How to soften my delivery?
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Anonymous
| I'm the dragon slayer poster from a few weeks ago. I'm doing well at work and don't have any real concerns about my career. In a side conversation with my boss yesterday, he told me that my delivery is very direct and no frills. I got the impression that he feels I should soften my delivery. I'm friendly and nice and avoid drama...direct and no frills is just who I am. How do I soften my delivery? |
Anonymous
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I missed yesterday's post. Are you a woman? If so I would call BS on softening anything. As long as you're polite and civil and to the point you're fine. I hate the expectation that women have to be nicer. Plenty of guys have a to the point style and no one tells them to change it.
If you are a man then the above tirade is obviously not useful to you. Either way, I wouldn't change the words, maybe the tone and speed. Slower and different word emphasis sometimes achieves the effect of straight forward but somehow softer. |
Anonymous
Hi, yes, I'm a woman. I think men are sometimes surprised by my outspoken-ness as that is, as my leadership calls it, not often seen in women. I don't think I'm outspoken - I'm just not timid and not afraid to speak my mind. I'll try a slower speed and more deliberate word choices. |
Anonymous
| I would advise listening more. Don't change your delivery: smiling more and talking softly will appear cloying and insincere. Just take the time to listen and make people feel that their opinions mean something to you. People will really respect you for that and learn to appreciate your directness. |
Anonymous
I agree. Be inclusive. Listen and solicit input genuinely. Don't just bark orders. |
Anonymous
Hi, thanks for the feedback. I don't bark orders. In fact I stay away from telling people what to do altogether. However, I don't mind sharing an opinion or feedback if asked. |
Anonymous
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Ask more questions. Instead of
"You need to do XYZ," ask "Have you tried doing XYZ? Do you think that might solve the issue with ABC?" |
Anonymous
| You're a manager, right? Is there anything you could do to make it more fun in your office? Bringing in donuts before a meeting? |
Anonymous
That's from your perspective. As you boss already indicated, from listeners' perspective, that's not how it's received. |
Anonymous
Hey OP, I'm the one who wrote the first quoted post. It's something I work on myself. I am also known as a direct, no frills woman. The change when I really started listening to people has been amazing. So, I mean this kindly: the way you responded to this illustrates exactly your problem. You don't really want to hear that feedback and you're not seriously considering it. Try really listening. |
Anonymous
I don't understand how giving an opinion about something is wrong if I'm asked for my opinion. |
Anonymous
Op, it's not what you say, it's how you say it. Most guys don't like "in your face" response (particularly from a woman) because it's uncomfortable to deal with. |
Anonymous
OP here. I agree with this. I guess I just need to work on how I say things...when they just flow from my head out of my mouth, they're direct and not sugar coated. I think it's a response to being really turned off by professionals who beat around the bush and just don't deliver the message they are trying to convey. I'm really going to try to pause and think about how to phrase something before it comes out of my mouth. |
Anonymous
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I'm also a very direct woman. I never had any issues in my career until I took an in-house position with a non-profit. Then people told me that I was too direct.
I had a really great mentor at the time who shared with me the trick about asking questions. It really works and I recommend it to you. Again, it's not really the content of what you're saying but the way you say things that will make people uncomfortable. So, when asked for your opinion, ask some questions. Pose your opinion as a question eve. i.e. "have you thought about x,y,z?" instead of "you need to do x,y,z" Making things more of a conversation and less of a single response. This will go a long way and help a lot..... PS - I also agree about the listening thing. It's easy to think you're listening but really you might be coming across to others that you're instead formulating your next response instead of really seeming like you're listening. Take your time answering. Slow down your speech a bit too. |
Anonymous
There are very limited situations in which this is good advice -- basically, when the answer seems so obvious that there's a chance your report thought of it and rejected it for some reason. "Have you already tried rebooting your machine? Any reason why not? Ok, try that and then come back if it doesn't work." However, if XYZ is an actual direction -- "You need to call the client" -- then the manager gets to to just say that. It's common, but still completely unacceptable, to expect women to frame it as, "Have you considered calling the client to resolve this?" I agree with PPs about listening. OP, listening is really hard. You're busy and, honestly, the thing that's important to the other person is probably not that important to you, or not a good idea for reasons they don't know about, or whatever. The point is not to act on their ideas, though, the point is to make them feel heard. I'm a female manager and I actually schedule time in my calendar to go walk around the office and chat with people. It can feel like wasting time because there is so much "work" to do, but it is a really important part of a manager's job and cannot be neglected in favor of deliverables. |