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"The next time you have to speak in front of a group, give some thought ahead of time to \u201Cwhat success would look like,\u201D says Bill McGowan.\nMost people are so anxious to get a formal presentation over with, he explains, that they hurtle through it. &amp;#8220;This flattens out your tone of voice,&amp;#8221; he says, &amp;#8220;so that your listeners doesn\u2019t know how to interpret what you\u2019re saying\u201D and the point you\u2019re trying to make gets lost. Instead, he says, \u201CI ask our clients, \u2018How would you tell this to a friend over lunch?\u2019 You want the pitch of your voice to reflect your message, whether it\u2019s inspirational, exciting, or discouraging.\u201D\nA former network TV news producer, McGowan has witnessed more than his share of ho-hum speaking styles. He\u2019s spent the past 15 years as CEO of Clarity Media Group, coaching the likes of Sheryl Sandberg, Jack Welch, Eli Manning, and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell on how to keep an audience riveted. McGowan also wrote a book, Pitch Perfect: How to Say It Right the First Time.\nSince many people make New Year\u2019s resolutions to become more effective speakers, McGowan has a few suggestions he describes as \u201Cpretty simple fixes.\u201D Try these:\nSlow down and embrace pauses. \u201CMost of us are deathly afraid of silence,\u201D says McGowan. \u201CWe kid ourselves that, to sound intelligent, we must have a steady stream of audio spilling out of our mouths.\u201D The trouble is, letting our tongues get ahead of our brains produces what he calls \u201Cdreaded filler words\u201D like \u201Cuh\u201D or \u201Cum.\u201D Speak in shorter sentences instead. End each with a period, and take a breath before the next one.\nDon\u2019t use jargon-y, overcomplicated phrasing. Speakers often make the mistake of thinking jargon makes them sound smarter, McGowan observes. It doesn\u2019t. \u201CFor instance, why would you ever substitute \u2018We need to make a decision on this soon\u2019 with \u2018We\u2019re rapidly approaching a choice point on this\u2019?,\u201D he says, adding, \u201CGo ahead, laugh. I heard that one recently in the boardroom of a Fortune 100 company and almost fell out of my chair.\u201D\nAvoid the words \u201Cperspective\u201D and &amp;#8220;standpoint.\u201D \u201CThis is one of the most mind-numbing verbal habits in corporate America right now,\u201D McGowan says. &amp;#8220;Instead of saying, \u2018How are we doing against our competitors?,\u2019 we somehow feel the need to say, \u2018Looking at this from a competitive landscape perspective\u2026\u2019 I\u2019ll take the former over the latter any day.\u201D\nTry not to begin sentences with \u201Cso.\u201D \u201CLike most trends, I\u2019m pretty sure this one started in California, where people in tech companies would begin every spoken thought this way,\u201D says McGowan. When the &amp;#8220;so&amp;#8221; is drawn out into more than one syllable, \u201Cit makes your contribution sound ponderous.\u201D\nBanish \u201Ckind of\u201D and \u201Csort of\u201D from your vocabulary.  The habit of modifying statements this way may have come into vogue to prevent us from sounding too opinionated, McGowan notes. \u201CBut there\u2019s something terribly wrong when you hear a company\u2019s leader describe a key hire by saying, \u2018She was sort of the best person out there,\u2019\u201D he adds.\nHave the courage of your convictions, McGowan says: \u201CWhat the CEO, or anyone else, should be saying is simply, \u2018She is the best person for the position.\u2019\u201D Too many presentations, he adds, start by combining \u201Cso\u201D and &amp;#8220;sort of,\u201D as in, \u201CSo I thought I would sort of quickly walk you through what\u2019s been happening.\u201D Trying to sound humble can just make you sound unsure of what you&amp;#8217;re saying, or as if it\u2019s not important, or both.\nMind your body language. It might seem weird, but McGowan maintains that how high your chair is, in relation to a conference table, makes a big difference in your credibility. \u201CThis is why TV news anchor desks have been getting lower and lower since the 1980s,\u201D says McGowan. \u201CStudies show that, the lower the table in front of you appears, the more authoritative you seem.\u201D\nBefore you sit down in a meeting where you\u2019ll be speaking, McGowan recommends discreetly \u201Creaching for that lever under the chair seat and raising your chair a couple of inches.\u201D Then, keep your hands visible in front of you, not in your lap, and lean forward. \u201CIf your shoulder blades are touching the back of the chair, you\u2019re not sitting forward enough,\u201D McGowan says. You can \u201Csend a subliminal message that what you\u2019re saying is both substantive and has conviction behind it\u201D by perching on the edge of your seat, he explains. Just don\u2019t fall off."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://fortune.com/2016/01/13/speaking-skills-improvement/>