Finding Your Voice

Rambunctious Rat here rambling randomly again.  One of the biggest stereotypes of Pan Asian professionals and students is that they are quiet and domicile people.  I can tell you from growing up around my family, or sitting at dim sum on Sunday mornings, or watching Hong Kong protestors marching while carrying umbrellas in one hand and yelling into megaphones held in the other, we are not a quiet and domicile people.  That thought actually offends many second generation and beyond Pan Asian Americans.

So where does this stereotype come from?  In general, we are a people who have been taught to think three times (三思) before we speak, and speak only when it results in a benefit, otherwise say nothing.  In addition, we had to strictly adhere to the established hierarchy that often results in speaking only when asked to do so.  When you think about it, these are all sound lessons.  This style of communication would be appreciated by people with no-nonsense social styles, and would be expected if anyone is looking to be successful in Pan Asia.

So what's the problem?  In Corporate America, it is critical to have a voice if you want to be successful.  The behaviors that are considered respectful and acceptable in Pan Asia can be mistaken here in Corporate America as a sign of being disengaged, lacking comprehension or competency, or lacking thoughts or points of view.  In my line of work, silent participation in any client meeting can lead to the customer questioning the hourly fee associated with participants that did not contribute to the discussion. So yes, it can be a problem, and one that can hit your company's wallet if you work in professional services.

I pride myself as someone who carries myself with a certain level of charisma and generally comfortable with speaking in public situations.  As a matter of fact, I believe that is why people got me involved with Asian Employee Resource Groups and mentoring Pan Asians working in Corporate America.  I am the poster child for what they want from Pan Asian employees and leaders.  If you have heard me speak on the topic or read my previous blogs, then you will know that unlike Lady Gaga, I was not born this way.  I was a quiet immigrant with a very limited English vocabulary.  Through the years and the opportunities afforded to me, I became more and more comfortable with the English language and finding my voice to speak in public.

Here is a shout out for the second generation immigrants and beyond.  As much as I appear to have completely adapted to American Corporate Culture, especially in speaking up, it is still something I have to work at every day.  I have to constantly remind myself to get pass what I was taught as a child and leverage the soft skills I learned in my life and career to find my voice.  Without that constant reminder, I would have struggled through my career that included customer service, sales and relationship management, training, management, consulting, and leadership.  So regardless if you are an immigrant or a few generations out, you may still need to learn and practice your soft skills to overcome your cultural influences.

Like my other posts, I will share lessons that I have picked up along the way that helped me find my voice:

1. Know your audience.  No matter what form of communication (written, verbal, non-verbal), you will have better results in being heard if you target your style and content to your audience.  If you are speaking with someone who is typically short in time, do not start the conversation with banter.  Vice versa, you need to take the time to bake personal dialog into your business discussions with people who value relationships.  The best way to capture your audience's attention is to research and tailor your message to what is important for them.  If your audience expects to hear about insights, experiences, and point of views, then you will need to bring all of those elements into the conversation. If you are making a presentation to an office with a casual setting like Google, then leave the suit and tie at home.

If you are a leader of a team, then try an ice-breaker where you ask everyone to share how they like to communicate as part of a fictitious owners' manual for the team.  When we performed that exercise in one of my old teams, we discovered that preferences for communication vehicle was very diverse among the team.  Some preferred emails, while others preferred instant message, or texts, or phone calls, or video calls.  It was enlightening for everyone because we quickly realized that you cannot assume that one was more effective than another.  It all depended on the person's preference.

Bonus question: If you know the person you are speaking with tends to drop "F-bombs" when he or she talks, do you?  I think this is a tricky one.  I would go with yes.  However, that is because I am comfortable with swearing.  I kind of feel like I have earned the right to do it.  There are two major caveats though.  It cannot feel forced.  If it is not in your nature to do so, then you really should not.  It will seem like a desperate attempt to fit in, or so out of character that you appear to have been off your medication prematurely.  The other major factor is the setting.  There is definitely a wrong time and place to be dropping "F-bombs."

