07. Speak With Confidence. Make Your Voice Heard.

07. Speak With Confidence. Make Your Voice Heard.

If you think you have some great ideas, but you aren’t getting your point across, you may have a confidence problem.

Or more specifically, your team doesn’t have confidence in you. It might be time to take a look at how your messages are perceived by your team.

A few episodes back, I talked about a few key behaviors of great leaders and how these behaviors translate really well to UX professionals in general. One of the behaviors I discussed was confidence.

And after I had a week or so to think about it, what may have been a better way to describe that skill is less about *being* confident and more about delivering your ideas *with* confidence.

Unfortunately, lots of research studies show that humans tend to care a lot less about what someone says and we focus way more than we probably should on how that message is delivered. 

I recently finished a book by Vanessa Van Edwards called “cues” which I think is a fantastic book that UX designers who care about how they present themselves at work should read.

It’s all about mastering the hidden things we project to everyone around us on a daily basis. Most of the time we have no idea we’re doing it. Some people are natural and can just command a room, even if their message is a load of crap. 

And then sometimes people with great ideas, people that can add a ton of value to a team are overlooked, usually because of how they deliver the message and how it’s perceived by their team.

The thing that a lot of people usually think is that this is just something they will never be good at. Public speaking or convincing people of ideas is something that they were just born to suck.

And you’d be surprised how many people out there who you think are naturals, have actually had a lot of practice, and some of this they have to still work on.

So getting back to this leadership behavior, remember that in his book Emotional Intelligence 2.0, Bradberry specifically says leadership is not about personality traits. Meaning you might be born an extrovert or introvert. Leadership isn’t about whether you were born with one trait over another.

Leadership, but more specifically, this skill of delivering your ideas with confidence, is a behavior that you can practice and learn and master over time.

Delivering with low confidence

Let’s start at the beginning. What is happening now that might make us decide that something isn’t working?

1. Your team might be ignoring you completely.

2. Your team might be talking over you in meetings. They might never let you get a word in.

3. Your team might seem like they’re listening, but once you stop they forget about everything you’ve said.

4. Your team might be constantly questioning your ideas or shooting them down.

5. Your team might be completely leaving you out of conversations.

6. You might just have a bad feeling that no one respects your opinion.

Some of these can be signs that you are giving off silent warnings to your team that they can’t trust you. That you don’t fully believe these things yourself. Or that you just don’t know what you’re doing. Even if you do.

What happens when we speak with Confidence?

The main benefit of delivering your ideas with confidence and commanding respect is that it really just makes your job easier.

•  It’ll most likely help you to stand out more, your presentations will be more memorable. You’ll likely get less pushback. 

• You will most likely find it easier to sell your ideas and get your team bought into the things you want them to help with. 

• It may even ultimately help with promotions or raises because you’ll sound more enthusiastic and engaged, and well. 

• Your boss will end up having more confidence in you and your abilities.

And all of this might happen just by changing the way you speak and present yourself. It’s not a bad deal, really.

The reality is that human beings focus a lot on how others deliver their message. Sometimes more than they focus on the message itself. So how we deliver our message might actually be undermining the message completely. That’s not good if we have something really important to add to the conversation.

A Disclaimer

Now, listen before I get into this, I want to say that some of these skills can absolutely be used maliciously. Remember that one of the things we discussed in the last episode on important behaviors we should be mastering is integrity.

Do not use these methods to gaslight. Do not use these methods to hurt your teammates or sell ideas you know are wrong, or selfish things that don’t help the larger team or the company.

We should be using these tactics to benefit users. To sell ideas on behalf of users. Always remember that these things should be used to help improve the product for users, not to gain any kind of personal favors or use them for selfish reasons.

If you do that, you’re a big jerk. So don’t do that.

One other big thing here is to understand our bias. As UX Professionals, it is really important for us to understand our biases. To understand that paying attention to how someone delivers their message might affect us on an instinctual level. But by knowing that we do this, we should try to pay more attention to the message itself and less to how it’s delivered.

The point of this episode today is to understand that humans tend to do this. Your team most likely tends to do this. And so knowing that we can improve how our message is delivered. 

This is to help you as a UX Professional get your ideas across to people who might have these biases.

