QEarly on in my career I noticed the difference between men and women in [self-] promotion. A male colleague of mine was asked a question on which I knew he had no clue as to the answer. He calmly stated that this was a controversial topic and that he would get back to the questioner with his view once he'd canvassed the matter with a few colleagues. I thought of how different my approach would have been - honest, and along the lines of "we don't know but we'll find out!" It would have created quite a different impression. I still struggle to promote myself at work. Some tips on this would be great!

The question above was sent to us in response to Galia's recent article on "Waiting for Prince Charming". A little while ago, Lee Wilkinson sent us her advice on how to use language in a way that signals confidence. This seems like a great time to use it! We've added a couple of extra thoughts of our own at the end as well.

AYes, it's a challenging issue. In our experience, women have more problems with sounding confident than men, though I have never seen any statistical data on it. Just this week I worked with a woman facing this challenge. She is communicating with a wide range of people about a very big change in approach in her organisation. The changes they have created are unique and regarded as a great improvement, yet she sounded so uncertain about them.

What changes can we make in language to build a more confident impression?

1. Get rid of weak fillers such as "um" and "ah". People use these sounds to hold their place in a conversation, but unfortunately they create an impression of uncertainty. A better technique is to signal that you have several ideas you want to communicate. Examples include: 'I have three concerns about this'; or: 'I can see pluses and minuses in this course of action.
2. Hack out self-deprecating words such as: perhaps, maybe, a little bit, sort of, a wee bit, kind of. Women use these expressions more than men and they quickly erode a confident impression. One example was: "We sort of altered the organisational structure." Hear how it sounds more confident as: "We redesigned the organisational structure." Our speaker still conforms to the Kiwi need to understate our case and yet sounds much more confident.
3. Build a definite tone: If you let your voice go up at the end of a phrase, it sounds as if you need other people's approval for your statement. Keep your voice on an even tone right to the end of a statement and voila - more confidence.
4. Shift to direct, active speech: People use the passive, indirect speech when saying things such as: 'The project was completed on time.' Change this simply by avoiding the use of the verb "to be". Listen to the more confident, active: "We completed the project on time."
5. Choose more specific, interesting words: "uses" became "benefits", "did" became "achieved". Seek to strengthen the impression without overdoing it.

What can you do to build confident speech in the long term?

• Get together with a supportive but honest friend and tape yourselves communicating about work issues. Evaluate your confidence level by looking for the five pointers I have outlined - or any others you notice. Practise making your language more confident and then tape yourselves again.
• Listen carefully to confident speakers you hear and figure out how they do it. Ask the person how they do it - they could well be pleased that you noticed.
• Get more hints by reading my blog.

Acknowledgement

The above article was contributed by Lee Wilkinson who works for Communicate based in Wellington and Auckland. Communicate provides a broad range of communication programmes to individuals and groups that are highly interactive, based on proven techniques arising from international research.

Communicate's Main Office
Level 9, TeRenCo House, 86 Victoria Street, PO Box 5307, Wellington 6145
Tel: 04 471 0845
Fax:04 471 2182

A couple more thoughts from Professionelle on promoting yourself

We have yet to find more than a handful of professional women who can talk freely about their achievements and readily put a bit of gloss on things. Women are, as a generalisation, much more comfortable encouraging and acknowledging others than themselves - and that means their achievements can pass by largely unnoticed if they aren't surrounded by lots of other women who can sing their praises.

The first step is to become aware of this tendency. The second is to think in what way you can comfortably draw attention to the good work you've done. We don't pretend this is easy. Not only will your own values come into play, but sometimes it can feel as if you're going to be damned if you speak up - and doomed if you don't. He's confident and go-get-em, she's just pushy...

We have three suggestions:

1. If you have a mentor inside your organisation and if that person is more senior than you, he or she can be a route to spreading the word about the value that you create. You do have to be prepared to tell your mentor what you've achieved, of course. Very few are clairvoyant...
2. Become actively aware of what you're good at, across both your skills and your character strengths. We recommend the VIA SignatureStrengths test for the latter. It is a lot easier to sound confident when you're fresh from reflecting on what makes you stand out. If you need to, write down a list of your achievements. And if you're pathologically inclined, as some of us are, to discount what you've achieved ("the others on my course were stupid", "I only grew sales 50%" etc), get a good friend to dispute your denigrations with you.
3. Practise accepting compliments graciously. If the boss does notice what you've achieved, try saying something like, "Thank you, I did feel it came together well, especially the [insert crucial insight or market place success ]." Then you can go on and acknowledge your team's contribution. Try hard not to discount yourself. Remember that when people give you a compliment, they're trying to give you a gift, and it's rude to refuse it or argue about it!

Lastly. Not only do women in general hate blowing their own trumpet, they also struggle to find time to network, both inside and outside their organisations. And yet these are times when women can raise their profile, state their interests, and find out about new opportunities, all in a social setting. Why not ask your mentor about useful groups in your organisation? They can be another way for you to promote yourself - without having to take out a double page spread in the Herald!