Miss Communications

Five Ways Not to Confuse Your Listeners

Speaking to a group can be difficult, but listening to a bad presentation is truly a toilsome task – especially when the speaker is confusing.

And what makes a speaker confusing? Failing to heed any of the following advice.

Speak slowly enough, and pause. When it comes to absorbing new information, the human brain needs a little time. First we need to hear and register the words; then we need to compare the incoming information to the stuff we already know. If the new bits seem quite different, we need to pause and think – and a good speaker lets us do just that.

But a breathless speaker who bolts from one idea to the next and never stops to let us draw them all in gets in the way of learning (big breath here) – and risks confusing us all. Slow it down. And breathe.

Don’t contradict yourself. We all occasionally start a sentence one way and then switch directions partway through – but it’s devilishly difficult to follow. And it’s a confusing way to teach.

When you confound your listeners with opposing details, such as “Louis Leakey performed his ethnographic studies – well, actually they weren’t ethnographic studies and of course he didn’t work alone…,” you leave the audience wondering when the information will be final and what part they should remember. Instead of relying on post-statement adjustments, work to get the facts clear and straight.

Get organized. Delivering information randomly – jumping around from point to point as each one springs to mind – puts the onus on your listeners to make up for your lack of structure. And it’s confusing for them to listen, reorganize, tidy up your mess and figure out what you’re saying all at once.

But building smoothly from one point to the next gives the audience an automatic memory device and helps them absorb information more easily. You can arrange things from beginning to end, small to large, top to bottom or by some other scheme – just be sure to organize.

Drop the ums and ahs. Any verbal tic – whether it’s “um,” “ah,” “like,” “you know” or some other useless noise – can drive an audience crazy through repetitive use. It makes the speaker sound uncertain and unprepared, and it can leave listeners (or those who are attempting to listen) so distracted that they can’t pay attention.

Recently I watched a presentation that was marked by so many droning ums that audience members were rolling their eyes. Was anybody grasping the intended message? Um, probably not.

Bring it to a distinct close. Many speakers finish up their presentations with question-and-answer sessions, but some let the Q&A dribble on without a distinct end. The audience is often left confused about whether the meeting is over and when they can get up and leave.

Do your listeners a favor by setting a time limit on questions, and wrap up your presentation with a specific finale – even if it’s something simple, like “If you have any more questions, you know where to reach me.”

Or even more to the point, “Thanks for your time.”

Do you have any pet speaker peeves? Let us know.

E-Mail Overload for Everyone

Here's a great post from Rich Pople, the managing director of Business Insight Services, about e-mail overload, and here are the top tips:

• A 2006 study of 1,500 professionals in the UK concluded that e-mail was responsible for "damaged and diminished productivity"
• All e-mail should be addressed only to those who need to act on it
• Every e-mail should be written for public consumption
• Smart goal: Reducing total noise in the system

And this just in from the shameless promotion department: To increase e-mail productivity at your office, check out Smart People, Stupid E-Mails.

Gestures Can Say a Lot – or Too Much

Even if you don’t speak sign language, chances are you can communicate a lot without saying a word. For example, you can probably say yes, no and hush, as well as many more complicated things such as “I can’t hear you” and “teacher, teacher – please call on me!”

And if you’re American and older than 10, no doubt you also know a terribly impolite gesture called “flipping the bird,” which communicates something we’re not going to print here.

But one of the problems with using gestures to communicate is that, because they’re culturally specific, travelers can innocently set out to tell someone the meal is delicious and disastrously wind up flipping a cultural bird.

There are several common gestures Americans need to be careful with – including, as you may have heard, those two simple methods we use to indicate “OK”: the pointer-thumb circle and the thumbs-up sign. Those hand positions take on different meanings in different places, and in some countries they’re downright obscene.

But besides those familiar gestures, there are a number of more obscure movements, actions and body positions that can surprisingly come off as impolite or insulting in other lands.

For example, in many places, it’s quite rude to talk with your hands in your pockets or to shake hands with one hand while the other is tucked away.

In a number of countries it’s uncouth to sit with one ankle resting on the other knee. In some places this posture is considered too casual to be polite, and in others it’s seen as downright hostile because it exposes the sole of your (dirty) foot or shoe.

In some countries you should never yawn in public, and in others you should never sneeze at the table. In other places you can do either, as long as you cover your mouth. And speaking of your mouth, there are regions where you must keep your fingers out of it at all costs – which means no public nail-biting, tooth-picking or hand-assisted whistling for cabs.

Several gestures that are common elsewhere are unfamiliar to the American observer. For example, when someone is flicking his fingertips under his chin, it might mean he doesn’t know the answer to the question just asked. Making a fist while placing the thumb between the first two fingers could mean “good luck.” But don’t try that one everywhere: In some places it’s rude or – once again – obscene.

The list of culturally sensitive gestures, movements and motions is endless, and it’s impossible to sum them up here. The best advice for travelers – as always – is to study up on the regions and countries you’re visiting before you go. A few helpful books include “Kiss, Bow, or Shake Hands,” “Field Guide to Gestures” and “Gestures: The Do’s and Taboos of Body Language Around the World.”

