Concept
The speaking-up practice
The speaking-up practice is two daily acts drawn from Cain and Branden: one prepared contribution per meeting, decided in advance and made in the first ten minutes before the room's momentum builds, and one request a day made without the apology that usually precedes it, both recorded on the evidence list until.
Cain's method for the quiet temperament is preparation rather than spontaneity: decide the one point you will make, write it in a sentence, make it early. One point made well is worth more than ten reactions, and it is the introvert's natural mode. Branden's assertiveness supplies the second act, the daily request, because the fear of asking does not leave in advance; Jeffers's rule says it leaves, if at all, after a hundred asks, and 'whatever happens, I can handle it' covers the no. The practice is deliberately small and daily, because assertiveness is a muscle and the meeting is the gym, and because the evidence list, by this point in the road, should be long enough to read on a bad day.
A real-life example
A pharmacist prepares one sentence for Monday's stand-up and says it in the first five minutes; the head of the unit asks her to lead the correction. That afternoon she makes one request without apology. Neither felt confident; both were done, and both went on the list.
How to use it
- 1Before every meeting, write the one point you will make, and make it in the first ten minutes.
- 2Make one request a day and cut the apology in front of it.
- 3Record both on the evidence list; the feeling follows the list, not the other way round.