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The Power of Talk:Who Gets Heard and Why

by Deborah Tannen

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Harvard Business Review

reasonable approach. But my field of research, socio-linguistics, suggests otherwise. The CEO obviouslythinks he knows what a confident person soundslike. But his judgment, which may be dead right forsome people, may be dead wrong for others.

Communication isn’t as simple as saying whatyou mean. How you say what you mean is crucial,and differs from one person to the next, because us-ing language is learned social behavior: How wetalk and listen are deeply influenced by cultural ex-perience. Although we might think that our waysof saying what we mean are natural, we can runinto trouble if we interpret and evaluate others as if they necessarily felt the same way we’d feel if wespoke the way they did.

Since 1974, I have been researching the influenceof linguistic style on conversations and human re-

Copyright © 1995 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. All rights reserved. PHOTOS BY CHRISTOPHER MAKOS

Deborah Tannen is University Professor and a professorof linguistics at Georgetown University in Washington,D.C. She is the author of 15 books, including You JustDon’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation(William Morrow, 1990), which introduced to the gen-eral public the idea of female and male styles of com-munication. The material in this article is drawn fromTalking from 9 to 5 (Avon Books, 1995).

The Power of Talk:

The head of a large division of a multinationalcorporation was running a meeting devoted to per-formance assessment. Each senior manager stoodup, reviewed the individuals in his group, and eval-uated them for promotion. Although there werewomen in every group, not one of them made thecut. One after another, each manager declared, ineffect, that every woman in his group didn’t havethe self-confidence needed to be promoted. The di-vision head began to doubt his ears. How could it bethat all the talented women in the division sufferedfrom a lack of self-confidence?

In all likelihood, they didn’t. Consider the manywomen who have left large corporations to starttheir own businesses, obviously exhibiting enoughconfidence to succeed on their own. Judgmentsabout confidence can be inferred only from the waypeople present themselves, and much of that pre-sentation is in the form of talk.

The CEO of a major corporation told me that heoften has to make decisions in five minutes aboutmatters on which others may have worked fivemonths. He said he uses this rule: If the personmaking the proposal seems confident, the CEO ap-proves it. If not, he says no. This might seem like a

by Deborah Tannen

Who GetsHeardand Why

lationships. In the past four years, I have extendedthat research to the workplace, where I have ob-served how ways of speaking learned in childhoodaffect judgments of competence and confidence, aswell as who gets heard, who gets credit, and whatgets done.

The division head who was dumbfounded to hearthat all the talented women in his organizationlacked confidence was probably right to be skepti-cal. The senior managers were judging the womenin their groups by their own linguistic norms, butwomen– like people who have grown up in a differ-ent culture – have often learned different styles ofspeaking than men, which can make them seemless competent and self-assured than they are.

What Is Linguistic Style?Everything that is said must be said in a certain

way – in a certain tone of voice, at a certain rate of speed, and with a certain degree of loudness.Whereas often we consciously consider what to saybefore speaking, we rarely think about how to sayit, unless the situation is obviously loaded – for ex-ample, a job interview or a tricky performance re-

view. Linguistic style refers to a person’s character-istic speaking pattern. It includes such features asdirectness or indirectness, pacing and pausing,word choice, and the use of such elements as jokes,figures of speech, stories, questions, and apologies.In other words, linguistic style is a set of culturallylearned signals by which we not only communicatewhat we mean but also interpret others’ meaningand evaluate one another as people.

Consider turn taking, one element of linguisticstyle. Conversation is an enterprise in which peo-ple take turns: One person speaks, then the otherresponds. However, this apparently simple ex-change requires a subtle negotiation of signals sothat you know when the other person is finishedand it’s your turn to begin. Cultural factors such ascountry or region of origin and ethnic backgroundinfluence how long a pause seems natural. WhenBob, who is from Detroit, has a conversation withhis colleague Joe, from New York City, it’s hard forhim to get a word in edgewise because he expects aslightly longer pause between turns than Joe does.A pause of that length never comes because, beforeit has a chance to, Joe senses an uncomfortable si-lence, which he fills with more talk of his own.

HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW September-October 1995 139

We all know what confidence, competence, and authority sound like. Or do we?

Both men fail to realize that differences in conver-sational style are getting in their way. Bob thinksthat Joe is pushy and uninterested in what he has to say, and Joe thinks that Bob doesn’t have much tocontribute. Similarly, when Sally relocated fromTexas to Washington, D.C., she kept searching forthe right time to break in during staff meetings –and never found it. Although in Texas she was con-sidered outgoing and confident, in Washington shewas perceived as shy and retiring. Her boss evensuggested she take an assertiveness training course.Thus slight differences in conversational style – inthese cases, a few seconds of pause–can have a sur-prising impact on who gets heard and on the judg-ments, including psychological ones, that are madeabout people and their abilities.

