3 Taking part in a discussion
Discussions with a particular purpose are often more formal and involve some form of negotiation. It can be useful to produce a written plan for this in advance.
If you don’t prepare, you can find yourself in situations like the following:
- You are caught ‘on the hop’ when someone asks you a question you were not expecting.
- Someone comes up with a proposal completely unexpectedly.
- You have not even thought about what the proposal under discussion might mean for you.
- You do not know what the reasons for the proposal are.
- You do not have enough background information.
The better prepared you are, the more likely you are to find solutions and reach decisions in discussions. Many discussions are really some form of negotiation. For example, if you are in a discussion with your manager about making changes to your job, the more you have planned what you want to say, the more likely you are to negotiate and influence the outcome.