Teach your team (and yourself) this technique for proposing ideas brilliantly in meetings

Never go on the dancefloor  propose a good idea without a plan.

 

(AKA that super annoying thing where your great proposal falls a bit flat in a meeting...)

We’ve all been there.

You wanted to propose something to a group - an idea, a plan.

Not just a random 'how about we do this...?' but a proper thing you want support for.

You share it and the reaction is not what you were hoping for. It might have been politely received but smoothly passed over. Or it might haven been challenged hard.

You wanted to make an impression on the group and get some momentum behind your idea.

It’s clear everyone is a little bit disappointed. So frustrating!

 

There’s the idea - and then there’s the way you share it

Of course, it’s not that the idea itself was necessarily wrong. And there are a bucket load of reasons why something doesn’t fly in the moment. 

But I put it to you that the way you propose an idea has a dramatic impact on its reception and (almost more importantly) your credibility.

My goal is to up your game on proposing ideas and plans. So here’s my structure - plus some bonus elements and some language for expressing it.

Use this yourself. Adapt it. Find your brilliant way of presenting things. 

Encourage your team to adapt and adopt it.

 

Quick check…

First, am I ok to assume you’ve already consulted on your proposal with:

- People with expertise in this area?

- People meaningfully affected?

Ok good, I knew you would have…

 

Our brains are wired for opposition - unless you give people this:

Next onto the psychology. I’ll keep this really simple.

People need to see your working. They need to follow your reasoning. They need a story to follow. 

Our brains are wired to push back on a boxed solution. (Think about when you explain to someone that your toddler won’t sleep and they say ‘Oh, you need white noise! Worked for my little Jonny” and you say “😵😵😵” and cancel them from your life FOREVER).

Anyway.

A boxed solution invites people to take the opposing view. It invites a take down or a polite move on.

Here’s a simple format to show your working and invite people to come alongside you in the story.

I call it … P-GOP

- Problem: Here’s what’s going wrong (with data / real quotes if you can)

- Goal: Here’s what we actually need to happen (you can flip these first two if you want - G-POP?)

- Options: Here’s what we’ve considered

- Proposed action: Here’s what we think will work and why

 

Some compelling language to try

Let’s try out some nice storytelling words for each of these. They are deliberately informal. I have been to some super uptight board meetings and I would still use these words to propose an idea.

 

Problem: You know how…

Goal: Which means that / When really we want to

Options: We’ve consider a few things

Proposed action: And here’s what I’m proposing… And here’s why I think this will work for us.

[Bonus] Outcome: So that… 

 

 

Then hit pause - this is the point to engage in a discussion and take questions

The discussion will likely include the following so come ready to talk as fully and precisely as possible on:

- The assumptions you’re basing this proposal on

- The risks that this proposal comes with and any mitigations

- The resources you’ll need

- What will make this idea succeed or fail

- How you’ll know if your proposal is working or not

 

If you’re using slides, bring slides on these so you can show they are all fully considered in your complete proposal. 

But first, get engagement with the idea story. The rest are buying questions…..

 

What else? Well, quite a lot actually!

Now, clearly there are lots of other things you can do to make a proposal more compelling.

Data visualisation, video, personal stories, presentation skills, influencing skills, objection handling.

I'm not getting into any of those. I'm just talking about developing the basic universal skill of getting good quality interest in something worth talking about. 

Nothing fancy, just a straightforward structure you can use every day.