- Welcome to the Knowledgette webinar on Communication Tips for Women. Women face many challenges. One is it's often perceived that they provide too much detail, they take too much time, as in too much air time, that they're too tentative with their conclusions, suggesting rather than taking a firm stand. They may also be dismissed as being too emotional, and then perhaps most discouraging to women, is often many women may mention an idea and it's not until a man picks it up that suddenly other men notice the idea, and then it's attributed to men. Also, when a woman is the major impetus for success, the rewards may go to a team in general rather than recognizing the woman's key contribution. Finally, men often focus on how a woman looks rather than what she says, and they may comment on her clothes and what she did rather than anything than her ideas. How can women combat these problems? One is that you have to outdo men and be even better than they are in communicating the way that they think is correct. So if the perception is that women speak too long, you need to be short and succinct. Don't provide a lot of detail. Often less is more in terms of getting your point across. Women tend to see many more factors as contributing to the conclusion and being important considerations, but describing all of those can add to confusion and can end up actually weakening your point. So while this is a strength in terms of catching factors that can be important, if you overplay it, it turns into a weakness. So when presenting things, cut out a lot of what went into your decision and give the headlines. You have to think about your audience and better understand how your audience receives information. So in giving them just the headlines, they're more likely to understand your point than if you go into a great deal of detail. Some people are very easily overwhelmed if you give them a lot of detail. Also, women are often criticized for being too emotional, so when you're speaking, pick your words carefully. Talk in a calm, low voice. If you get high-pitched or shrill, you lose credibility. Speak at a moderate pace and convey expertise, not passion. Women often tend to hesitate to use the I word even when it's appropriate. They will tend to give credit to the whole team rather than taking credit for their individual accomplishments. It's correct and right to give credit when credit's due to the team and to name them and acknowledge specific accomplishments, but you should also take credit for your own accomplishments. If you don't take credit for your own accomplishments, it's much less likely other people will give you credit for them. Appearance is another key factor. We all like to look good, and often it gets blurry between looking good in a professional sense and looking good in a social sense, but men are easily distracted by many things. Just as they're distracted by details, how you look can be distracting. You want them to remember what you said, not how you looked. So pick your outfit to have the attention drawn to your head so that they're thinking about what you're saying and your ideas, not about your body. Save the short, tight, low-neckline clothes for social occasions. You may love wearing them, but save them for other occasions. Also, women have a habit of making themselves small and hunched up, pull their arms in, pull their legs in, the complete opposite of the man spread. So what you want to do is take a commanding stance. You're taking control of your audience. Take up as much space as you can. Hold your arms out, point, big, wide stance, legs well-planted, well apart. Avoid fidgeting. Don't play with your hair, your clothes, your jewelry, your hands. Think about it ahead of time to have something that you're not going to be messing with, and speak, when you're speaking to someone, look them in the eye. They're your audience. If you have multiple people, move your gaze around looking at different people in turn. Written communications are a key part of the whole communications mix. There's a separate webinar on writing tips. One way to make sure you get credit for things is to make sure that you document them. If you were the lead on the project, be the first author on the documentation. Publications and patents strengthen your resume and help you stand out from the competition. In public speaking, a key thing is practice. If you're new to it, practice multiple times. Practice in front of a mirror, practice with friends, and when you go in, imagine that you're speaking to a group of friends. Think of the audience as being friendly. Relax. Spend as much of the time, again, looking at the audience. Don't spend your time looking at your slides or your computer monitor. Look at different people in the audience so that you're moving your eyes around and looking at different people. Finally, proclaim yourself an expert. You may think that you're young, you're too young to be an expert, but it doesn't take long often to be the expert in some particular technical specialty. If you don't act like an expert, no one will treat you like one. So to be an expert, you have to declare yourself an expert. You need to provide actionable recommendations, you need to pick the best solution. Don't give people a huge range of choices automatically. Give them what you think is best. Save the details for if and when they come back and ask you about it. So roll the information out as required. Have alternatives ready, but don't offer them unless people ask, "What else could we do? "What other alternatives do we have?" And state your conclusions and recommendations with confidence in your voice and body language, even if you don't feel that confident, and then you will indeed be an expert. Thank you.