“Um”…”Uh”…”do you know what I mean”.... Kill your filler words now !

Very often you will hear, people forcefully plugging filler phrases or words like “do you know what I mean”, “Uh”, “Ummm” or many more, when they cannot figure out right content to shape the conversation. Even if you are not the most observant person, you will still notice it is a clear communication barrier which is weakening the credibility of a speaker and its content.

At dinner table with your friends, no one is concerned about how much you ramble or how effective your speak. It will struck you hard, when you are on a business conference call or on a presentation. Let's say at work, when you and one of the team member decides to jump into a debate over a project’s progress and to support your argument, you start stating facts but every additional minute you speak without organized content and with filler words, you are losing the attention of your audience. Your message has lost is essence and it sounds weak because the your thought were not organized or content was not communicated effectively.

Not everybody has skills to be speak effectively in a calm state of mind and definitely it does not come easy to all. Do you remember the 48 minutes stretched speech by Bill Clinton in 2012 vs. the epic 270 words effective address by Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg in November 1863? Which one made more impact? Certainly, Abraham Lincoln gave a powerful delivery with fewer words and created history while although Bill Clinton had an effective content to pass along, he lost attention of half of audience when he rambled for over 30 minutes.
When you write a business proposal, a research paper or a simple email at work, you have an opportunity to correct, delete or format your content. But when you need to make a phone conversation, or a presentation or conduct a virtual meeting, you are more than likely to make a mistake of using filler words and rambling the same content over and over again.
Communication skills should not be taken for granted, it requires practice and no one is a born with perfect skills- everybody learns a bit of everything everyday from professional and personal experiences.

Here are some pointers to follow if you are considering to improve your communication skills..

Charity begins at home… Practice…Practice…Practice…

If you want to be successful at work, you need to start at home. The first step is to remain calm, when you get hyper or become excited, you tend to speak fast, use sloppy language and ramble the same message. The trick here is to pause, think and act.
In this book “Pitch Perfect” by Bill McCowan, he says “Think about your brain and mouth as two cars,” Your brain is the lead car and your mouth is the car behind it. “Keep a safe verbal distance. Pause when you need to. Don’t tailgate.” Follow this simple rule and you will notice a terrific change in your speech over the time. The best example to support Bill's theory is to watch Julia Child’s cooking videos. Julia Child had a distinct quality explaining techniques about cooking. She had an organized mindset; she would go in depth to explain the techniques but she had practiced an art to hold her audiences attention by speaking in a calm mind and with an organized content.

Pitch Perfect: How to Say It Right the First Time, Every Time

Go on Diet

In workplace, it is very common that mostly in every team, we might have one John Doe during presentations, who usually eats everybody else time during those full packed agenda meetings. Then rest of them are desperately looking at their watch and eventually have to rush through rest of the presentation. The first primary clear signal is, that John Doe haven’t practiced or recorded their presentation minutes.
If you are one of the John Doe at your work, then consider to go on a crash words diet, it is very simple concept, Imagine yourself walking through a grocery isle, closely watching all the ingredients and calorie count printed on the box  or the way you count calories, while picking up a sandwich or yogurt at a café. In the similar way, you will need to carefully organized the content of your presentation which covers the points but it also concise enough so that you can leave some time for your audience to ask questions.

I would also suggest Watch the Ted Talks by Regina Hartley, she is one of the best example, how to speak on a public podium. She was able to create an impact on the audience by carefully carving her words in exactly 10 minutes.

Boil down the message: over-talking does not make you smart
The way over-eating can leave your stomach bloated and in suffering, in the same way- rambling non-stop during presentation or even in a simple phone conference, can give a serious headache to your listeners. There are several ways to improve 1) Decide- what do you want to exactly convey to your listener 2) Support- Do you have supporting content to prepare your presentation or agenda 3) Review- review the content and try to eliminate unwanted information 4) Practice- Practice Practice and more Practice.

In the end, don’t get stressed or frustrated over this, communication skills cannot be changed over the night. It is more like fermenting the best wine in the vineyard, slow and steady should be your approach.