But it is also important to note these things, and understand that just because someone on your team displays some of these cues that make us sound nervous or less confident, it doesn’t mean that they are less confident. 

I think that’s really important to remember here.

A Cues Book Review

So like I said, I recently read “Cues” by Vanessa Van Edwards. I think this is an amazing book that can really help you to sell your ideas as a UX Professional.

I want to touch on some of the things that Van Edwards talks about in her book. It’s not going to be an exhaustive list. Some of the things in this book touch on visual cues like body language and stuff like that. 

That said, I think it is important to note that some of the issues we have with sounding confident in our own message have a lot to do with posture. One quick thing I want to highlight from the book is the idea that a lot of our bad vocal cues come from the fact that we aren’t breathing while we speak. 

We could dive pretty deep into tips Van Edwards gives on body posture, but just remember that in order to speak with confidence we really need to breathe. So sit up straight, or stand up straight, and make sure your lungs have air and you’re setting yourself up for success. 

And definitely buy “cues” for more specific details on how your posture might be killing your message.

Today, I want to touch more on the vocal aspect of a few of the things Van Edwards lays out in the book. 

There are two main aspects to keep in mind when we talk about delivering your message and getting your point across to influence your team in a positive way.

There are confidence cues or cues that we use to show that we believe in our message and that it’s safe for our team to also believe in our message.

And then there are warmth cues, or sounding likable, having a more dynamic range, or really just how energy and personality to your message.

If you think about these two things what we really want is a proper mixture of both. If you use too many of these confidence cues with no warmth you come across as authoritarian or cold. If you use too many warmth cues you come across as maybe unprofessional. 

Think about the opposite end of this where people lack both warmth and confidence. These are people who are monotone, boring, uninspiring, and likely don’t have very much influence on the direction their team is taking.

So it’s important to use them together, but make sure you don’t overdo it. I think this takes some practice to find the sweet spot.

Let’s take a look at Van Edwards’ first concept of Vocal Power

There are five main points that help improve or hurt the way our message is perceived. This can really affect how our team might perceive how confident we are in the things we’re saying.

1. Nervous Pitch
2. Up talk or the question inflection
3. Vocal Fry
4. Low volume
5. Filler Words

Nervous Pitch

I mentioned before that body posture plays a big part in how we relay our message. When we hear someone speaking and they sound nervous, we tend to wonder why they’re nervous. Are they lying? Can we trust them? Or maybe we just feel sorry for them. We pity them.

Either way, this is killing how our message is perceived.

Sounding nervous, often, comes from the fact that when we get nervous we tend to try to instinctually take up less space. It kind of makes sense, right? We are nervous. We don’t want people to see us, so we try to sort of hide and camouflage ourselves.

Obviously, when we’re in a meeting this doesn’t do anything but make it so that we have a harder time breathing, which in turn, makes us sound nervous.

So when we dot his, our pitch tends to go up, and we don’t breathe, which causes a lot of the problems that we will talk about in a minute like vocal fry, speeding up, and speaking in a low tone.

So to set us up for success, try lowering your shoulders, try to maximize the distance between your ears and your shoulders, straighten your back as much as you can, and try to take up a little more space without looking silly, obviously.

Up talk or HRT

This next one, Up Talk, seems to be more and more common. It’s also sometimes called “HRT” or “High rise terminal.” This is when you end your statement of fact with a rise in pitch, sort of like we do when we ask a question.

This one kills your message because subconsciously, people are saying “wait if they’re questioning themselves, why would I trust what they have to say?”

One way to try to stop this is to be more intentional when you speak in meetings or during presentations. Practice your presentations beforehand. Record yourself. Listen back to what you’re saying and see if you’re doing it. 

If you find that people are questioning you quite a bit in meetings, this vocal tick could have something to do with it.

Vocal Fry

Vocal Fry was a term I had never heard before reading “Cues” but it’s something I’ve seen quite a bit at work and just in conversations with people in general.

This is when people’s voice tends to start cracking or creaking. They sort of sound raspy. They call it “fry” because it sounds like bacon frying in a pan, I guess.

Again, this tends to happen when we stop breathing. It often happens at the end of a really long sentence. We get nervous, we forget to breathe, we are probably already in a weird posture that isn’t helping the situation, and we eventually run out of breath before we’re done talking, causing that weird creaking sound.

