Keep your hand up and claim the room before it closes

You slide into a seat along the wall, coffee cooling in a paper cup, telling yourself it’s fine to listen today. The meeting starts fast, acronyms ricochet, and your first good point passes by. When the facilitator says, “Two more questions,” hands snap down across the room like they’re on strings. Yours goes up, then wavers, then you drop it, too. The discussion ends without your voice in it, and later you see the decision went in a direction you could have sharpened.

Next time, you sit at the table—front-left, not hiding behind a monitor. You’ve sketched three 20‑second contributions that tie to the goal on the agenda. In minute seven, you offer one: “If the aim is faster onboarding, a two‑week trial with five customers would give us signal without slowing build.” Heads nod. When the chair announces “last two,” you keep your hand up. A teammate jokes in the hall that you’re fearless. You smile, because you didn’t feel fearless, you felt prepared.

A small anecdote sticks with you. In class, a friend spoke in the first five minutes all semester and was called on more often, even when others had similar ideas. Another time, you kept a hand raised after the cutoff, got the mic, and landed the key follow‑up: “Who owns the next step and by when?” That single question turned a vague agreement into a two‑name, one‑date commitment.

I might be wrong, but the shift seems less about personality and more about cues. Behavioral science calls these “bids for influence.” Where you sit affects who you influence, early talk lowers arousal and builds self‑efficacy, and persistence (keeping a hand up) changes who is heard. You’re not gaming the room, you’re resetting your own habit loop: cue (agenda goal) → routine (speak early, keep hand up) → reward (impact on decisions).

Sit where you’ll be seen, ideally at the table or front row, and prep three 20‑second points tied to the meeting’s goal. Speak once in the first ten minutes to set your participation norm, and when the facilitator limits questions, keep your hand up until you’re called on. If you don’t get in, ask one crisp follow‑up at the end that drives ownership and dates. Afterward, run a 60‑second debrief: what you said, what you’d tweak, and where you hesitated. Repeat this pattern for a month and watch your comfort rise and your influence grow. Give it a try tonight.