Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing : Career Growth In The Corporate World - Ep16: Speak up and be heard at work.

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to the Corporate Survivor Podcast, where we talk about how to grow your career confidence, build your skills and value, increase your salary, and the many lessons we learn in the corporate world. For more career support, click on over to www.mayping.com. This is Mayping, your corporate leader turned career coach. I hope you enjoy, like and subscribe. In today's podcast, I want to talk about why you should speak up and be heard. Welcome to day four of my five-day, five-part Introverts Unite series. If you haven't caught the other day's updates, do follow my podcast.

Starting point is 00:00:48 So the ability to speak up and be heard pays massive dividends in your career, in business or in life. Yes, I know you're an introvert and you think best and you work best when you're alone. The thing is, when we are actually at work, whether it's in our corporate job or you're an entrepreneur, at the end of the day, you are working with other people, right? So you will be spending time with people um either working together as part of a team on a collaboration on a project or even correspondences right so if you stick to the typical introvert's way of doing things which is doing things quietly on the sidelines, doing it on your own, never volunteering, always waiting to be called, waiting for instructions, and just generally waiting for something to happen.

Starting point is 00:01:53 It's where I'm getting at. Then don't be surprised if later on, come feedback time, performance reviews and promotions, you then realize that you're not getting ahead. Because if you're not communicating, then you don't exist. Nobody knows what hard work that you have put in. Nobody knows what kind of genius and brilliance and knowledge that you have in your head, right? It's all about pulling it out pulling it out expressing yourself communicating to the people who needs to hear it whether it's your peers your team leader your manager your boss your clients your vendors your suppliers your collaborators you know obviously this depends on that you know

Starting point is 00:02:40 the industry that you're in it's all about daring to speak up. So I have a lot of introvert clients and I also have a lot of introverted friends. Myself, I am also an introvert. So I completely understand that the natural default is to just kind of getting stuck in our mind and just not say anything until someone actually asks us to speak up.

Starting point is 00:03:12 We need to be responsible for ourselves. We need to take charge if you want to become a leader. And in my previous Top 10 Soft Skills series, I talked about how leadership essentially is self-management. So if you want something, then you need to speak up and go and get it. Communication, leadership skills, definitely the two key ones that can help propel you forward, not just in the right direction, but also doing things in the right way so that you can become so much more efficient and effective. So now let's picture this, right? You're the last to raise up your hand when someone asks for something from a group. Why is that so? I want you to ask yourself why. Is it just laziness? Is it because you are afraid that your answer is wrong? Or do you feel like you don't want to volunteer because someone else is just going to do it, so what's the point? Or do you just feel more comfortable just sitting back

Starting point is 00:04:28 and letting other people take the lead? So it could be a variety of reasons, right? Or is it because you are scared that someone's going to judge you based on what you say, if you're going to say something stupid? On the flip side is this. If you don't speak up, right? I'm not asking you to make a lot of noise and just like trying to vibe a lot of attention, but at appropriate times, if you don't speak up, then what is going to happen? What would someone else think of you?

Starting point is 00:05:10 In terms of a confident or a competent professional or a trustworthy and helpful entrepreneur, what do you think they would assume? Because the worst thing is making assumptions. I've always talked about if you want a direct answer, then you need to ask a direct question. Just like you want to make a direct point, the thing is you have to actually make it and not wait for someone to call you

Starting point is 00:05:37 and try to pry the answer from you and then later on wonder why they didn't get me and why they were not keen to listen because we all have to meet halfway right i mean that that's the nature of a win-win relationship which is to give halfway so if you're just being quiet then don't expect that someone is just gonna magically figure it out out. We are not mind readers, right? So if you have some insights that you'd like to share and that can demonstrate that you know your stuff as a technical expert or even an expert in any space.

Starting point is 00:06:20 And in fact, just demonstrating that you did work on what you were asked to work on, if you have a boss or a manager or team leader. Or communicating and letting your customer know that whatever that's being asked for in terms of a project, things are in progress. So if you keep silent and you don't speak up, you just hope that someone's going to figure it out. Let me ask you, what are the chances? In fact, how much higher are the chances of miscommunication, misunderstanding, breaking the trust, breaking the relationship that you worked so hard to build. And especially as introverts, you know, connecting with people doesn't always come as naturally. So you want to be very careful to not ruin relationships just because you were so reserved and you didn't want to say anything

Starting point is 00:07:23 and people end up making assumptions. We're all very different people. So while you can refrain yourself from making a judgment or assumption, sometimes other people do that. And they're also going through their own personal and professional development and growth journey. So we're all at a different pace so it's not saying that they they should know what you think but if you can just speak up and let them know then why not i've seen so many arguments happen because people don't communicate clearly and one of the more common ones is

Starting point is 00:08:02 when you walk up everybody walks up from a very long meeting, but they don't, you know, summarize what has happened. And some people walk away, I would say a lot of people walk away making assumptions on what needs to be done and what the other person meant, you know, what the other person said or didn't say. I think that's very unhealthy. And I think that creates a lot of friction in the way we do things. And specifically for you, right, if you're young, ambitious, high-performing introvert, you need to ask yourself what are the implications of just

Starting point is 00:08:38 kind of like being quiet and hoping other people figure it out. If you feel uncomfortable, right, speaking up in a group, then explore other options. You know, there are many ways to connect with, you know, your boss, your spouse, your family, many, many other ways. The point is this. The point is recognize that you need to. Recognize that if you don't't it will create a lot of assumption and ultimately lead to an outcome that you clearly do not want because you were just

Starting point is 00:09:14 not clear and you know people assumed and sometimes in the very very busy environment we just if we can't get clarity then we just jump on to the next thing. So ask yourself the real impact on your career and in business. What will really help propel you forward? It's not asking you to tomorrow become a cheaty chatter, right? Bombarding everybody with all sorts of opinions. Not about that it's about when and what you should convey to let you know your boss know your partner know the actual information that they need that can help them there's no point keeping all this amazing knowledge to yourself. That's why, you

Starting point is 00:10:06 know, I'm a huge advocate of, you know, leveling up the ability to communicate. And that's what I really help most of my clients with because everybody has their unique perspective and viewpoint. Everybody has different knowledge based on their life experiences, professional experiences, things that they have tried. The commonality is this, we don't speak up and worse for us introverts because if we can, we will avoid and run behind the curtain if we are asked to even speak up. So I leave you with this, these questions to ask yourself, what would the impact be if you don't? And really, what are you afraid of? Yeah, what are you afraid of? Address those first and then, you know, we can deep dive later on. Till next time. Bye!

Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing : Career Growth In The Corporate World - Ep16: Speak up and be heard at work.

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