Vocal Fry tends to happen when we raise our pitch. Remember that when we get nervous our pitch tends to increase. So as we get more nervous we’re more likely or raise our pitch, and sound squeaky, and this leads to the frying effect.

This vocal cue tends to make us sound timid and adds to us sounding nervous and unsure about the message we’re delivering. 

This sound can also be like nails on a chalkboard to a lot of people. So when they hear this sound, they just shut down. They ignore what you’re saying completely.

So a few things we can do to avoid this, according to Van Edwards:

1. Speak in shorter sentences. Don’t use run-ons as much. 
2. Don’t go too fast. Try to slow down. Take more breaths and pause more.
3. Try to speak up and decrease our pitch. When we speak up we tend to require more breath, which causes us to breathe more, which keeps the frying effect from happening.

Volume Control

Controlling your volume isn’t all about speaking louder. Being louder isn’t the goal. Perhaps sometimes raising our volume is important, but the key here is control. Knowing when to raise. Knowing when to limit the volume, and knowing when to change it for effect.

Good communicators do tend to speak louder, but they aren’t yelling. They especially aren’t yelling over people. 

According to research in the book, liars tend to drop their volume slightly when they’re lying. And according to Van Edwards, humans are really in tune with this trust cue. So we tend to not trust people as much when they drop their volume mid-conversation. 

So again here, posture is important.

1. Sit up straight
2. Take deep breaths
3. Plant your feet on the ground
4. Tilt your head up slightly
5. Clear your throat if you have to. This will also help get rid of vocal fry.

And again, remember it’s not about being loud. It’s about controlling when you get loud.

When you want to let people in on a secret or share some insider info, maybe you want to be a little bit quieter.

When you get passionate or excited, personally I think it’s OK to get a little bit louder to show how excited or passionate you are about this topic. 

When you agree with someone or want to encourage them, get a little bit louder to show you’re on their side.

Filler Words

This last one is something I see more than any other. Filler words.

Like, um, you know, well, so.., etc. All of these are things I hear people do constantly. At work and outside of work. It’s everywhere.

We tend to use these words for various reasons. But ultimately these filler words really tend to destroy our credibility. One of the studies from the book found that speakers who used filler words tended to be seen as less prepared and less competent. 

One study from the book was really interesting, and definitely eye-opening for me. The study asked participants to listen to two speeches. One with no filler words, but filled with a bunch of fake facts and figures. Then another speech with a bunch of filler words but real facts and figures.

57% of participants thought the speech with no fillers was given by someone who was well-educated. Even though the facts were completely fake.

Only 36% of the participants thought the person using the filler words was well-educated. 36%! That’s a huge difference based completely on the use of filler words.

We tend to use filler words to either stall for time between thoughts or to keep talking so that people don’t think we’re done and interrupt us. 

This last one is a big reason we also tend to speak faster, use more run-on sentences, and take fewer breaths, which leads to all the same issues we have already talked about. It really all comes down to taking our time and making sure we breathe.

Here’s a funny story. Back in high school, I had an English teacher who would have us give presentations from time to time. She would deduct a full point from your grade for every filler word you used. She would also use a taboo buzzer to buzz us every time we said it. You can imagine how many 17 yr old high school kids were buzzed during a presentation. 

And yes, I am still 100% guilty of using filler words. I’m just lucky in that I can use the magic of post-production to cut out all the filler words I use in this podcast, but rest assured I still do this too, even though I know it’s killing my message.

But we can at least try to cut this out of our vocabulary.

Van Edwards suggests speaking slower and taking more pauses. Slowing down gives us more time to think about the things we’re about to say. When we know what we’ll say next, we’re less likely to need to fill the void with a filler word. 

And whenever we feel like we are about to say like or um, just pause. Just a split second. But just enough for us to catch ourselves and not say the word.

The pausing also gives us a chance to take a quick breath, which as you probably know by now is super important.

The Power Pause

Van Edwards also has this thing she calls the “power pause.”

Notice the difference:

Van Edwards also has this thing she calls the “power pause.”

Verses

Van Edwards also has this thing [PAUSE] she calls the “power pause.”