Every utterance functions on two levels. We’reall familiar with the first one: Language communi-cates ideas. The second level is mostly invisible tous, but it plays a powerful role in communication.As a form of social behavior, language also negoti-ates relationships. Through ways of speaking, wesignal – and create – the relative status of speakersand their level of rapport. If you say, “Sit down!”you are signaling that you have higher status thanthe person you are addressing, that you are so closeto each other that you can drop all pleasantries, orthat you are angry. If you say, “I would be honored if you would sit down,” you are signaling great respect – or great sarcasm, depending on your toneof voice, the situation, and what you both knowabout how close you really are. If you say, “Youmust be so tired – why don’t you sit down,” you arecommunicating either closeness and concern orcondescension. Each of these ways of saying “thesame thing” – telling someone to sit down – canhave a vastly different meaning.

In every community known to linguists, the pat-terns that constitute linguistic style are relativelydifferent for men and women. What’s “natural” formost men speaking a given language is, in somecases, different from what’s “natural” for mostwomen. That is because we learn ways of speakingas children growing up, especially from peers, andchildren tend to play with other children of thesame sex. The research of sociologists, anthropolo-gists, and psychologists observing American chil-dren at play has shown that, although both girls andboys find ways of creating rapport and negotiatingstatus, girls tend to learn conversational ritualsthat focus on the rapport dimension of relation-ships whereas boys tend to learn rituals that focuson the status dimension.

Girls tend to play with a single best friend or insmall groups, and they spend a lot of time talking.

They use language to negotiate how close they are;for example, the girl you tell your secrets to be-comes your best friend. Girls learn to downplayways in which one is better than the others and toemphasize ways in which they are all the same.From childhood, most girls learn that sounding toosure of themselves will make them unpopular withtheir peers – although nobody really takes suchmodesty literally. A group of girls will ostracize agirl who calls attention to her own superiority andcriticize her by saying, “She thinks she’s some-thing”; and a girl who tells others what to do iscalled “bossy.” Thus girls learn to talk in ways thatbalance their own needs with those of others – tosave face for one another in the broadest sense ofthe term.

Boys tend to play very differently. They usuallyplay in larger groups in which more boys can be in-cluded, but not everyone is treated as an equal. Boyswith high status in their group are expected to em-phasize rather than downplay their status, and usu-ally one or several boys will be seen as the leader orleaders. Boys generally don’t accuse one another ofbeing bossy, because the leader is expected to telllower-status boys what to do. Boys learn to use lan-guage to negotiate their status in the group by dis-playing their abilities and knowledge, and by chal-lenging others and resisting challenges. Givingorders is one way of getting and keeping the high-status role. Another is taking center stage by tellingstories or jokes.

This is not to say that all boys and girls grow upthis way or feel comfortable in these groups or areequally successful at negotiating within thesenorms. But, for the most part, these childhood playgroups are where boys and girls learn their conver-sational styles. In this sense, they grow up in differ-ent worlds. The result is that women and men tendto have different habitual ways of saying what theymean, and conversations between them can be likecross-cultural communication: You can’t assumethat the other person means what you would meanif you said the same thing in the same way.

My research in companies across the UnitedStates shows that the lessons learned in childhoodcarry over into the workplace. Consider the follow-ing example: A focus group was organized at a ma-jor multinational company to evaluate a recentlyimplemented flextime policy. The participants satin a circle and discussed the new system. The groupconcluded that it was excellent, but they alsoagreed on ways to improve it. The meeting wentwell and was deemed a success by all, according tomy own observations and everyone’s comments tome. But the next day, I was in for a surprise.

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140 HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW September-October 1995

I had left the meeting with the impression thatPhil had been responsible for most of the sugges-

tions adopted by the group. But as I typed up mynotes, I noticed that Cheryl had made almost

all those suggestions. I had thought that thekey ideas came from Phil because he hadpicked up Cheryl’s points and supportedthem, speaking at greater length in doing so

than she had in raising them.It would be easy to regard Phil as having

stolen Cheryl’s ideas – and her thunder. Butthat would be inaccurate. Phil never claimedCheryl’s ideas as his own. Cheryl herself toldme later that she left the meeting confidentthat she had contributed significantly, and thatshe appreciated Phil’s support. She volun-teered, with a laugh, “It was not one of those

times when a woman says something andit’s ignored, then a man says it and it’spicked up.” In other words, Cheryl andPhil worked well as a team, the group ful-

filled its charge, and the company got whatit needed. So what was the problem?

I went back and asked all the participantswho they thought had been the most influen-tial group member, the one most responsiblefor the ideas that had been adopted. The pat-tern of answers was revealing. The two other

women in the group named Cheryl. Two of thethree men named Phil. Of the men, only Philnamed Cheryl. In other words, in this instance, thewomen evaluated the contribution of anotherwoman more accurately than the men did.

