Copyright (c) 2008 Lynda Stucky

The speaker was introduced and we watched eagerly and patiently as she walked to the podium. She dressed smartly and carried herself with a confident aire. At the podium, she organized her notes smoothly, looked up, smiled and established eye contact. Impressive so far! We all wondered what inspiring things we were going to hear! But when she opened her mouth, we were surprised. We heard her say the word "um" as the first word out of her mouth. Two letters. No meaning. No value to us as the listeners.

Here are some common words and phrases that many people use to fill space while speaking. See if you recognize any of them in your own speech:

"um" and "uh" "You know what I mean?" and "You know?" "and stuff" "anyway" "like" "and" (or another conjunction used to string sentences together)

An alternative to this habit is the adoption of a unique phrase or word. For example, on a recent trip to the computer store, the gentleman working with me said, "BAM!" every time he showed me something on the computer. He would type in an instruction, hit "return" and say "BAM!" When he printed something off for me, he said "BAM! There it is." It was cute but none-the-less distracting.

One of the worse cases I've seen of someone using word fillers was seeing a colleague include fillers in writing! It was almost like his fillers were a part of his thinking process!

Using any of the above fillers in conversation or while giving a speech is distracting and makes listening very difficult. Why? For one thing, the natural flow of speech is interrupted and the speech sounds disjointed. This causes the listener to be distracted making it more difficult to follow the story line.

Secondly, word fillers tend not to add value or meaning to the topic. Even "you know what I mean?" is meaningless if used too often and if the speaker doesn't actually wait for a response. Once again, it takes away from the speaker's message.

Fillers like the ones mentioned above aren't just distracting. They diminish our presence as professionals. Imagine an effective speaker whom you enjoy listening to. Does he/she have word fillers in speech? Recently, as we watched the Olympics it seemed that a lot of these young athletes were especially articulate and did not use any word fillers.

Consider how you feel when you experience a person talking with word fillers. Do you get annoyed? Or feel impatient? Do you listen to the message or do you tune him/her out?

To figure out if you use fillers and just how often, ask a partner whom you trust to listen to you while you speak for a minute. Talk about yourself or your business. Ask your partner to count the number and type of fillers that you use in one minute. Another technique is to record yourself speaking on the telephone and then listen to the recording and count instances of "ums" or other fillers in your speech. Bringing awareness of this habit to a conscious level can be humiliating!

Once you have awareness of your speech, pick a time during the day that you can work on eliminating this behavior. An excellent place to start to making changes to your speech is while you speak on the telephone. Again, tape record your end of the conversation and listen to yourself after the call, you will be able to monitor changes even better. Establish a goal of reducing the number of "um"s you will use that is less than the number you use now. A few "ums" aren't distracting but a lot of them are. Work towards using none or 1-2 in a minute.

Like anything else, developing new behaviours takes time, patience and practice. Being an effective, polished speaker is hard work but reaps benefits if achieved!

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Lynda Stucky is an expert at working with people who want to speak with clarity, credibility, and influence. President and owner of ClearlySpeaking, her background in speech pathology offers unique skills for consulting business professionals on communication skills including accent modification (regional and foreign), voice care, vocal dynamics, diction, grammar and how to speak concisely. http://www.clearly-speaking.com

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