Discount Words that Let the Air Out of Your Thoughts
Dear friends of women in science,
We have discussed (see here) how women can dilute their arguments with too much apology. Again this week, I ran into something about speaking/writing with confidence that I'd like to pass on to you. Keith Ferrazzi, who is the kind of motivational speaker I ordinarily wouldn't hear, spoke a couple of years ago at a Yale Alumni event in LA, and I got on his mailing list. He sent an email this week in which he urged us to look through our emails for these words: maybe, perhaps, might, somehow, allegedly, no offense, just saying, should, unlikely, probably, possibly, likely, may, could be, appears, suggests, leads one to think.
I looked in my email and found that in weeks when I'm stressed, my email is full of these words. In weeks when I feel confident, I use almost none of them. These words are hesitant, discount words that take away from the impact of my messages. I am going to reread emails before I send them out now. If I remove these words and reread the emails, they don't sound bossy, they just sound clear and confident. I hope if you have problems with this issue, you'll give this a try and let me know what you find out: do you use discount words in your emails? When and why?
cheers,
Laura
Women struggle with a balance between being polite and being successful. It's almost a no-win situation, since aggressive women are not well-liked. Studies, where only the name was changed (from male to female) show that aggression, a necessary component of success, made women unlikeable, ergo unlikely to succeed.
Women try to soften our words, perhaps more than we should.
Wilma - You raise a good point. I find that women in general are concerned about being polite, while men in general are concerned about being direct. This leads to different speech/writing patterns that can be misinterpreted by each group.
Hi Laura,
I think it's all to easy to apologize your comments to the point where there is no content left. You've implied you're not worth listening to at all. Women do this a lot more than men, but some men do it too. I just think reviewing these words and seeing how much you use them periodically is a must, otherwise no one will take what we say seriously, because it will sound like WE don't take it seriously.
Hi Sylvia,
Yes, I think women do want to be polite and not pushy and that's good (I believe in good manners). But if the apology goes viral, over the top, implies that even things we are sure about might be wrong, then we need to reconsider, I'd say.
cheers,
Laura
I use these words all the time. I must say I have been thinking they made me sound more polite, less pushy. I guess I need to rethink.
I tend to do it when I'm in a hurry, not so much if I have time to think. It does make what you say seem much less important, though, so I'm working on deleting them from my vocabulary altogether.
