AttentionMax

Those “ahs” and “ums” and “likes” Erode Your Value

August 25th, 2008 |

I recently wrote about confronting friction and risk. We’ll throw this one in the friction bucket…

Today a few of the senior members of the management team at my company, including me, agreed to police each other’s use of the words “ah”, “um”, and “like”. Why? They cheapen whatever it is you’re trying to say. They diminish the effectiveness of your message by half.

Whenever one of us utters one of those nasty sounds, it’s up to the rest of us to call it with a subtle signal: a knock on the table, or an obnoxious “zap”. It’s important to be comfortable with periodic pauses in your delivery, and not fill those pauses with cavemen grunts and teenage slang.

As I’ve said before, we can all improve because none of us are perfect.

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briancarter 3 months ago 1 point
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I go back and forth on that one. I was in Toastmasters for years, where it was a sin... and after being out for a while, I came to feel that SOME of that was natural speech. Not everyone really hears it, if it's not excessive. Yet the most powerful speakers don't do it. Then again, I think some public figures do it on purpose to not seem too polished, and that works too.

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maxkalehoff 3 months ago 1 point
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Brian,
That's an interesting point: keeping some of the ums and ahhs so as to sound
natural. I see your point, but I think there are other, better ways to sound
natural. One, in particular, is to have the speaker deliver the content with
a truly personal, meaningful narrative. You can tell when people have
passion and when they don't. I'm an example of someone that's gotten away
witih unrefined presenter skills -- precisely because I injected a little
passion. If you care about what you're communicating, it shows.
Max

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Rob Sterling 3 months ago 1 point
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The problem is that people use these spacemakers to provide the time they need to think about what they're saying, and if you force them to abandon the spaces they won't have time to fully organize their thoughts. A lot of people do something similar by shifting their eyes up, down or sideways - shutting down extraneous inputs to improve focus - which is OK in person but looks terrible on TV.

Some speakers use the Francophone trick of simply extending their words to cover the gaps. So instead of "I think that, um, you should try something new," they say "I think thaaaaat yooouuuu should try something new." That's the best solution, but if it's overused it makes speech sound unnatural. (A high-ranking Merrill Lynch exec - now retired - abused this trick to the point that he sounded like he was drunk, which is bad.)

The best solution is to think faster. I've found that fish oil and vitamin B-12 are dietary supplements that help me do that, and I've mostly eliminated dairy (casein) and gluten from my diet, too. (People should get screened for food allergies.) Sleep is also really important. Other people report good results from taking kava kava an hour or two before a speaking engagement, to reduce anxiety and help focus the mind.

Also remember that as we get older, the problem gets worse because it takes longer to sort through larger amounts of information to find the tidbit we're looking for.

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maxkalehoff 3 months ago 1 point
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Rob: I like your focus on fish oil and supplements to think better. On the
flip side, I'm sure there are a lot of toxins and other bad ingredients we
put in our bodies, which have the effect of making our thinking sub-par.

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Rob Sterling 3 months ago 1 point
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Oh, I'm sure. However, in addition to some people having intestinal sensitivity or food allergies to wheat or dairy, casein (from dairy) and gluten (from wheat) break down during digestion and yield 'opioid peptides', which mimic opiates by hitting the same receptors in the brain. From what I've read, this may be why some people report feeling sharper when they go on Atkins or low-carb diets. Here's more on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opioid_peptide

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krawchick 3 months ago 1 point
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Interesting. I embrace a similar "policing" opportunity with many of my closest friends and loved ones, but with a different verbal cue.

Whenever one of us says anything to the effect of "and to be honest with you" in any of our conversations (or any of its filthy cousins, like "in all honesty" or "truthfully"), we call that person out.

Using anything like "honestly" in a sentence makes people pause (without really pausing) to think, 'Well, if he's being honest with me now, what about the other three things he just said. Were those dishonest?' And thus, this little verbal snafu decreases message value – not only are people considering what you just said ('Now he's being honest'), but perhaps more importantly, they're spending time thinking about what you just said, rather than paying attention and being invested in your originally intended message.

Honestly, pay attention to this in your daily activities. I promise you'll be surprised how many people use this term – and how pervasive it is. :)

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maxkalehoff 3 months ago 1 point
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Alex,
Great point! "You know?" :-)

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Rob Sterling 3 months ago 1 point
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Krawchick is right. Also, a lot of this stuff is covered in sales training. Many people use "to be honest with you" or "frankly" to emphasize the importance of a point they're about to make, but there are usually better emphatic phrases that people respond to. Sensory metaphors work very well, e.g. "let me sketch it out for you" or "one painful lesson I had to learn" or "something that's always rung true to me is..."

If a speaker knows his audience, he can guess which sense they're most likely to respond to - sight, touch, hearing, taste, smell - and craft the metaphor accordingly.

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maxkalehoff 3 months ago 1 point
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All, this is a great discussion. And underscores why head-on presentation
training is so useful -- the kind where you get video-taped, and critiqued
to excruciating levels. I included this link in my original post, but here
it is again...be sure to view the video of my presentation coach, on how I
personally need to improve:
http://www.attentionmax.com/blog/2008/05/we_can...

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