How do you speak up when you have something to say to Ms or Mr Big but you feel small? How do you overcome the urge to stay silent, safe and small when your voice would be helpful?

This week I spent a couple of days working with groups who deal with medics and scientists – experts at the pinnacle of their various fields. The question of the week above all was how to find your voice when it matters, in front of an audience who daunt you? Those moments when you know finding your voice When finding your would move things forward, get them organised and on track, but you don’t want to speak up, say the wrong thing and sound stupid in front of the “clever” ones.

The barrier is so often in our own heads. You know that their planet sized brains have blinded them to something obvious and you know you can help them course correct. But you look at their clever and worryingly inscrutable faces across the desk or in the pixels, you mentally process their monumental track record, and the paranoia in your brain dials about what they’re thinking about you. You talk yourself out of talking. Those words you know you need to say, they dry, wilt and shrivel inside your mouth. Maybe you feel you don’t have enough experience, enough credentials or enough support.

And so those higher ups continue on in the blithe (and flawed) certainty that they are right. The course goes uncorrected. The mistake they’ve been making magnifies. That stuck pattern persists. When there is no truth to power, power goes badly wrong. The author Jan Hagen (a pilot and a faculty member at the ESMT European School of Management and Technology in Berlin) has written on the dangers to aviation of feudal hierarchy in the cockpit. On a 1977 Japan Air Lines Cargo flight, two Japanese crew members felt unable to speak up about their drunk pilot, even though they were on the wrong runway. The plane crashed after take off, killing all the crew and cattle on board.

If the only thing leaders hear is good news, all that smoke blown up their derrieres creates a murky fog. We are in an age of uncertainty, where doing what we’ve always done is no longer fit for purpose. So how do you clear the air by finding the courage to speak? If you have been invited to speak in a meeting in front of a group of experts, it’s because you know something they don’t. Because you see something they don’t.

First: Know your Value
When Richard Branson gets on a flight, the pilot doesn’t immediately stand down. Branson expects his pilot to fly the plane. You may not have two PHDS. But you simply wouldn’t be in the room if your voice wasn’t needed. The art is knowing what plane you’re flying. The event-organiser plane, the project update plane, the finance plane. The best way I know to be clear sighted about this is to extrapolate what would happen if you don’t speak. If the course continues uncorrected, what might happen in a year, a decade? Be clear on what you offer that they need. Frame it in a way that speaks to their values.

Second: Teach Them How To Treat You
Then, when you speak – don’t wait for respect, teach them how to treat you and expect to be heard. When you walk out in front of a senior audience, you aren’t cabin crew – you are the pilot. Sound like it. Don’t apologise, don’t wait for the right to speak, claim it. Sit up, fill the space vocally, take your time and be bold. Know it’s great to honour the knowledge of a group of experts. But respect needs to work both ways. Honour what they know and expect their attention in return.

Third: Stay Curious
Speaking truth to power is a lot about staying curious. Make challenges a learning problem, an emergent problem, rather than an execution issue. Then be curious as to the response you get in the room – remind yourself the response you get isn’t personal. Remember that no matter how lofty the job description, anyone worth their position knows the value of an open mind. Know your ability to speak up when it serves the common good and enriches the conversation, and be curious as to how it changes the dynamic when you do.

Let me know how you get on.