sari's posts

The Gender Delusion

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In our first session a few weeks ago, I asked my client why she decided to get coaching. “I’m a female lawyer,” she said.

“And?” I asked.

“And, well, it’s really hard,” she replied.

She was telling herself a story, and boy is it ever a popular one.

I don’t mean to imply that women aren’t up against it. Women still face sexism in the workplace. Women make up less than 3% of the CEO’s of major corporations. And yes, women still make less than men. There is definitely work to be done. But when it comes to communication, gender is just another story we tell ourselves, and that story is undermining women in a big way.

Just this week I read an article by a friend of mine titled, “Top Seven Qualities of Women Leaders.” It was a good article. But I had to wonder, why are we talking about female leaders and male leaders as if they are two different things? Every “top quality” on the list applied to women and men.

I bet articles titled, “Top Seven Qualities of Black Leaders” or “What Asians Can Do to Get Ahead” or “Five Reasons Why Paraplegic Leaders Aren’t Taken Seriously” wouldn’t go over well. Most of us would be offended that black, Asian or paraplegic people were categorized separately from their white, able-bodied counterparts. And yet we have no problem differentiating between “female” and “male” leaders.

But aren’t men and women different? Not as much as you might think. (more…)

Don’t Make Assumptions: Especially in the Bathroom

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At a seminar this past weekend, I met several people, but had a great talk with one woman in particular and looked forward to getting to know her better. Later, I was standing at the sink in the women’s bathroom when I saw this very same woman leave a stall and walk out.

Without washing her hands.

Now, I’m not a germophobe or anything, but I kinda draw the line at washing your hands after using the restroom. I mean, come on. We live in a civilized society people.

Needless to say, this changed my view of this new acquaintance. That is, until the next morning, when I was forced to use the handicapped stall since it was the only one available. I entered, shut the door, and realized it came fully equipped with a sink, soap and paper towels.

I was guilty of making an assumption based on incomplete information. (more…)

In My Opinion…

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Last week I worked with a group of high school girls on presentation skills. I introduced them to approachable and authoritative nonverbals and when to use each, we discussed how to gesture effectively, and we talked about why pausing is so important.

But when it came time to discuss the actual speech itself, I was struck by how every single girl in the room prefaced her statements with: “in my opinion.”

This is a serious problem folks.

“In my opinion,” or the closely related “I think,” or “I feel” is, at best, verbal filler. A presenter doesn’t need it, and it weakens most sentences.

But at its worst, it’s a dangerous nonverbal we often overlook. Particularly for young women.

Prefacing statements with “in my opinion” communicates, “This is just my opinion, so it probably doesn’t carry much weight, but if you’d be so kind to hear me out…”

Which means that somewhere along the line these high school girls learned that their voices didn’t matter, that they needed permission to speak, that they weren’t allowed to have an opinion without qualifying it first.

Perhaps boys have the same problem, but in my experience I hear way more “in my opinions” when working with my female clients than I ever do from my male clients.

If we ever hope to increase the amount of women in leadership (which is the focus of the group working with these high school girls) we’ve got to start from the inside out. Leadership is communicated. And our communication is a reflection of what’s going on inside.

Sometimes we’re not aware of our limiting beliefs until they show up nonverbally, like in this case. Which is why this work is so life changing: it illuminates our blind spots but also gives us tools to communicate in ways that expand our self-concept.

Which is exactly what happened once I disabused these girls of the notion that they needed to qualify their opinions. I asked them to state their content without any “announcing.” At first they struggled. “How do I start, then?” they asked. “Just say what you think!” I said.

As they stated their opinions without any introduction, they stood taller. They spoke with more authority. They made more eye contact. Suddenly they became believable, passionate, and powerful.

Word choice is nonverbal. How we think affects how we communicate nonverbally, but never forget that how we communicate nonverbally also affects how we think.

 

Smiling is Overrated

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One of the first times I watched video of myself presenting I was shocked to find I didn’t smile. At all. For the entire six hours.

I’m not sure why I was shocked, since, it appears that I’ve had a smiling problem for quite some time. (Yes, that’s me, down below.)

Just last year, a good friend and colleague called me out for my LinkedIn photo. “You look scary,” she said. And she’s probably right.

Here’s the thing: smiling is overrated.  (more…)

Five Things I Hope You Get in the New Year

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I love Christmas. Every year Kevin and I go to the Nutcracker, I always anxiously await the arrival of my nephews, and my sister, mom and I cook up lots of Finnish holiday goodies.

The one thing that I don’t enjoy, however, is the gifts. Don’t get me wrong: I like receiving gifts and I most certainly love giving them. But Christmas just seems to have morphed into a season of “get get get.”

Which is why I’m proposing next year that our family do away with gifts all together. (Except the almond roca. Mom, don’t stop giving me the almond roca.)

There are things that I do hope you “get” in the New Year, however. Consider them my five communication resolutions:

Get Real. Resolve right now to stop the corporate speak, lose the lingo, and talk like a normal person. Over and over in my work I hear success stories from clients who decided to “get real” and communicate authentically. Real, authentic, sound-like-yourself communication has the power to change everything.

Get a Clue. Stop communicating in a vacuum. We so often get stuck in the content level of communication (what we want to say) that we rarely take a moment to look at how we’re delivering it, or more importantly, how it’s being received. Increase your nonverbal intelligence so you have all of the puzzle pieces to work with when it comes to communication. (more…)