As Americans, we’re used to a lot of physical movement and a lot of casual manners, but it’s important to remember that other cultures play by different rules. Do your research and don’t make assumptions – and try not to flip anybody’s bird.

Some Words Stick Around; Some Words Shouldn’t

Scientists often use supercomputers to compress billions of years into zillions of equations, and they use the resulting models to study solar systems, climates and more.

Now, in news that warms a word nerd’s heart, researchers have built a time-compressed representation of language, too.

Using a computer called ThamesBlue and a lot of very old manuscripts, linguists at England’s University of Reading have developed a model that shows how vocabulary has changed over thousands of years and where it’s likely to go.

The scientists – who built the system around Indo-European languages (and yes, that includes English) – have found patterns that suggest “I,” “we,” “two” and “three” have been around since the Stone Age. They’ve also determined that “guts,” “squeeze,” “turn” and “dirty” might be on their way out – within a thousand years or so.

Of course, there’s a so-called practical side to all these linguistic mathematics: The researchers say they could put together a pretty reliable phrase book for time travelers. If you ever find yourself wanting to ask a caveman for directions, this could be just what you need.

But a smarter use of the research might be to look at the lingo-morphing that’s going on today and try to figure out which words are likely to last. After all, with the entire world connected by electrons and satellites, new terms are being disseminated at lightning speed. And let’s face it: Some modern phrases are so annoying that we can only hope they’re doomed.

Now, by “annoying” I’m not referring to tech talk, with its bits and bytes and we-call-it-spaghetti-code shortcuts. These terms describe real and useful concepts, and they’re usually applied intelligently so that people can say what they mean.

And I’m not dissing youth slang, either, with its whips and scrilla and I-can-has-cheezburger humor. These are deliberately fun and short-term constructions, and they’re built to demonstrate insider status so cool peeps know who’s who.

The real offenders are plain old business people, with their deliverables and corrective actions and we-hope-to-obtain-key-learnings blather. These phrases are intentionally vague and artfully uninformative – but a lot of folks use them every day.

Is there any hope for a burial soon?

According to the Reading researchers, a word is most likely to last through the years if it’s important and it’s precise; that’s why numbers are among the slowest to change. When we utter two and the French murmur deux and the Germans hack up a hearty zwei, we’re all saying something that’s been around for millennia. And it still works, because the audience gets the point.

But when someone says “Our human capital needs to maintain its bandwidth” or “The group dynamics will be nurtured from a global perspective,” there’s truthfully – and cunningly – no point to get.

If words need to be important and specific to stay around, let’s hope office blather and corporate drivel are ready to croak – and here’s the ultimate test: A thousand years from now, when a manager asks about the net-net value of the latest light-touch deployment, he’ll be greeted with another Stone Age favorite: “Ugh.”

Put a Number on ICE

It was a cold and overcast day in March, and my daughter was missing somewhere on the ski slope. I stood at the bottom of the hill, worrying and waiting, trying to reach her by cell phone, imagining the worst.

Finally, my phone rang. Ski patrol. Tenley had hit a tree, smacked her head, and slumped, semi-conscious, to the ground. Fortunately, she was alert enough – for a short time – to mumble out my number.

In the long run, Tenley was fine. It took her two days to regain consciousness, a week to leave the hospital, a month to get back to school, and a year to get back to the slopes.

And somehow it’s taken her mother four years to write up a little communication advice for anyone who skis – or bikes, or kayaks, or hikes or goes for walks in the park: Make sure you carry in-case-of-emergency contact information, just in case you get hurt and can’t communicate.

One handy way to do so is to enter one or more “ICE” – for “In Case of Emergency” – numbers into your cell phone. You can keep it simple, as with “ICE1,” “ICE2,” and so on, or you can get more specific, as with “ICE Mom” or “ICE Clifford Smith.” When traveling on business, you might even want to temporarily add a co-worker or your boss.

The ICE program first started in England after Vodafone found that fewer than 25% of people regularly carry emergency contact information. An ambulance worker named Bob Brotchie came up with the ICE program as a sensible solution, because so many people carry cell phones even when they don’t take along wallets and identification.

ICE is reportedly becoming popular across Europe and Australia, but it’s gotten a slower start in the United States. In fact, while several law enforcement and emergency response teams around the country are actively promoting it, many agencies haven’t yet heard of ICE.

There are a few myths and legends circulating around the ICE program. One is that adding an ICE number somehow allows viruses to be sent to your phone via text message. That’s not only technically erroneous and paranoid; it’s also patently untrue. (Check Snopes.com for the skinny on that and other urban legends.)

Another is that paramedics always look for an ICE number as standard procedure. Although that’s a nice thought, it’s also not completely true. First of all, actual paramedics are far too concerned with providing emergency medical care to worry about checking for contact information. (They do, however, look for bracelets listing allergies and medical conditions.)

And second of all, only some emergency responders are familiar with the system. It will take more time, campaigns and word of mouth before ICE catches on to the point where people look for it as a matter of course.

Still, it’s easy to get started and it’s easy to pass along the idea. So head to your cell phone, enter an emergency contact number under “ICE,” and encourage your family and friends to do so, too.

And one more thing: Don’t go skiing without a helmet.