Drop the self-doubt and begin to communicate like a professional

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. [email protected] | @SRuligirwa