Talking Sense
When Your Communications Matters

July 2016
8.5 Ways to Speak Up and Add Value at Work

By Kelly Vandever

One of the reasons people subscribe to this newsletter is because they want to improve their public speaking so they can get better at speaking up at work.

Of course when you are able to present important information in a professional manner, you increase your standing in the workplace.  But there are other ways to also speak up and demonstrate your value.  Consider these.

1 -   Tell your manager what change you want to make - Talk to you boss and let him or her know you want to speak up more. Use Kelly as an excuse!  Say something like, "Hey boss, I was reading this article by a communications expert named Kelly and she wrote something that really made sense to me - I'd like to make a change and I'd like to start speaking up more."  Ask your manager for his or her support as you try to add more value to the organization.  (How can your boss say no to that?!)

 

1.5 - This works for leaders too - If you're a leader, tell your staff, "I just read this article and I want to get better at listening to your input rather than just giving instructions without getting your thoughts." David Marquet's  (whom I interviewed during my leadership podcast) shared how he gave yellow cards (like the penalty card used in soccer) to his staff and ask them to support him by throwing up the yellow card whenever he did something he said he wanted to stop doing.


2 - 
Own Your Own Career - Do the research - Use your organization's online people finder and enterprise social tool along with LinkedIn to seek out people who are doing what you're interested in.  Find out how they did to get where they are.  Touch base with them occasionally.  Own finding out what you can do to reach your personal professional goals.

3 -  
Schedule Your Own Meeting with Your Manager - I once had a boss who didn't feel the need to meet with her staff regularly one-on-one. But I needed it.  So I scheduled a meeting with her every month.  I put together an agenda for the meeting.  I went through my business goals, documenting my progress. I told her about any projects I was working on or professional development activities I'd been involved with.  Basically I made sure she knew what I was doing and how well I was doing it.  And bonus:  by the end of the year, my performance appraisal wrote itself!

4 - Build...
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