I’ve been getting conflicting advice on this.
Speaking more – you’re heard more often, presence is more clear. However, each word you say is then weighed “less” + you have more chances of messing up.
Speaking less – you’re heard less often, not as noticed. But, your words are weighed more valuably.
Does anyone have any recommendations on which is better? Right now, I try to speak up a lot during meetings/classes/etc. , even if I sometimes say something not entirely correct, but not sure if this is inadvertently going to annoy people.
Thank you!
3 comments
You’re overthinking it. But yeah I agree with you it’s better to speak more. Could also argue that it’s better to speak less than a medium amount. If you speak very little and mess up once in a big group of people who don’t know you, they won’t even remember you in the end of the day because you will be, im sorry to say this, insignificant if you are not noticed by them.
Tldr better to speak a lot or very little than a medium amount if you are afraid of messing up.
My first thought is also that you’re overthinking it. What is your goal? Who is it you want your words weighed more heavily by and for what purpose?
I think you’re maybe getting conflicting advice because you’re not quite asking the right question. you’re thinking about quantity, but most of the time you’ll be judged much more on quality – on whether what you say has value to the people you’re saying it to.
if listening to you was always 100% the most valuable thing that people around you could be doing (this is not an achievable standard, but just as a thought experiment) then you could talk all the time and they would be happy to sit and listen. if listening to you was *always* less valuable than doing something else/listening to someone else, then you words wouldn’t be taken more seriously even if you used them less.
value is context-based – the same thought can have different levels of value depending on the topic, the situation, the people you’re talking to, how you express it.
and it’s worth noting that ‘valuable’ doesn’t always mean ‘right’, and ‘right’ doesn’t always mean ‘valuable’. sometimes breaking that awkward silence after a question is valuable, even if your answer is wrong, and sometimes giving other people space to talk is more valuable to the group than giving the correct answer even if you know it.
if you talk when you have something that is more valuable than your silence would be, and don’t talk when you don’t, then you won’t go far wrong.