When your thoughts are expressed coherently, you depict a person who is confident, qualified, and in control. PHOTO | FILE
By SERAPHINE RULIGIRWA-KAMARA
Self-doubt: Many don’t even realise that we suffer
from this stagnating lack of confidence. When a person’s conversation
bears more than a few “maybes” and “perhapses” you have to know that you
can’t take them seriously. “Maybe” and “perhaps” are bonafide words in
the English language.
They are, however, words that, depending on their position
in a sentence, express hesitation, caution and lack bankable commitment
about them. You’re not always going be sure of matters that you’re
involved in, that’s for sure.
However, if you’re not tasked with the daunting
task of eliminating world hunger or the HIV pandemic, surely you have a
good idea of definite time-lines and if you don’t, there is a lot of
power in admitting.
Your best response in such situations is: “Yes, we
can achieve this. I don’t have all the requirements at the top of mind
right now. I’m happy to shed more light on this by noon tomorrow.”
That is a confident and reassuring response showing initiative and
commitment on your part.
An answer like: “I have never done that before
maybe George accounting can tell us since it is more accounts-related”
just goes to show that you will not go any additional one metre further
if you can help it and are quick to pass the buck to George.
2) Conversation fillers: All the “errrs” and
“ummms” in your conversation are indicators that you cannot think on
your feet or worse still, do not have a good command of language to
express yourself concisely. Now many go on a mile backwards to add on
the juvenile silliness of “it’s like”, “kinda”, and “thingy magic”.
Dear oh dear. Throw in a “sorta” or two and you
are as good as dead and buried, my dear. Your cronies may find this
interesting and even borrow these from you to add to their very own poor
communication repertoire.
It may even be great for your social image. Slowly repeat this after me: “only in my neighbourhood crowd”.
Fillers have no place in a respected professional’s
communication. Look; either you know what you’re going to say or you
don’t. This unfortunately is an all too common affliction of some very
brilliant minds. The truth is that you’re not getting too far ahead if
you cannot eloquently express yourself.
5) Eye-roll: Lately I’ve seen a worrying number of
grown men do this too. So you’ve been watching a lot of sitcoms.
There really should be a large screen-filling sign that stays on for
about a minute “Teenage Guidance Is Advised” sign on those sitcoms
you’ve been watching.
The eye-roll is exactly what my name for it
suggests. It is the typical rude adolescent’s way of expressing one of
the following:
“I don’t know”
“I couldn’t care less”
“Whatever!”
“Think whatever you may”
“What are you going to do?” aka uta do? It is usually
accompanied by slightly inflated cheeks, one cock of the head forwards
and backwards complete with a stiff show of the hand or worse still, a
loud snap of fingers.
It is the ultimate “you’re old fashioned, I’m young and
sassy and stupidly think it’s my life” response you are wont to receive
when correcting a poorly brought-up teenage girl.
Every mother of an adolescent girl will tell you
that if it wasn’t for fear of the law, the temptation to wring the silly
girl’s neck is dangerously great. Why would a mature person, a
professional and hopefully responsible aspiring leader be caught
eye-rolling?
6) Bulldog Expression: You know this, I know but
on the off chance that you don’t, what does a smiley look like? Go on;
it is the emoticon you frequently use on WhatsApp. You didn’t even have
to scroll on you phone to check because you know that a smiley has lips
in a wide short “U” shape. Now google the image of a bulldog.
The poor creature’s natural expression is an
abnormally long inverted “U” shape. A lot of us use this very
expression when telling off others, ranting about traffic and generally
to mean: “I don’t know” or “search me!”.
Organisations may keep cute fish in a tank for
their aesthetic value and the calming effect of the sound of water in
the tank for their staff.
Security companies keep huge guard dogs as part of
their teams. I’m yet to learn of an organisation that desires bulldogs
as part of their decor or team. Why would the bulldog expression be a
distinct part of your communication style as a professional?
You’re welcome to choose what 1 and 10 mean on
this. Whatever you decide, how do you rate on a scale of one to 10
based on the above? If this is an area of improvement, you’re errr, not
gonna kinda experience the improvement magically.
You see you’re gonna have to sorta enlist the help
of ummm... thingy magic, (insert here a loud gasp! heavy sigh with
arms flailing about punctuated with an eye-roll complete with a turn of
the head to one side!) errr... Maybe a good coach. And I truly ummm
(bulldog expression) hmmm wish you the very best of luck.
Seraphine is an expert on Attitude and Human Potential. sera@iuponline.com | @SRuligirwa
No comments :
Post a Comment