You don’t need to get heard every time
Jun 07, 2026
A couple of years ago, I sat in a leadership meeting about our product strategy. The room was full of loud voices. Everyone was excited about the same big idea: turn our software into “an ecosystem of apps”, “like the Microsoft marketplace.” They talked about workflows and project management.
So I asked the question I cared about most: “What do our users need?”
I had done the research to find our biggest user problems. None of them had anything to do with an ecosystem, and I told that to the leadership team.
Nobody picked it up. The conversation went past me, as if I hadn’t spoken.
I was so frustrated.
And here is what I still keep thinking about. The company wasn’t doing well in the months and years that followed. I kept wondering: what if I had managed to change their minds that day? How different might things have been?
The real secret isn’t talking louder
I thought about that meeting for a long time, and couldn’t quite figure out what I could have done differently in the situation. Then, recently, I found a better way to understand it.
I was on a mentor call in the Keys To Impact Community, talking with a senior executive who has spent decades in rooms like these, where often she wasn’t heard. Over the years she worked out what to do about it, and she shared it with all of us.
This is at the heart of what she said: when you are not being heard, the answer is rarely to insist even more and talk louder. Instead, you need to work out what the room actually needs, and give it that.
She does it in three steps.
Step 1: Work out what the room actually needs
Before the meeting even starts, ask yourself one simple question. What is this meeting for?
Are we brainstorming ideas? Making a plan? Reaching a decision? Comparing a few options?
Then ask: What part do I want to play in this? What will serve me and my role?
Once you answer those, you already have a feel for what the room needs, before you even walk in.
If it’s just a meeting to gather ideas, you might decide that your goal is to draw out what everyone else is thinking. There is then no need to get everyone’s attention onto your specific idea - you can share it later in writing and input into the process. What the room needs is someone who asks great questions.
Other times, the goal is to decide something and get moving. It can be perfectly fine to walk out with a decision that wasn’t your first choice, as long as everyone leaves on the same page. That doesn’t mean you give in, but you play a longer game. What the room needs is someone who can align and check for common understanding, so we can move forward.
Now look at my meeting again. The goal that day was to give feedback, so the CTO and the VP of Product could finish the strategy and line the company up behind it.
So what was my goal inside that? Yes, I wanted to challenge the idea. But underneath, what I really wanted was a strategy that put the user first.
If I had seen it that way, I wouldn’t have turned up with only difficult questions. I would have brought my research and a clear alternative suggestion for what we should focus on instead. That makes it so much easier for a room to change direction - far easier than me poking holes in their plan.
Once you are clear on your goal, the next two steps help you get there.
Step 2: Notice the feeling before it takes over
In the meeting, keep an eye on your own emotions.
When we don’t feel heard, we often feel frustrated, and that’s completely natural. You might notice your jaw tighten. I sometimes catch myself making a fist without realising it.
Here is a simple trick that helps: name it to tame it.
When you feel frustrated, put it into words in your head. “I’m annoyed that they talked over me.”
It sounds too simple to work, but the science backs it up. Researchers found that when you put a feeling into words, the part of your brain that drives the emotion calms down. (I’ve linked the study below.)
This matters because a strong feeling can take over your plan. You came in with a goal, and anger can make you forget it and start an argument.
Say people ignore your point, and you feel angry. If you’ve already decided your real goal is to help the team reach a good decision, naming the feeling helps you stay calm. You then might even choose to build on someone else’s idea instead of your own, especially if they have the influence to bring others with them.
Here is what I couldn’t see at the time. I was frustrated, and this emotion stopped me from noticing that the leadership team were trying to reach a decision quickly. What they really needed was not another challenging question, but instead a solid alternative, backed by research.
Step 3: Ask questions that fit your goal
The kind of question you ask depends on the goal you set back in Step 1.
If your goal is to bring the room together, curiosity means drawing people out. You ask things like, “Help me understand what’s behind this idea,” or “What would make this work for your team?” Questions like these bring out the common ground, so everyone feels heard and you find a path forward together.
If your goal is to challenge a decision, and the room is set on it, push gently with questions about what happens next. “Let’s picture day one and day two after we decide this. How do we resource it? Is there anything here that could come back to bite us?”
Now they start thinking it through for themselves. Often start feeling doubts on their own, which lands far harder than hearing it from you.
In my meeting, I could have asked, “Let’s imagine our users log in after we build this ecosystem. How will they actually feel about it?” A simple question, but it might have opened the door.
And sometimes, it’s simply out of your hands
The senior executive also was very honest with us: There are some things that are in your control, and others that are not. Sometimes you read the room, stay calm, and bring a proper alternative, and still you are not heard. Some decisions are made before you ever walk in.
When that happens, this is not a reflection on your capabilities. It tells you something about the room and the power dynamics, which helps you for future such situations.
Looking back, I can see clearly what happened in that meeting. I turned up with only challenging questions, when what that team needed was a researched alternative it could say yes to. I’ll never know for sure whether it would have changed their minds, but I do know I didn’t give it the best chance it could have. Now I (and you) know how to do this!
P.S. That mentor call was one of the sessions inside the Keys To Impact community, where ambitious women in STEM learn directly from senior leaders and build their skills to get promoted. The founding cohort just started. You can read more and apply here.