Speaking up: New book promises to make you a confident communicator
They say talk’s cheap. But it’s not always easy. In any given day, there can be countless scenarios where it’s hard to open our mouth and say something — you have to give a presentation to an audience you’re unsure of, delegate a task to someone you know is already busy, do a job interview, give a wedding speech or socialise at a party.
Even making chit-chat at the school gate, or bumping into your new neighbour can bring on a case of cat’s-got-my-tongue.
Most people experience situations where they hold back from saying certain things or from starting a conversation — and it can happen with people you both know and don’t know — says entrepreneur, international speaker and author of new book by Mark Rhodes titled, How To Talk To Absolutely Anyone.
Rhodes says some of our oral hesitancy is down to lack of skill-set – we simply don’t know how to start or handle a conversation. But fear also holds us back — worry about what other people might think, concern we’ll look stupid or make a mistake — in short, fear of rejection.
“But other people have so much going on in their own lives, they’re worrying about what others think of them, so they’ve got no time to think of you,” says Rhodes, who urges people to stop letting fear keep them in the shadows.
So many people are held back in all aspects of their lives because they hesitate. The more people we know and communicate with, the better. It may be the next person we talk to will lead to a conversation that will really matter for us down the road.
In transitioning from shrinking violet to confident communicator, Rhodes says the key is lots of practice. “The more people you talk to, the more comfortable you get.” Acknowledging he’s shy himself, Rhodes began pushing the boundaries of his own communication comfort zone by extending the conversations he was already having.
“If I was at the petrol pump, I’d say something more than just ‘yes’ or ‘thank you’. I’d maybe comment on the price of petrol these days. Or if the postman was delivering a package at home, I’d ask how many stops he’d already had that day.” But what if you’re a 20-something-year-old woman about to give a talk in the field of architecture to a bunch of male architects, all aged in their 50s? The woman was one of Rhodes’s clients.
“Her big worry was that they’d be thinking: what does this young woman know about architecture? Whether or not they were thinking this, it was what was messing up her head.” Her fear is a common one for people around public speaking — the audience will have an objection to their topic or to them as presenter.”
His advice: raise the ‘objection’ at the start and dispel it. So the young woman began by saying: ‘I know you in the audience have a lot more knowledge than I do but I have a specialism in this one area [maximising use of space in context of new energy efficient laws]’. Doing this, she raised and dispelled the objection.
“And if some of the audience had been thinking what she was afraid of, her [opening] words caused them to relax and listen,” says Rhodes.
Wedding speeches strike terror into most hearts. And no wonder. “It’s a very important occasion and can’t be re-created. If it goes wrong, it’s in front of family and friends. It could become the story of the event and it’s in everybody’s memory for the rest of their life,” says Rhodes, recalling an anxious father-of-the-bride worried his daughter wouldn’t like his speech.
“He kept getting conflicting advice — to be funny and embarrass her, to be funny and not embarrass her, to not be funny. In the end, he asked his daughter: ‘what sort of wedding speech would you like me to do, to make it special for you?”
What’s important, says Rhodes, is to get the content right that you’ll enjoy delivering. Then practice it.
Rhodes’s tips for talking your way to the top, for becoming a confident communicator and getting the life you want, span the social, business and personal scenes. Worked up about the difficult questions you might get asked in a job interview?
“People spend little time thinking about the question they could ask — the question that would lead the interviewer to ask the candidate about what s/he would like to talk about,” says Rhodes, who believes talking about things as if they’re going to happen is very powerful.
For example, in an interview situation, he suggests asking ‘what my first day would be like working in this role?’ Such a question, he says, engages the employer in imagining you in the job — possibly bringing him/her one further step on the road towards hiring you.
Anxious about networking with people you don’t know at a party? A good question is: ‘how do you know the host?’ It’s great, says Rhodes, for expanding conversation and getting engagement. But what of those cringe-making social moments that plague the persistently shy: you just can’t think of anything at all relevant to say — or you can, but someone else jumps in before you get a chance to say it.
If you’re not actively contributing to the conversation, make it obvious you’re contributing by actively listening — nodding your head, saying ‘oh I know’, ‘gosh’, ‘wow’. It doesn’t matter if somebody else is talking — actively listening is another way to get involved.
In fact, the big secret to being a great communicator is to say little.
“Take an interest in the other person, ask them questions about what’s going on in their world,” says Rhodes who strongly recommends avoiding ‘conversation hijacking’ — someone tells you they went to the zoo at the weekend and, rather than asking them about the zoo, you launch into an account of the football match you went to.
Other common communication pitfalls include spending too long on classic chit-chat — like talking about the weather.
Instead find the other person’s hotspots — what they enjoy talking about — as quickly as possible and talk about those, advises Rhodes. He advises using ‘but’ with caution – replying or interrupting with ‘but’ suggests you’re going to disagree with everything the other person has said.
And avoid asking closed questions that yield a ‘yes’/‘no’ response. Instead opt for questions that focus on the other’s experience or on what they think. A common question is: ‘what do you do?’ Rhodes never asks it. “The person might be out of work at the moment or at home minding the kids. If I want to find out that information, I ask: ‘so what keeps you busy during the week?’ It makes the question interesting and gives the person more scope.”
From how to recognise ‘now’s not a good time to start a conversation’ to harnessing the power of stories to engage others, from how to physically approach someone and get their attention to getting the amount of detail right in an explanation, Rhodes’s book has a wide range. He addresses common fears and barriers about ‘talking to absolutely anyone’, explores the four stages of an interaction and advises on how to make your communication even better (this section includes ‘making your voice work for you’).
Does Rhodes now talk to ‘absolutely anyone’? “There are still instances where I don’t want to get involved — but it’s a decision now and not from shyness,” he says.
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