www.fastcompany.com: You may be incredibly bright, but showing your intelligence in the moment can be challenging, like if you’re called on unexpectedly in a meeting. The most significant barrier to communicating effectively and sounding smart is the fact that we all get nervous
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The title of this article, “How To Sound Smart In A Meeting” made me laugh because it is so blunt, but so useful. I have also been very shy. When I was growing up and in elementary school, there were some classmates who had never heard me speak crazy enough. I have gotten less timid over the years, but in middle school and elementary school I struggled a lot with class participation. For some people it comes so easily, however for me it does not. I think that one reason why is because of self doubt. I went to a magnet high school, known as a school for nerds, so I always felt like my ideas were not as good, well thought out, or analytical as my peers. The same thing occurred when I assistant directed our school’s play in junior year. I was always concerned that my ideas were not good enough. I really liked what the article said about letting go of perfectionism and focus on connecting and effectively communicate your thoughts.
Now this is a helpful article! I really think that people's interview processes are just lacking in lots of cases. For some reason we don't really know how to conduct ourselves and what to say, what to do, and just how to act. Now you can definitely say that there is a lot of nervousness when going into an interview, and that will contribute to the flailing mess that most of us become. However, I think it's really important to keep improving and work on how we complete these things. I personally have practiced for interviews before by doing mock interviews with people around me, and thinking about possible questions they're going to ask in order to try and level myself out of it. I think some of the things they said in this article could be helpful, such as relying on a structure and being relatively composed with mediocrity.
This article gives some super helpful tips on effective methods to communicate knowledge. As I've grown older, I've realized that there is a significant difference between simply knowing something and knowing how to explain it. I often struggle with the issues described in this article, that I may not be matching the levels of the people I'm talking to and I can ramble instead of formulating my ideas more skillfully. These tips are ones that I will try to think about in the future because I want to be seen as a good communicator who can simultaneously teach and learn from people. One thing I have learned about myself is that, funny enough, I am quite good at sounding smart when I am not smart, and not as good at sounding smart when I am smart. I have a bad habit of being overconfident with information I am unsure about and explaining it like it is the truth even when it may not be. This is something I have recognized and have been working to get rid of recently.
Although we don’t have that many presentations in SOD, we certainly have many meetings. While we don’t necessarily go to the meetings with the intention of sounding smart, we certainly don’t want to sound stupid. Especially in theatre, where collaboration is a key characteristic, we want everyone on the team to understand each other so that we can get the project going. I completely agree with the authors’ point of view that you want to be telling a story when communicating in a way that there should be a “start, middle, and end”. I notice oftentimes when I’m lost in a conversation is when I struggle to identify those parts, and I catch myself asking “what’s the point?” Though this is definitely something that’s easier than done. Abraham’s analogy with sports team was really helpful in understanding that being able to communicate effectively comes with lots of practice. I personally find writing journals helpful in this case because you’re essentially forcing yourself to put organise thoughts into a story.
I found this article very interesting. It contains a lot of helpful information that I will keep in mind for the future. A lot of it I have known just was not put in a clear context like the article above. The article was blunt and that is something I wish more things were, it was clear, it did not beat around the bush. The writer said what they wanted to say and left it at that. I do not normally read a lot of articles like this because typically the writer tells you their whole life story before you ever get to the “useful” information and have the time, it is not useful at all. I know something I need to work on is expectations of myself. I have always held myself to a high standard but that also comes from the way I grew up. While in my house a 90% was still an A I always strived to have the highest grade physically possible, I’m not sure why to be honest it is just the way I am. It is most likely my perfectionism coming into play but still. Another area I can improve in is structure, when I get nervous or caught off guard, instead of gathering my thoughts I just start to talk which does not usually work too well, there's always a point and it typically makes sense it just takes me too long to get to the answer.
I thoroughly enjoyed this article. Being put on the spot to speak is something that gives me a lot of anxiety, but I am glad to hear that I am not alone in that. I can speak perfectly fine when I am prepared to speak and when I am needed to speak, like in an emergency situation. However, for whatever reason when it is just asked out of the blue it is more difficult. The tips and strategies provided in this article however were very useful. I often am one that builds the clock instead of telling the time and I knew that it was something that I needed to work on but it was a helpful reminder to continue working on it. The idea of meeting your audience where they are at seems both incredibly surprising and unsurprising. It is interesting to me that the way to sound smarter is to potentially dumb down the language you are using, but it makes sense so that everyone feels that they are on a level playing field and feels that they can contribute to the conversation.
I thought this was a fantastic article. Not all of the tips were life-changing but it was a nice reminder that at the end of the day, we are all only human. We don’t know everything all of the time and it is even harder to articulate what we do know sometimes. I enjoyed that it brought up how showing your intelligence at the moment can be challenging, for the article’s example they used if you’re called on unexpectedly in a meeting. This article talked about thinking about the structure of what you are saying as a base. I found this really helpful because it allows my brain to organize in a certain way right from the bat. This would give the whirlwind of information floating around in my brain an opportunity to slow down so I can actually talk about what I know instead of what I think they want to hear. Overall, this article was a good refreshing on exactly what it promised and I very much enjoyed it.
This article made me both laugh and consider how I presented myself in production meetings and social interactions. The key, both in my own personal life and in this article, is confidence. Even if you stumble over your words or give bad feedback, if you are confident in your delivery, people are more likely to excuse those mistakes and still trust your judgment when it matters on bigger issues and problems. I also really liked how the article emphasized connection between individuals, and I believe its one of the most powerful and important ways to make yourself and your ideas head. If someone truly cares about you, then they will care about you enough to listen to, and validate, your ideas and experiences. This is incredibly important in theater, and communication between departments needs to be a priority. The lesson here is that it can’t just be any communication: it needs to be real, empathetic, and direct in order to properly emotionally connect with another individual.
This is a really interesting article with a lot of cool and super helpful tips for practicing good communication, particularly in a group setting like a meeting. It’s nice to read an article like this because I feel like generally, I haven’t really gotten to hear a lot of information about how to communicate with others directly. Mostly, I think that in school and stuff, we get taught a lot of presentation skills, which are obviously similar, but a place like a meeting is still a different environment that requires a different type of thinking and communication. I thought that this article was really helpful, and I loved the perspective that being mediocre or imperfect in communication is totally okay. I definitely feel as though generally, speaking slightly imperfectly or not as coherently as physically possible is a very human and natural thing to do, and that it’s worth avoiding being a perfectionist robot.
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