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!

In spontaneous conversation or while making a presentation, fillers distract and bore the listener. 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. Again, it distracts the listener from the speaker's message.

Fillers like the ones mentioned above aren't just distracting. They diminish our presence as professionals. Think of a polished speaker who you know. Does he/she have word fillers in speech? The recent presidential nominations offer us many opportunities to listen and observe many speakers. The speakers who use "um" are less polished and less effective.

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. This is a humbling experience if you discover you are a "word filler expert" and didn't realize it!

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!

Copyright (c) 2008 Lynda Stucky