If you read our last article and thought… “wait a second, I don’t even feel comfortable asking questions let alone what types!!” then you are in the right place! Today, we’re here to help direct you towards developing confidence around asking questions and therefore increasing your participation in work meetings and conferences. Keep reading to find out our tips and tricks at Esquire!

Developing Question Confidence…

• Physical Presence: There are endless studies conducted that prove and showcase the importance of your physical presence in a room. Always be paying attention to your posture, eye contact, facial expressions, and overall demeanor. If you are an employee that consistently appears engaged and genuinely interested in the presentations you attend, you are guaranteed to attract engagement from your coworkers. The way you present yourself has an enormous effect on how you are perceived… so sit up straight and smile!
• Breathing Techniques: It may sound elementary… but you would be amazed at how much a quick breathing exercise will allow you to increase your relaxation and, therefore, decrease anxiety and nerves. A quick google search will open your eyes to a plethora of different breathing exercise opportunities! The first we found was from everyone’s favorite website, WebMD! Click on that link to introduce yourself to a few different types of breathing strategies.
• Preparation: From personal experience, I can vouch for this one in that it was my biggest tool in developing question confidence. Throughout my summer as an intern, I found myself overwhelmed by meetings and company “lingo”; I often lost the opportunity to take a step back and analyze the conversation, taking away my ability to formulate meaningful questions. For that reason, I decided to confront the challenge head-on and ask my senior manager for any tips he had that could help me increase my presence at meetings. From that conversation, I gained one of the most beneficial pieces of advice from that summer… plan ahead! He encouraged me to think ahead of each meeting and formulate three takeaways to walk out understanding. Doing so helped me to create a mental roadmap of the meeting as well as prepare a few questions beforehand.

While you should not feel obligated to walk into meetings with a strict agenda or “question quota”, we are confident and certain that your participation will allow you network, showcase your knowledge, and eventually achieve that next promotion! Employing these new strategies will allow you to do so with ease.

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Find out why you should ALWAYS ask questions from our last article here!