That pause in the middle of the sentence kind of puts you on the eds of your seat, waiting to hear more.

You could pause at the end of the sentence, but this might give someone the impression you’re done. And if you have trouble with people interrupting you, this could give them space to jump in.

But if you pause in the middle of your sentence, they are less likely to interrupt, because they know you’re still in the middle of your thought.

There’s one other awesome tip that Van Edwards gives. When people at work are doing something in a meeting like maybe snap at you for something, or say something inappropriate. You just take a small pause, stare at them, and let them know you don’t approve.

I could see this working well in person, I’m not sure how well that might work in a virtual meeting, but It thought that was kind of an amusing little tactic to get people to stop and think about how they are behaving. It’s kind of funny. I definitely want to try this out and see if it works.

Let’s talk about Vocal Likability

Now, remember the goal here is to use the confidence or power factor and combine it with the warmth factor. 

I think of these next ones, what Van Edwards calls “Likability” to be more about relationship building than anything else. These are things you can use in presentations or meetings, but these are also tips to use in just one-off conversations in maybe less informal environments. But I think these are also completely valuable at work.

Now again, remember this is not to manipulate people into doing your bidding. Or trick them into thinking you like them, when you secretly can’t stand them.

But the way that I see these working is just to help build friendly rapport may be quicker than you would if you didn’t actively try these things.

You might actually notice you do some of these unconsciously already. At least I found myself doing a lot of these things. I doubt I’m that abnormal. Although, after I say that out loud, I actually have no idea.

Van Edwards breaks this likability factor into four main goals.

1. Memorable first impression
2. Sound friendly
3. Sound encouraging and inviting
4. Sound more interesting

These things together help build warmth and that likable factor that just makes us someone our team wants to go to, not only for important conversations but just someone they might want to sit with during lunch or grab a coffee.

Memorable First Impression

Humans are funny. People are most likely going to judge you the first 200 milliseconds they meet you for the first time. Research shows that people often judge you based on your appearance, how you talk, and your posture, even a limp handshake can give someone the impression that you’re passive or easily manipulated.

What’s also weird is humans have this bias that is sometimes called the “The Halo Effect.” That’s when we perceive someone to have a positive trait, we assume that they must have other positive traits, or sometimes we even think they’re perfect. 

Conversely, when we see someone do something bad, maybe bad posture, maybe a weak handshake, we assume that they must be bad at other things too. 

This first impression is really important when you go in for an interview or join a new team. Perhaps it’s too late for a first impression for your current role, but this is something to think about as you transition between various jobs or organizations at work and in life in general.

So practice your opener. Practice saying “hello my name is..” Practice that question you know everyone will ask “tell me about yourself.”Write a couple of bullet points and make sure you hit those things. 

Try recording it and listening to it to make sure you know what other peoples hear. Practice it until it’s second nature. Try not to sound like a robot.

Also note that when you go into a meeting, don’t complain about the internet not working on your computer being slow. Just tell everyone hello and that it’s great to see them. Don’t start a meeting on a down note, especially if you don’t know everyone on the call.

Sound Friendly

Vam Edwards suggests using what she calls “a warm-up cue.” These are small phrases that you can have ready to use in a conversation to show people that you are warm and want them to open up.

These are really simple and some of them you might already be using. 

Things like:

• So glad you called!
• Hello, Jim! It’s been too long!
• Well, hello hello! How’s life?

Or when you start a meeting:

• Happy Friday everyone!
• It’s lovely to see everyone today!
• How was your weekend?

A lot of us are remote first and virtual these days, so the sound of our voice is one of the best indicators we have to show our team that we are warm and inviting. So these types of cues are really critical to showing your team that you ar open and happy to hear from them or answer their questions about anything.

Sound encouraging and Inviting

In Cues, Van Edwards lists out a couple of types of cues we give off to encourage people to open up to us and engage. 

The first is what she calls a “listening sound” These are little noises that we make when we listen. A lot of times we do this to ourselves without realizing it. 

These are sounds like “ah, oh, hmm, mm hmmm.” These often might go along with a head nod.  

