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Power Talk: Using Language to Build Authority and Influence www.IELTS4U.blogfa.com power talk www.IELTS4U.blogfa.com www.IELTS4U.blogfa.com power talk using language to build authority and influence SARAH MYERS MCGINTY, PH.D. www.IELTS4U.blogfa.com Chart from THE ORIGINS AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, Fourth Edition by Thomas Pyles and John Algeo, copyright © 1993 by Harcourt Inc., reproduced by permission of the publisher. www.IELTS4U.blogfa.comPOWER TALK. Copyright © 2001 by Sarah Myers McGinty, Ph.D. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review. For information address Warner Books, 1271 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020. W A Time Warner Company ISBN 0-7595-6144-3 A hardcover edition of this book was published in 2001 by Warner Books. First eBook edition: February 2001 Visit our Web site at www.iPublish.com To the boys on the team and the girl who coached www.IELTS4U.blogfa.com www.IELTS4U.blogfa.com Acknowledgments www.IELTS4U.blogfa.com When readers ask writers, “Is this book about you?,” the an- swer has to be “Yes!” While the exact relationship between the written product and the author remains inscrutable—even to the writer herself—everything in this book connects to what I’ve seen and thought, done and imagined, heard and listened for. Done properly, the naming of resources would be an im- possible task. Here, then, it must be done improperly. Acknowledging the inevitable omissions, I thank for their immediate and direct help my able, patient, and enthusiastic editor Rob McMahon, as well as Ethan Kline, Rafe Sagalyn, Geoff Colvin, and Justin Martin. The Expository Writing Program and the Teacher Ed- ucation Program at Harvard, as well as the staff at Lamont and Baker libraries, have been important in this work. My research assistant, Debra Grossman, kept me on track, and I received invaluable research support from Pat Bellanca, Sarah N. McGinty, John E. McGinty, Ann Holby, and Christopher Con- roy. Other important contributors were Charlotte Sibley, Patti vii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Hunt Dirlam, Karen Kemby, Sharon Kellogg, Herminia lbarra, Robin Wagner, Amy Kautzman, Ross Wood, Steve Sayers, Ju- dith Heller, Judy Bidwell, Bill Crowley, Andy Walter, Melinda McGinty, Karen Stevenson, Rhonda Davis Smith, Phil Driscoll, Sig Heller, Curtis Hartman, Sam Chwat, Nancy Boardman, Dan Hoffman, Caroline O’Neill, Mike and Claudia Thorn- burgh, sales personnel at Creative Office Pavilion, Michael Schu, Joe Fennewald, and the coxes and oarsmen of the Har- vard crew. The inspiration of fellow scholars, especially Vir- ginia Valian, cannot pass without mention. www.IELTS4U.blogfa.com viii Contents INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER ONE LANGUAGE FROM THE CENTER 9 CHAPTER TWO LANGUAGE FROM THE EDGE 33 CHAPTER THREE LINGUISTIC CROSS-TRAINING 53 CHAPTER FOUR PUTTING LANGUAGE TO WORK 77 CHAPTER FIVE www.IELTS4U.blogfa.comTRANSITIONS 95 CHAPTER SIX ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION 117 CHAPTER SEVEN A TRIP TO MARS AND VENUS 139 CHAPTER EIGHT A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE 151 CHAPTER NINE THE STUDY OF LINGUISTICS 164 CONCLUSION 183 NOTES 186 BIBLIOGRAPHY 194 INDEX 201 www.IELTS4U.blogfa.com A Note about Notes www.IELTS4U.blogfa.com Knowledge does not stand alone. All ideas and insights de- velop within the context of the work of other researchers, thinkers, and writers. This book is no exception, and while it is not meant to be an academic textbook, it nonetheless draws on and references the work of other scholars. I have followed the convention of trade books and do not footnote within the text; I direct you to the Notes at the end, where my sources are cited. You will find a Bibliography there as well, offering direction for follow-up reading where a topic or idea interests you. xi www.IELTS4U.blogfa.com Introduction www.IELTS4U.blogfa.com So how are things at work? • Does your boss overlook your contributions? Does your team ignore your ideas? Do your colleagues forget your suggestions? • Do you struggle to create consensus in your department? • Are you headed for a new company or a new location? • Are the skills you need for the next position different from those you mastered in entry-level work? • Are you on the fast track with a plan or stalled on the shoulder without a clue? If your answer is yes to any (or many) of these questions, this book was written for you. Work is about performance. But performance—what you’ve done, where you’ve succeeded, and who knows about it—depends on your ability to communicate. How can I make the most of the time I have to talk? How can I persuade others to follow my plan? How can I be sure