2. Grow your presence.  Often, the challenge of finding a voice in a meeting is not one of language barrier or cultural tendencies.  Rather, it is one of professional maturity.  I remember what it was like being junior staff member in a meeting and trying to figure out the right spot to speak and not sound stupid.  Let's face it.  Not everyone agrees with the phrase, "There are no stupid questions."  Adding salt to the wound, there was always a high achiever who asked brilliant questions or contributed brilliant thoughts that made me feel like I have even less reason to speak during meetings.

When I look back now, I see a pattern in how I grew my presence to where I am now.  At first, I was definitely quiet.  The types of things that I spoke about when I first started were clarification of important points and validation of action items because I was accountable to produce meeting minutes. Eventually, I became a "pile on guy."  I took that "Yes and..." Improv exercise to heart and would build upon other people's brilliant ideas.  Let's face it, my DNA did not come with original thoughts.  In my current role, I am expected to lead discussions and make decisions.  I find myself pushing myself to jump in and go with my experience on a position during the meeting rather than let the meeting become crippled by analysis paralysis.

So, there are professional maturity expectations when it comes to finding a voice within a meeting.  The problem comes when they are misaligned, such as a facilitator who does not facilitate or a note taker who does not capture and verify action items.  The other misalignment comes in the form of speaking out of turn.  It is important not to contradict someone on your team (especially your boss) and make the team look stupid in front of the client while making yourself look good.

You need to define or clarify your role, and ask for support to help you do your job.  As a staff, you might volunteer to be the note taker and then ask the meeting leader to support you by checking in with you after each agenda item during the meeting to see if you have any clarification questions, and have an agenda item at the end where you review the action items that you had captured.  If you are expected to contribute ideas into the meeting, then prepare some thoughts when you receive the agenda ahead of the meeting, and listen closely to others so that you can complement their points with insights from your experience.  If you are leading or facilitating the meeting, set ground rules so that you can interject and manage the meeting as needed.  Please do not whisper or instant message someone who is speaking to make your points.  It is very distracting and they will resent you for not making your own points.

Remember, you were asked to be at the meeting for a reason.  You are being paid to be there.  So, you should definitely fulfill your destiny.  I am going to do a mashup between "The Rock" and Coach Belichick and say, "Know your role, and do your job!"

3. Practice all the time.  I remember hearing from an audience once tell me how it was difficult for them to speak up about their grievances with their bosses.  They did not know how to say no.  They accepted every task and ended up burning themselves out.  I get this.  Pan Asians have a work ethics bar that is way above normal standards of western society, and as my dad use to tell my older brother, "Keep quiet and do not make waves at work."

Ironically, I had witnessed the same group passionately talking about this same topic at the lunch room.  When I say passionately, I mean I was almost embarrassed by the spectacle they were making in public.  There is nothing further from the truth than saying that all Pan Asians do not speak up.  They just find it hard to speak up at work.  Many of the same people who have trouble with eye contact in a meeting look their friends and family right in the eyes when telling stories.  Many of the people who appear quiet and timid sing their hearts out at karaoke bars.  Many of the people who are seen as silent and without thoughts to contribute at work teach their children valuable life lessons every night at the dinner table.

Here is the thing.  Life is practice.  If you find something difficult to do, then try doing it in a safe environment as many times as possible until it becomes second nature.  Most of you already have all the soft skills you ever need to succeed in Corporate America.  You just need to become as comfortable using those skills at work as you do in private. Ask your friends and family to role play with you so that you may practice for a conversation with your boss.  Ask for feedback about your approach, style and content.

