Improve boardroom credibility by being bold

Ruth caught my attention during the Ones To Watch workshops as she was one of the most inspirational speakers.

She has spent 30 years in marketing, branding and strategy.

Naturally, everyone wants to hear a masterclass on being bold in the boardroom from such a great leader.

There was a lot of great content covered during the workshop; Here are my top take-outs to improve my credibility in the boardroom:

Be brief, be bright and be gone.

Always go prepared and make sure you speak ‘board-ese’ (the language of the boardroom)

Keep calm and don’t get defensive.

Not all boardroom meetings are rational.

Some of them carry lots of emotions and they need to be handled differently.

If questioned or challenged, remember this is part of the problem solving and it should be welcomed.

Stay relaxed, listen, welcome the question and prepare a bold/concise answer.

The power of three.

If there is an emotional/ difficult conversation, plan a three meeting recommendation process.

It takes some of the pressure off, enables you to take the issue offline and to come back another time with your view, rather than trying to battle out in one go.

You don’t always have to win on the day, and it’s not always in the day when you have to win and some people need time to process.

Focus on what you have to land.

The way for you not to be nervous is to focus on your key asks (what you want agreement to, or messages you have to land).

This way you can always bring the discussion back to your key objectives.

What matters is to get that agreement at the end of the meeting and therefore it frees you up on getting distracted on the unnecessary detail. to not concentrate on details.

By Anca Lazar, Dairy Crest.