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Relationships
3 Steps to Getting Into the Room Where It Happens
How to be a party to important decisions.
Posted September 1, 2021 Reviewed by Chloe Williams
Key points
- Exclusive groups of people drive change and lead organizations, leaving many people feeling that they've been left out of important meetings.
- An approach that involves understanding oneself, others and one's workplace can help one get into the room where decisions are made.
- Ways to get into the room include knowing one's top five values, engaging with and listening to people, and understanding workplace culture.
In Hamilton, the super hit Broadway show, there's a famous scene in which Aaron Burr is not in the room where key decisions are being made. Everyone has an experience or a story of feeling left out of something. Today, both women and men experience such exclusion: "I feel that I was passed over for promotion and I don't know why" or "I wasn't a part of this team, and I don't know why."
In corporate America, exclusive groups of people are driving change and leading organizations, leaving out many people who don't even realize that they're being left out. They don't realize that there was a meeting before the meeting. I recognize from listening to many CEOs that, while dealing with so many important things, they are missing important perspectives of others not represented in the room.
Professor Toni Irving is the go-to person for integrating corporate strategy, ESG, and organizational performance in ways that count. She teaches a course to MBA students on "getting in the room." In a wide-ranging conversation, she revealed a powerful strategy anyone can use to more effectively get into the room where decisions are made.
Strategic approach
Irving's approach has three facets: understanding yourself, understanding others, and understanding your workplace.
Understand yourself
If you have a brain, you've got unconscious bias. Everyone has it, and there's no way around it. However, having unconscious bias does not mean you are a bad person, as explained by Nobelist Daniel Kahneman in his book Thinking Fast and Slow.
What people tend not to realize is the basic brain science demonstrating that each one of us has an automatic system of operating that is intuitive and fast and a reflective system that is deliberative and slower. Some situations call for one, some the other. The automatic system is fast but is riddled with blind spots that lead to unconscious bias, lack of attention, reliance on preconceived notions, and other cognitive shortcuts. Recognizing its built-in shortcomings takes the defensiveness out of it and allows you to intervene in the process and correct for it.
Figuring out your top five values is a good way to help you understand why you think the way you think. Your values derive from your unique history of family, education, leisure activities, and religion. Irving calls this your “mental DNA” or your ideology. We all grew up in idiosyncratic ways that contribute to our worldview. They embed a system of values in us that is highly particular. Understanding your background allows you to anticipate the way you think, feel and react.
Most people today are pulled in many different directions in any given hour, day, week. How to prioritize? People can call you six times in a row and try to make their issue your priority, but that doesn't mean it's the most important thing. No one can tell you what's most important for you because no one is facing the same sets of issues. Your personal "why" may be to become CEO or to make enough money to retire by the time you're 50 or to be able to take care of your parents. Clarity on your personal "why" is the key to deciding what tasks to prioritize.
Understand others
Most of us have a tendency to ask rote questions. "How was your day?" usually elicits a rote answer of "fine" or "good." You don't really expect to hear anything compelling. What would a quality question look like, one that would tell you a bit more about someone and what they're dealing with? You may be surprised to know what is going on with someone you talk to all the time. It is important to train, rethink and practice how we engage with others.
The twin sister of engagement is listening. Do we really listen when people are telling us things? Do we note the change in voice? The pauses they make? The things that seem to create discomfort for them? All can be important signs.
Do you feel defensive in a conversation? That's a sign that something is challenging your inner system. If you simply react to it, drawing on your automatic system of thinking, the chances are that you'll say something you may regret. Feeling defensive means there's a glitch in the system—and that's a moment to pause and ponder: "Wait. I feel defensive. Why do I feel defensive? What's going on here?"
It also offers an excellent way to connect. If you can pause and say, "There's something about this conversation that's making me feel defensive. What is it? I can't quite figure it out. But I kind of want to process that before I say anything else," imagine how wonderful that can be to hear from someone. "OMG, they're really trying to connect with me and understand me." Others recognize the intention to make the situation better. It is an excellent moment to lean in.
Understand your workplace
It is very important to think about the culture of a corporation relative to your personal values. When you think through your top five values, it is wise to map them onto the kind of corporate cultures of the company you are currently in or one you are considering working for. You can discover which one would make the best fit for you. Is it a major conformist culture, and there's no place for individualization? Is it an authoritarian culture where you do what you're told— where does the process of innovation fit? Is it an uber-creative culture with little structure, which is often the case in startups? Understanding your personal why connected to your values, where you are, and what that culture is can help you know what you need to do.
It takes a road map (or GPS) to get around. Similarly, you need a relationship map to help you successfully arrive at your career destination. It guides you on your journey and puts down signposts along the way. In five years, if your goal is to move into another industry, well, it's important to know decision makers in that other industry. With whom do you need to cultivate relationships, and who are the best in that industry that you can use as models? To build relationships with? To be able to vouch for you in a variety of ways?
It's important for you to know what is needed to get you to your destination and to identify people who represent what you need. Then it is valuable to establish contact and make sure that you stay in touch. Playing the long game pays off. Some will inevitably become your mentors or sponsors.
No one can get through this world alone. One of the things about being in the room where it happens is that you need someone to bring you in. If you can't be in the room, then there must be someone who represents you well. Selecting good mentors and sponsors enables you to be in the room, if not in person, then by proxy, which then will set you up to get in them later
Putting it into practice
Understanding yourself, understanding other people, and understanding your workplace enable you to build the structures you need to succeed. Relationships are a huge part of it—people need to feel that you're the kind of person they want on their team.
Taking time to connect, be self-reflective, and invite others into the room provides a diversity of perspectives that enriches the quality of whatever decisions must be made.