my 1 SARAH MYERS MCGINTY ideas are remembered as mine? How can I create authority? How can I inspire collaboration? Speech and language choices figure into all these situations, and they are as important to the solutions as good ideas or an impressive title. Yes, work is about performance, but recognition and promotion require good communication skills. Good communication skills required. Every job posting lists good communication skills as a necessary qualification. But what are good communication skills? A loud voice? An exten- sive vocabulary? The power to persuade? The stylistic flair of a poet? We often assume communication skills aren’t much more than the ability to write a clear memo or pull together an efficient agenda. But spoken language, rather than writing, is at the heart of most business communication. Talk is how we prefer to do business. We feel inefficient and frustrated when the workday is full of messaging options, voice mail, telephone tag, and the black hole of holding. We want to talk to people directly, explain ourselves, practice our own brand of chatter andwww.IELTS4U.blogfa.com charm. While memos, e-mails, reports, and letters all con- vey important information, the relationships we create and the impressions we convey are built on what we say and how we say it. Specialists find that presentation speakers have about thirty seconds to capture the attention of an audience. Isn’t that true every time we open our mouths? As the most constant way we interact with each other, speech conveys our ideas, intelligence, and values. But it also conveys our assurance, confidence, and leadership. These factors, as well as the work we do, get us hired, adopted as a protégé, or promoted. Appearance may be the first thing people notice, but initial impressions are quickly undercut (or overcome) by words. Speech choices create power and influence. Good communication skill, as defined in this book, is an un- derstanding of how situation shapes speech and how speech shapes situation. It has nothing to do with proper grammar, ac- cents, vocabulary lessons, or the gerund. Rather, the agenda here is subversive: a look behind the scenes, a chance to exam- 2 POWER TALK ine the speech conventions of our world—the sociology of lan- guage—as a means to understanding, competence, and control. Such a behind-the-scenes view complicates understanding, but it also creates intentional (and thus more effective) speech choices. Think of the photocopying machine in the back office. You know how to make copies. But if you know something more—how it works, how to change the toner, how to clear a jam—you have real control of the tool. A higher level of un- derstanding puts you ahead of the guy who only knows how to hit the print button. Understanding speech styles and the forces that affect those styles is an advantage in the workplace far be- yond what you get from fixing a back office machine. It can give you thirty seconds more airtime in a meeting, help you stave off the assaults others make on your speech moments, build your authority, and enhance your credibility and impact. Speech awareness even supports the transition to a new po- sition or to a new employer. You can sound like a divisional head, a VP, a manager, or a supervisor while you’re learning to bewww.IELTS4U.blogfa.com one; language allows you to borrow authority from words while expertise and experience accumulate. Student teachers, for example, begin September with a few stock phrases and spend the rest of the year learning to teach. They manage with “All right, people, let’s settle down” and “This is due tomor- row” as they develop skills, strategies, and a personal style of teaching. Emily was a particular favorite. Her background was in improvisational theater. She had a special advantage because she knew, at least to begin with, it was going to be a bit of an act, a matter of sounding right until she learned the job! “Hold on!” you say. “I’ve been talking all my life. I don’t need anyone to show me how to do this. At the age of two, I set off with a firm command of ‘Da-da’ and the rest is history!” Actually, that’s part of the problem. Since we all began talk- ing without formal instruction, very little of our education fo- cused on speech and language study. There was some sentence diagramming in seventh grade and vocabulary drilling in eleventh. When you joined your firm, you learned industry buzzwords like ebitda, wacc, or double nickels. You uncon- 3 SARAH MYERS MCGINTY sciously adopted the shorthand language for the product line and the client roster. But the sociology of language—how so- cial forces and speech patterns interact—wasn’t part of either your school curriculum or your corporate training program.
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