The 10-minute rule that changed how I voice my perspective
Sitting at the back of my strategy class in Stanford was like being on the edge of an intimidating arena.
That’s what it was like 11 years ago.
Unlike my engineering classes with rows facing the teacher, these seats felt more grand. They were lined in a semi-circular amphitheatre-style intellectual stadium for corporate-gladiators-in-training to hash it out.
This only made me freeze up some more.
Not saying much in class, while my classmates rattled off insights from case studies. I sat back asking:
“Wait. What are they talking about?”
“Nope. There’s no logic to this?”
“Hold up. That wasn’t in the case study.”
Instead of voicing those opinions. I did what I did best, sat back and just watched the entire show. I thought, with a taint of arrogance “Who needs to talk? I’ll just read the textbooks and ace the exam. If it worked for thermodynamics, it would work for a simple strategy class.”
Wrong.
Half way through the first quarter, I got an email from the strategy professor. “Hey Nifemi, participation is a big part of your grade..” (I think it was like 30%) “..you are currently in the bottom 10% in participation.”
“No way, I’m at the bottom. There are definitely students that I’ve said more than.” That’s what I thought.
I protested in my email response.
I said it was all BS.
I asked something like “is this the performance culture you want to encourage?”
The Professor’s response was actually civil, he said “look, your classmates want to hear from you.”
I started responding: “Dear professor, f*#k ‘em classmates.”
Wait no. Backspace. Delete. Backspace!!!
“Dear professor, to your point. Got it.”
Enter. Send.
Back to the class the week after.
I threw my hand up before having anything to say. I continued until the end of the quarter. Sometimes my hand went up, and as my hand was going up the thoughts came to my mind. With time, I gained more confidence in knowing I could say something to add to the conversation.
In the back of my mind, I said: “Are you not entertained? Is that not why we’re here?”
Honestly, looking back, I learned a big lesson about finding balance in having and then showing expertise.
One that is important today.
One insight: You don’t have to have a perfect thought to contribute.
Waiting for the perfect thought is exactly what keeps your best insights locked away.
This is where a lot of us struggle, particularly people with high expertise, built on years of experience. But it’s not always about saying the perfect thing. It’s about adding a unique perspective that can broaden the conversation.
For instance, in that same strategy class, there was some case study that talked about Walt Disney’s origin story and the linear approach that led to the Disney conglomerate including ABC and ESPN.
I said and truly believed, “I don’t think there was a strategy here. A young Walt Disney probably smoked something, drew up a talking mouse. It resonated. And it all took off from there.”
The professor laughed.
One of my classmates, almost a year later, said “I really liked that counter point about Disney. It was different”
You’ll be surprised who’s listening – and if you don’t learn to participate, your perspective stays undervalued. You’ll stay on the sidelines when you need to get into the game, mainly because you don’t know the leverage of your perspective.
The reality is that an imperfect contribution is better than perfect silence.
Especially when your perspective can bring so much value to the conversation.
This is helpful at work, in a meeting, online, or just a conversation with your partner or family member.
But voicing your perspective does not come naturally. Most of us have actually been trained in school to speak only when we have “the right answer.” Learning this skill requires some rewiring.
After receiving that wake up email from my professor and heading back to my strategy class, I didn’t just find the nerve to participate. I told myself: “Say something in the first ten minutes or be among the first to say something.”
I didn’t do this because I wanted to control the conversation, I did it to lower the barrier to contribute. Because the longer I waited, the more I heard other perspectives, and started overthinking.
I’ve now applied that personal challenge to “jump in” to other parts of my life.
One application: Nurture your perspective with a self-imposed “contribution timeline.”
What I’m noticing in the practice ground: In order to curate your perspective, you need to create a self-imposed deadline to consistently contribute your perspective.
This is not just in business school.
I see this in actual business, corporate life, and the creative process.
In this era of rapid change, people are creating on the spot. Not because they know what exactly to do but because they know that creation happens through participation.
I compare it to improvisational Jazz. You just have to bring your instrument and get on stage.
But you create your own stage with a timeline.
Here’s what I’ve been testing on my own practice ground:
On LinkedIn, I make sure I write and publish a post before 8 AM everyday. I’m not reading into what everyone is saying, I’m not dwelling on whether my last post did well or whether it got zero responses. I have a deadline and I contribute.
Same thing with this newsletter.
I have a publishing timeline, every Saturday morning, that forces me to germinate a perspective every week.
Choose one thing that forces you to participate and find an actual “timed cadence.”
Write a comment on a topic you care about before 9 AM.
Share a post that you’ve been holding back before the end of the week.
Make a contribution to your weekly meetings within the first 15 minutes.
There’s a line between sounding phony and staying behind the walls of your comfort zone. If it makes you a little uncomfortable, then you should try it out.
If it still makes you uncomfortable, then you should ask why? Because there might be something deeper there where you don’t value your expertise as much as you think.
Develop your deadline to consistently share, curate, and nurture your perspective.
Because the more you know the value your perspective creates, the more you can create and capture that value in a way that it contributes to the things you care about.
Practice Focus
This is yet again, another practice. The more you do it, the more you realize whether you’re being phony or you’re developing a voice and perspective worth sharing.
But you will never find out by holding your contribution to yourself.
Create a forcing factor with a timeline – daily, weekly, month – you choose. Write, talk, comment, reshare, DM. Get in the game. Start nurturing your taste and perspective by consistently sharing it.
Yours truly,
Nifemi
