so as a leader how do you get your team to speak up in meetings when you ask them a question how do you stop them from going quiet from looking down at the table and actually get them to share their ideas or their thoughts or their insights with you how do you do that as a leader this is the leadership dilemma we're going to tackle in this video and it starts with number one establish psychological safety in order for your team to share their ideas their thoughts and opinions with you in a meeting they need to feel that you are going to respect what they have to say that you're going to be respectful no matter what they say if your team feel that you are going to laugh at them reject their idea or tell them they're stupid for saying that in the meeting they're going to learn that it's dangerous to share their ideas with you and they'll share their ideas with you less and less in the future helping your team understand that it is safe for them to share their ideas with you is about developing psychological safety this is where you create a safe environment where your team members feel comfortable confident and safe in sharing their ideas and opinions with you and also with other people in the room because the reason people hold back might not necessarily be because of you it might be because of other people in the room that heckle them that make fun of them or make them feel less than maybe you have some people in your group in your team that have very strong personalities who are more extroverted in nature and than others who are more introverted you as a leader need to make sure that you create a safe environment a safe space for everybody in your team to share their ideas and their opinions for everyone in your team to speak up no matter what personality type they are you as a leader need to ensure that everyone has a safe space to talk when you start your meetings i recommend that you say something like this in today's meeting we're going to talk about xyz i know that each and every one of you have something to say on this topic and i want you all to share your ideas i want to know what you think you will not be judged your idea won't be rejected and your ideas don't have to be fully constructed either please consider this a safe space with your team to share your ideas together we can develop the best idea of course you can create your own version of what i have just said to you but this is just to give you an example of something you can say at the start of the meeting and something that will really help your team understand that it is safe for them to share their ideas and share their opinions with you and with other people in the room too if you like what you've learned so far in this video there are two things you can do to help my channel the first is to hit the like button below this video the second is to subscribe to my channel so every week i share videos on leadership to help you on your leadership journey and i would be honored to share this content with you too when you want your team to speak up in meetings you also have to make sure that you ask them clear questions that you ask some questions they understand and they can answer sometimes people when they go quiet in meetings when they look to the table when they look away if you've asked them a question it's because they simply didn't understand the question in the first place it will be very difficult for them to tell you that they don't understand and they probably won't tell you that they don't understand or didn't understand what you ask them instead they'll just give you silence if this is a situation that you have faced or experienced then the problem here is really coming from you you haven't been clear enough with your question you need to make sure that you ask the question in a way that is clear and concise and easy for that person to answer if you think that you might not ask clear questions how can you fix this well the first thing you need to make sure you do is you just ask one question at a time one thing that i've noticed especially with podcast interviews when i listen to them is that the interviewer might ask two or even three questions one after the other and the interviewee the person who's supposed to answer the question doesn't know which question to answer and by the time they get to the last question they've forgotten what the first question was so what i want you to do is to simplify this simplify the process for the people in your team when you are asking them a question and ask them only one question at a time don't double it up or triple it up with additional questions the second thing you could do is to simplify your questions so instead of asking a complicated question with a lot of jargon or with a lot of difficult words or a technical vocabulary in it simplify your question instead of asking given the projections we've seen on project 965 according to your expert opinion what would the result be if we have the output on line 1 and double the output on line 2. you can simplify it and ask something like this for project 965 what do you think will happen if we have the output on line one and doubled it on line two when you ask simple questions you make it much easier for that person to answer you make it much less daunting for them to answer the question as well and you as a leader are more likely to get a better answer that you can actually work with number three share questions in advance a really effective tip that i want to share with you if your team go quiet in meetings and they don't speak up much or they don't give you the information that you want is to share the questions you have in advance with them so sometimes people need time to prepare the answers to your questions they might need to research something they might need to go and gather information for you to give you a proper answer when you ask them or share the questions with them in advance you give them the time and the opportunity for them to do this pre-work before they come to the meeting and then when they actually arrive at the meeting they are prepared they know what they're going to say they have points mapped out potentially and they have researched the question and their answer to your question you will get a much more in-depth and helpful answer they will feel more confident and more prepared as well they might even discuss their idea with other colleagues or other people in the team before coming to you in the meeting with their answer and that can often lead to a potentially better answer in the end a more thought out answer a more researched and well fleshed out answer so whether it's for the level of quality of answers that you're going to receive or the level of confidence in your team sharing questions in advance can be a very effective strategy or you can try the ideas in a hat activity which is pretty self-explanatory during the meeting once you have asked your team a question every person in the team writes down their answer or their idea that they want to share with you they write it down on a piece of paper you ask everyone to put their answers in a hat or in a box or a container of some sorts and once everyone has put their idea in the hat the leader then takes one idea out of the hat at a time and everyone in the group everyone in the team discusses that answer or discusses that idea you discuss it using the pros and the cons and the verdict structure so again it's pretty self-explanatory you discuss the pros of that idea the cons of that idea and the verdict as in what everybody thinks of that idea whether the idea should be pursued whether it can be improved on the ideas in a hat activity is fantastic for introverts because they don't have to verbally communicate their idea this can be really daunting for people who are more on the introverted side so by helping everyone discuss their idea or by you initiating the discussion as a leader when you pick their idea out of the hat you enable them to share their idea in a way that is much less daunting and it creates a great environment to build on ideas because every idea gets heard and then once that idea gets heard everyone in the room contributes to it another strategy that can work well in some situations is to call on people during the meeting when you call on people during the meeting it is a more direct way of getting people involved in the meeting and giving you their ideas and their opinions but it can be very effective sometimes people have ideas they have opinions that they can share with you but they just don't want to be the first one to speak and it might take just one person to get that momentum started just one person to get the conversation started so in that case you might need to call on somebody choose just one person in the room and ask them what their idea or their opinion is of course though it's really important that you have developed psychological safety because you do want to make sure that people aren't refraining from sharing their ideas and opinions with you because they don't feel safe in doing so you want to make sure that they do feel safe that you've established psychological safety so that when you do call on those people they feel comfortable sharing their opinions and ideas with you you can also start with people who are generally more outspoken or extroverted in the group these are people who are probably going to be the more confident ones to speak first in the meeting so choose those people the more outspoken ones to begin with then you're less likely to be answered with silence and when people share their ideas you must acknowledge all ideas that they share never reject them never ignore them always acknowledge them acknowledge the idea and also thank the person for sharing that idea as well this helps them to feel valued appreciated and heard and when you do this they're more likely to share ideas with you in the future you're living up to the psychological safety that you've established at the beginning of the meeting in the first step that we talked about and they're actually believing that you want to hear their ideas that their ideas won't be rejected acknowledging all ideas whether good or bad because sometimes you will get bad ideas from people in your team but acknowledging all ideas will help you to build trust with them which at the end of the day is a main driver of effective teams trust and you can easily establish trust with your team over time by acknowledging their ideas and thanking them for sharing their ideas with you over time your team will understand that they can share their ideas when they do share their ideas they'll be respected they'll be trusted in the team and in the future they're more likely to share more ideas with you as well it's basically a way of showing your team that you care if your team don't feel you care they won't respect you they won't follow you they won't trust you this is something you absolutely have to establish as a leader and this video right here will help you with more tips in that area thank you so much for watching and i will see you in the next video