The second is “encouraging words”. These might be words like “yes! Or “wow” or “interesting” or “really?” or “fascinating” Another one I say a lot (maybe too much is) “oh that’s funny” or “that’s hilarious”

These are things we say while someone else might be talking. Usually when we agree, or find something interesting. These cues tell the speaker that we are listening and that we want them to keep talking.

What’s funny is that doing a lot of interviews on The Retro Time Podcast, I’ll go back and listen and hear myself doing this quite a bit. It might be something that you’re not aware of, but you might do it too.

Just knowing that this is a way to engage with people on our team and get them to open up is a really important thing to know and to make sure we are doing to get our team to view us as someone they can trust, lean on, get advice from, whatever.

What’s maybe just as important to know is that in studies that have been done, people who do not use these types of interjections are often perceived as cold or harsh. 

So if you’re often one of those straight-faced stoics or maybe even an introvert, just try throwing some of these little sounds or words in your conversations to help make you more open and inviting.

Sound More Interesting

Lastly, what’s important to remember is that people on our teams are paying close attention to how we say things, maybe more than they are paying attention to what we’re actually saying.

Knowing this can help us get our point across more clearly by being engaging and making what we have to say something they actually want to hear. We need to speak so that our teams find us interesting.

Think about presentations you’ve had to sit through where the speaker was just monotone the entire time. Straight-faced, hands by their side, reading from index cards or something like that. 

Do you even remember what they were talking about?

Probably not. Because it was so boring you don’t even remember the content of their talk, no matter how smart or insightful the ideas may have actually been.

A simple way to get our team to pay closer attention to our ideas is to add some emotion to our presentations. Use hand gestures. Use dynamic range and vocal variety, changing the pitch or volume as you approach a big idea or insight.

Emotion captures people’s attention. If you’re excited to deliver the message, It tells your audience that what you have to say is exciting and they need to pay attention.

As UX professionals we get really excited about helping users. We get really excited about solving challenging problems. We get really excited and passionate about design or research or whatever it is that we care about. 

When we care about something that much, we shouldn’t act ambivalent about it! So we should share our ideas and thoughts with as much passion and excitement as we brought to uncover those ideas and insights.

One of the interesting things that Van Edwards points out in her book is that when we practice too much and read straight from a script we lose a lot of that emotion.

So instead of rehearsing a script and reading it word for word, she suggests a simple outline. Follow the outline, but leave space for you to adlib and improvise so you can bring some of that emotion into your presentation.

Channel your inner idol

One of the things that Van Edwards recommends is to channel your favorite speaker and try to mimic some of the things they do. Maybe it’s Martin Luther King. Maybe it’s Jon F Kennedy. Maybe it’s Steve Jobs. My personal favorite is Simon Sinek.

But go and watch videos of them talking. See what they do. See what gestures they make. What vocal cues do they use? Try to take some of that and incorporate it into your presentations

It doesn’t have to be a perfect impression, and it probably shouldn’t be, honestly. But just think about how they would deliver some of the ideas you want to talk about. 

So before your next big presentation to stakeholders, take some deep breaths, fix your posture, try some vocal exercises to get your vocal cords ready, and think about how your favorite speaker would present. 

Some things to Keep in Mind

Before we wrap this up, I want to leave you with a few things to keep in mind during your next meeting or presentation.

• Try to be yourself. Get as comfortable as you can be. Remember being nervous causes our body to do a lot of the things that cause us to sound nervous like speaking fast, not breathing properly, hunching over, vocal fry, and all that bad stuff.
• Don’t forget to breathe. Breathing will allow your body to do all the stuff it needs to do to make sure you don’t sound nervous.
• Speak slowly and try to take more pauses. 
• Don’t forget we need the right mix of confidence and warmth. We need to find the balance so that we don’t come across as too authoritarian or too unprofessional.
• Use some of those vocal cues like listening sounds and encouraging words to get your teams to open up to you.
• Use vocal variety and emotion when you’re presenting to get your team to want to pay attention to your message.
• Lastly, try to channel your inner speaking idol and take some cues from the way they talked or gave presentations.

Helpful Links
• Science of People
• Cues: Master the Secret Language of Charismatic Communication
• Science of People – YouTube
• Vanessa Van Edwards – Behavioral Investigator – Science of People | LinkedIn
• First impressions count
• The Power of First Impressions | Psychology Today