Great communication is a question of confidence

Great communication is a question of confidence. Often our outward appearance can mask our inner feelings.
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Andy had just been promoted and had to give his first presentation to the senior management team. He prepared well, rehearsing the material frequently. A colleague had even gone through his PowerPoint slides with him as a double check. On the day, he delivered the presentation very well and afterwards his boss, who had been in the audience, took him to one side to congratulate him.
Andy confessed, ‘I was really nervous’ at which his boss surprised him and said ‘Well, if that’s true you hid it very well, it didn’t show at all.’

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This sort of conversation happens all the time and the important thing to learn is that often it’s not how you feel inside, but how you project that is important.
You may be starting to think consciously about your own self-confidence, just how good are you?

The great secret of business (and life in general)
Whatever you think about your ability, it is almost certainly at a lower level than other people view you.
A performance appraisal used to be something that was conducted by your manager, giving them the chance to tell you what they thought of you. Now more and more organizations are using 360-degree feedback where a much wider circle of people gets to comment on how you perform. This will probably include your peers, your customers, your staff and yourself.
Without fail you will mark yourself lower than anyone else does because for some reason many of us often think we’re not as good as other people see us.

This doesn’t mean you have no faith in your own ability, you probably know the things you’re good at, but still we can scarcely believe that other people see us as so capable.

This feeling is no respecter of rank, status, age or experience. We found leading academics who’d quiver at the sight of a microphone pointed in their direction, articulate and inspirational business leaders who miraculously became tongue-tied when they knew we were recording the conversation.

It is our experience that everyone, regardless of status or authority, has some degree of self-doubt, some moment when they can’t actually believe they’ve reached the position they now hold. If you look up enviously at some of these figures then take heart.

According to…
Cary Cooper – Professor of Organizational Psychology, UMIST
I should actually listen to broadcasts I make, but you know why I don’t do it, I’m frightened that I’ll hear that I’m not very good and undermine my self-confidence, isn’t that the stupidest thing?
But it’s an act of avoidance and I shouldn’t do that really – I should listen to my radio broadcasts, watch my TV broadcasts and just see if I said silly things and what I can learn, but I’m frightened I’ll think I’m so lousy, I won’t go on again.
So, even leading academics have the odd crisis of confidence, but what about our most talented business leaders?

According to…
Simon Terrington – founding director of Human Capital, a consultancy that advises media companies on their creative strategies
The thing is we’re all just blagging it, aren’t we? That’s the whole point in life.
You know that the syndrome that most chief executives suffer from is called the ‘Outsider Syndrome’, which is the fear that someone is going to tap you on the shoulder and say you’ve been found out, we know you’ve been bluffing the whole time, we know that you shouldn’t really be doing this, you’re not up to it. And everyone’s afraid of that.

I think we have a culture of hero worship, because we believe that chief executives are these supermen who create empires. I always think that in any company no one knows all the answers, and once you realize that, it’s actually very liberating.

In the small hours of the morning, we can all lie awake worrying. At that time, none of us believes we are much good, but remember, it’s what other people see that matters.

The truth about… how to get feedback

Getting feedback on a regular basis about the way we appear to others is a vital part of self-development; really effective communicators do this all the time and it’s not difficult to achieve.
The easiest way to find out is to ask. You don’t have to make it look like you’re fishing for compliments or unsure of your ground either. If it’s a colleague, a peer or even one of your own staff, you can ask in an open and honest way, and you will usually get a frank and honest answer.
It’s here that a ‘mentor’, either officially appointed or unofficially adopted, can be a great help. The best thing to do is to find someone of a similar level within the organization who does a different job but understands your role – under these circumstances you can agree to a reciprocal mentoring deal, using each other to bounce ideas off.

You can also involve others on an occasional basis, so that you get a range of responses. For example, after a team briefing you might take one of your staff to one side and ask, ‘How do you think the rest of the team will have received that information? Do you think what we’re doing is clear? Is it fair? What problems do you think we might encounter?’ They’re sure to appreciate your honesty and feel good about you valuing their opinion.

Choose someone for your feedback whom you trust – it also helps if they have a degree of sensitivity because some of the things they tell you will inevitably feel uncomfortable at first, but it’s honesty you want, not verbal abuse.

Raising your level of consciousness about feedback can also help, as in a range of situations, from one-to-one meetings through to formal presentations, you can start to observe your audience more critically for non-verbal signs of approval, or otherwise.

According to…
Val Gooding – BUPA
One vitally important piece of advice I’d offer is to ask more questions – it works in a huge range of situations, maybe you’re in a situation where you’ve been promoted to a new job and you’re not sure what you should be doing, a lot of people will try and cover up that they’re not sure what they should be doing and swan around looking supremely selfconfident. The best thing to do is ask questions whatever level you’re at – ask questions, be nosy, be curious and don’t be deterred if you’re asking a question of a very senior person, somebody more important than you – keep asking questions, that’s how you learn and become more effective.

Try this
Buy a Dictaphone. In the 1970s Dictaphones became popular as a way of replacing the conventional skills of the secretary. Because of this new technology you could sit and compose your correspondence at leisure, certain in the knowledge that the copy-typist would shape your ramblings into something resembling English.

Now these portable devices have a multitude of business uses. Handheld personal Dictaphones are about the size of a mobile phone and cost from around £30 for a reasonable quality model.
You can use your Dictaphone to take notes on any subject at any time. Even on a car journey you can set the machine to record as you start out and let it capture your outpourings along the way. If you’re an ‘ideas person’, you can capture your inspiration as you go.

If you have to make a speech or presentation you can dictate it and listen back until, through repetition, you have memorized it. An extra tip here is to look out for one of the cassette-based models; although slightly bulkier than their mini-cassette equivalents, you can play back at home or on your in-car system.

When you need to get a more objective view of how well you’re communicating, you can tape a meeting or presentation, and listen to your performance later. If you’re lucky enough to have a mentor and brave enough to play it to them, the analysis is even more beneficial.