4.  Work the non-verbal.  I recall many performance reviews where we put down lack of executive presence as something that a mid-level manager needed to correct in order to be promoted to the next level.  When done correctly, non-verbal can help you convey power and confidence.  When done poorly, it can take away all the weight of your point.  Few things to keep in mind:

• Maintain eye contact - When people are not sure of themselves, they tend to break eye contact at the end and look downward.  Stay confident and maintain eye contact with your audience.
• Make statements sound like statements.  Many people raise their voice to a higher pitch at the end of a statement.  This transforms their point into a question and takes away the power of the statement and hands it to whoever responds to the question.  Keep the power.  End your statement strongly.
• Be authentic - People can spot an overly rehearsed story or point.  They can definitely tell if you do not believe in the message that you are making.  If you make your point from your heart, then you will elicit an emotional response from your audience.
•  Be a storyteller - People naturally go into a different non-verbal mode when telling a story.  They use their arms more often.  They time all of their dramatic pauses for effect.  They show more emotion in their face and in their inflections.  Audiences rather hear stories than listen to lectures.
• Be comfortable with silence -  In meetings or conversations, there are perfectly acceptable moments of silence that can be productive time for your audience to consider what you have said and think of a response.  If you decide to continue talking to reinforce your points, then you may drive that person away for dislike of your aggression or desperation.  If you move on and talk about something else, then your audience will not have enough time to make a good decision on what you said before, or may become too distracted on your last point to listen to your new point.
• "Check yourself before you wreck yourself" - Something I always have trouble with is getting my body to catch up with my brain.  I tend to think so quickly, that I will sometimes stutter like a video buffering to play.  The only way for me to reset is to physically hit a pause button to calm my brain down.  A good trick I learned is to clap my hands or pinch myself to force a complete disruption to my nervous system.  The more you become congruent with your mind, voice, and body, the easier it will be to convey your points.
• Bring on the confidence - I have found people to pay more attention to someone when they think that person is confident.  You may need to do a lot of prep in the beginning to proof check your points in order for you to feel confident.  Later in your career, confidence will come from your wisdom.  Perception of confidence cannot be "bought" through endless name dropping and reciting of models and theories.  When done poorly, those practices can really turn off your audience.  The napkin reads, "How do you like them apples?"
• But don't condescend - most business audiences do not like being preached or lectured at.  They definitely do not respond well to a tone that convey an air of superiority.  We grew up in academia listening to lectures from tenured professors, and our tiger moms and dragon dads manage to talk to us like we are three years old whenever we visit for dinner.  So it is easy for us to think it is acceptable to sound like that.  A little humility mixed in with confidence will go a long way to help ground your message.

5. Get to the point. Has anyone ever stopped you in the middle of your conversation and asked you to get to the point?  My classmate and I used to rush people through their conversation by holding up our fingers in the shape of a triangle as if to say, "What is your point?"  Sometimes very intelligent people can rant.  They can continue to say a lot of things and not having any structure or direction for the conversation.  Most audiences do not want to do the work of structuring your thoughts.  They like for them to come in a neat package.

Prepare for the important conversations.  Write down the key points you want to make and the supporting points that you think are relevant to gain buy-in from your audience. Practice making those points.  Refine what you have to say so that you can keep it to a succinct dialog.

One of the most surprising experience I had in consulting was sitting in a room full of Partners to rehearse for an oral presentation, and listening to the coaching and feedback for everyone from a more senior Partner.  They knew what was at stake and they did not want to screw it up by being over confident and under prepared.  The lesson for me was that if Partners knew enough to prep, then as a Director, I needed to be over prepared when I engage in dialog with them.

Bonus points if you can set up your conversation so that your audience ultimately makes your point out loud.  Getting to an ah-ha moment for your audience will be a topic for another post.

I do believe that you all have a voice.  You just need to find it and develop it.  Would it blow your mind if I said that you are speaking up when you complain that you do not know how to speak up?   Start small and practice at home so you can bring your "A game" next time you are at the table.  In time, you will be able to speak as naturally in front of a small group or a large audience as you do with your friends.  Again, I hope you have found these posts on my blog to be helpful.  I am speaking from my experiences.  I am not quoting research or guru's here but I am sure my points are influenced by them. Feel free to share yours in the comments and share this post with others who you think my benefit from it.

Stay Cheesy,

The Rambunctious Rat