The Power of Talking Less
“Confidence is silent. Insecurities are loud.”
People often miss to realize that they just talk too much. The power of talking less, or even more the power of not talking at all in some situations, is very underestimated. Too much talking can cost millions (explained later).
All of us have a limited cognitive bandwidth. Some have more of it, some have less. Certain individuals excel in multitasking (and holding a bunch of ideas in their heads), but no matter how good you are at it, there is a limit of thoughts that we can keep in our mind. This limit is the cognitive bandwidth, and thoughts occupying it are the cognitive load (nice post from Deborah Liu on the topic of cognitive load). Putting more and more things into this cognitive pipeline always comes with a cost. Whether it is the long-term memory that suffers, stress burden, making mistakes or failing in personal life (at home, with kids, marriage, failing to pay bills on time), something’s gotta give.
In social interactions (especially at work, but also privately), too much talking can be very tiring for the other side. In my 15 years of professional experience, I came to the realization that people who talk a lot can rapidly advance in their careers but up to a certain point. Above that, if I think of the most successful professionals I met, there are just a handful of people who talk a lot. In this post I will drop some thoughts on how too much talking can undermine your success. I find it very tiring and it definitely impacts the ‘easy to work with’ factor of a person in a negative way. Meetings or conversations with people who talk too much often leaves me exhausted and sometimes I feel that I wasn’t even able to pass on the message that I wanted and that the other side was not listening to me, but rather enjoyed listening to themselves.
Surely, there are drawbacks if one is too quiet and not assertive enough, so talking too little can be counterproductive as well. But in this post, I will focus on the other extreme.
Usual Suspects
- Presentations. When presenting a new idea, going into too many details and giving too much irrelevant information can obfuscate the main point. Sure, the context is necessary, but there is a fine line between enough context and too much information. Also, depth level should be adjusted to the audience. There is no point of digging into technical details of the algorithm if your audience are product managers or board members.
- Discussions. Engaging into discussion is often necessary, but if both sides are talking a lot it can be a huge investment in terms of time and cognitive bandwidth. Even if the outcome of the discussion is positive and there is some positive delta as a result of it, if there was too much talking, ROI (return on investment) can be poor.
- Meetings. One typical place where too much talking can be catastrophic are meetings and even more brainstorming sessions. Digressions can happen easily and there are people who excel in digressions. Having a person that can moderate meetings well, detect this on time and get the discussions back on track quickly, can literally save millions for the company (not just in time spent, but also in cognitive bandwidth saved). Moderation depends on ability to improvise, so having a clear agenda, preferably with time slots and having relevant pre-reads sent (and read by attendants!) can help immensely.
- Interviews. Another occasion where people can screw up with too much talking are interviews. It is important to be genuine and authentic during the interview (an opportunity to see if there is a match for both sides), but too much talking can screw it up. Sometimes people talk too much during interviews due to insecurity and lack of confidence (see below). If you are the interviewer, set expectations at the beginning of the interview and say that you may interrupt the candidate in the sake of covering more ground and best use of interview time.
- Giving Feedback. Speaking a lot when giving feedback, especially constructive feedback, is one of the most promising ways to undermine your own message. Old-school approach of sandwich (bad news in between two good news) is one way to ruin it. The most important message will be nested between the good stuff and can thus be easily overhearde or not taken as important. Also, sandwich can be interpreted as dishonest, which it often is. Delivering too many words even without the sandwich can also dilute the most important message that you are trying to land. Giving constructive feedback packed into a bunch of other information can make it ‘easier’ for feedback givers, but it is not the way to go.
- Reacting to Feedback.I found it interesting that, when presented with some harsh feedback about myself, people reacted best if I just thanked them for their feedback and stayed quiet (or responded very briefly). The trap I usually fall into is to try to respond with arguments or some vision behind the certain behaviour or action that the other side is giving feedback about. Even if it is perfectly grounded in truth, this will almost always leave the impression of being defensive and not responding to feedback well. And the final, worst case outcome of this is that people stop giving you feedback, since your response is just tiring for them. One reason for this can be that even if you are, as a feedback receiver, very good in overcoming all stages of the SARA model (see picture) very quickly and maturely — your response can actually be too fast. One thing that I learned recently is that the other side (the feedback giver) also needs to go through a similar thought process in accepting response to feedback and no matter how good the response is — it would just land better if given later on, more slowly and concisely. Thanking for feedback and doing some action is a way better way to respond to it than engaging into verbal discussion.
Where Does it Come From?
- Disorder. Too much talking can indicate a psychological disorder like Logorrhoea. In these cases people talk a lot fast and their thoughts are translated into speech which yields many digressions and jumping from one topic to another that can be loosely connected to the previous one. It is often hard to interrupt them. There is not a great deal of talking about themselves, which means that is not driven by some narcissistic drive, but rather caused by a mental disorder and these situations require specialised psychological treatment.
- Self-centeredness. In these cases, people just talk a lot about themselves. They are egocentric and to them it seems like the whole world is revolving around them and that only their problems are important. Narcissists will speak about their achievements and seek for affirmation, while Victim-mentality ones will speak about their problems. Both have a tendency to monopolize the conversation through long monologues and they clearly lack empathy for the other side.
- Lack of confidence. Although it can be just a style, enthusiasm, disorder or a personality trait, it is important to understand that “Talking a Lot” sometimes comes from insecurity and lack of confidence. Some people use it as a subconscious way to compensate for these. It is important that managers recognize this and check whether the person is suffering from Imposter Syndrome or is stuck somewhere in the middle of the Dunning-Kruger slope.
- Other reasons. There are other, more or less trivial reasons for talking too much like talking just because you had something prepared even if it is not relevant any more, talking to stop someone else from talking, talking to fill the silence, talking because it is your ‘turn’, talking to think, out of habit, lying etc…
Whatever the cause is, if you are a manager (or just friend or a colleague), there is a big chance that you can help the person. Bringing the topic to their awareness, giving feedback, or pointing out to some potential solutions, will help them and everyone around them.
If you are on the receiving end of this issue, it is important to understand the cause of it. If the person suffers from a disorder, they cannot hold their speech no matter how hard they try and they just need to get psychological help.
If the talking comes from their ego, you can give them feedback. But always do it mindfully, politely and with the emphasis of constructive help by pointing out the importance of listening. You can figure out what they are trying to say, politely interrupt them and then rephrase that with your own words and thus prevent them from going further. Use the opportunity to point this out in hope they learn from this example.
If the message does not land with them, no matter how hard you try, maybe you just need to save your own bandwidth, set boundaries and walk away. It is ok to say: “Sorry, I am busy now”, “Sorry to interrupt now, but we have much left to cover on our agenda for today” or “Thanks, let’s get back to the topic for the sake of time”.
And if the talking comes from lack of confidence, you can coach the person.
If you find yourself as the one who is talking too much, there is good news — it can be worked on. You can practice bottom-lining i.e. trying to condense your message down to the main points. Ask yourself: What are the main points that I want to say? What do I want for people to take away from my talk?
Another thing that can help is to slow down and be patient. E.g. in a meeting, let other people speak before you make your own point.
Seek for feedback. After a presentation or an intense meeting, ask the other side: Was I talking too much? Do you think that I could have explained that in another way? What do you think could help in landing my message over there?
It is important to understand that too much talking is consuming our cognitive bandwidth, obfuscating messages we want to send over and it is just tiring and often even exhausting and in general counterproductive.
Sometimes, we just need to talk less.
