’t.
This idea – that space is power – is something I’ll return to in later blogs. But for now I suggest you try consciously getting your hands onto the table and noticing who else around the table does so and how it affects your perception of their status.