Meetings like this take place daily in companiesaround the country. Unless managers are unusuallygood at listening closely to how people say whatthey mean, the talents of someone like Cheryl maywell be undervalued and underutilized.

One Up, One DownIndividual speakers vary in how sensitive they

are to the social dynamics of language – in otherwords, to the subtle nuances of what others say tothem. Men tend to be sensitive to the power dy-namics of interaction, speaking in ways that posi-tion themselves as one up and resisting being put ina one-down position by others. Women tend to re-act more strongly to the rapport dynamic, speakingin ways that save face for others and buffering state-ments that could be seen as putting others in a one-

down position. These linguistic patterns are perva-sive; you can hear them in hundreds of exchangesin the workplace every day. And, as in the case ofCheryl and Phil, they affect who gets heard andwho gets credit.

Getting Credit. Even so small a linguistic strate-gy as the choice of pronoun can affect who getscredit. In my research in the workplace, I heardmen say “I” in situations where I heard women say“we.” For example, one publishing company execu-tive said, “I’m hiring a new manager. I’m going toput him in charge of my marketing division,” as ifhe owned the corporation. In stark contrast, Irecorded women saying “we” when referring towork they alone had done. One woman explainedthat it would sound too self-promoting to claimcredit in an obvious way by saying, “I did this.” Yetshe expected–sometimes vainly–that others wouldknow it was her work and would give her the creditshe did not claim for herself.

Managers might leap to the conclusion thatwomen who do not take credit for what they’vedone should be taught to do so. But that solution is

problematic because we associate ways of speakingwith moral qualities: The way we speak is who weare and who we want to be.

Veronica, a senior researcher in a high-tech com-pany, had an observant boss. He noticed that manyof the ideas coming out of the group were hers butthat often someone else trumpeted them aroundthe office and got credit for them. He advised her to“own” her ideas and make sure she got the credit.But Veronica found she simply didn’t enjoy herwork if she had to approach it as what seemed toher an unattractive and unappealing “grabbinggame.” It was her dislike of such behavior that hadled her to avoid it in the first place.

Whatever the motivation, women are less likelythan men to have learned to blow their own horn.And they are more likely than men to believe that ifthey do so, they won’t be liked.

Many have argued that the growing trend of as-signing work to teams may be especially congenialto women, but it may also create complications forperformance evaluation. When ideas are generatedand work is accomplished in the privacy of theteam, the outcome of the team’s effort may becomeassociated with the person most vocal about report-ing results. There are many women and men – butprobably relatively more women – who are reluc-tant to put themselves forward in this way and


Even the choice of pronoun can affect who gets credit.

who consequently risk not getting credit for theircontributions.

Confidence and Boasting. The CEO who basedhis decisions on the confidence level of speakerswas articulating a value that is widely shared inU.S. businesses: One way to judge confidence is byan individual’s behavior, especially verbal behavior.Here again, many women are at a disadvantage.

Studies show that women are more likely todownplay their certainty and men are more likelyto minimize their doubts. Psychologist LaurieHeatherington and her colleagues devised an inge-nious experiment, which they reported in the jour-nal Sex Roles (Volume 29, 1993). They asked hun-dreds of incoming college students to predict whatgrades they would get in their first year. Some sub-jects were asked to make their predictions privatelyby writing them down and placing them in an enve-lope; others were asked to make their predictionspublicly, in the presence of a researcher. The resultsshowed that more women than men predicted low-er grades for themselves if they made their predic-tions publicly. If they made their predictions pri-vately, the predictions were the same as those ofthe men – and the same as their actual grades. Thisstudy provides evidence that what comes across aslack of confidence–predicting lower grades for one-self – may reflect not one’s actual level of confi-dence but the desire not to seem boastful.

These habits with regard to appearing humble orconfident result from the socialization of boys andgirls by their peers in childhood play. As adults,both women and men find these behaviors rein-forced by the positive responses they get fromfriends and relatives who share the same norms.But the norms of behavior in the U.S. businessworld are based on the style of interaction that ismore common among men–at least, among Ameri-can men.

Asking Questions. Although asking the rightquestions is one of the hallmarks of a good man-ager, how and when questions are asked can sendunintended signals about competence and power.In a group, if only one person asks questions, he or she risks being seen as the only ignorant one.Furthermore, we judge others not only by how they speak but also by how they are spoken to. Theperson who asks questions may end up being lec-tured to and looking like a novice under a school-master’s tutelage. The way boys are socializedmakes them more likely to be aware of the underly-ing power dynamic by which a question asker canbe seen in a one-down position.

One practicing physician learned the hard waythat any exchange of information can become the

basis for judgments – or misjudgments – about com-petence. During her training, she received a nega-tive evaluation that she thought was unfair, so sheasked her supervising physician for an explanation.He said that she knew less than her peers. Amazedat his answer, she asked how he had reached thatconclusion. He said, “You ask more questions.”

Along with cultural influences and individualpersonality, gender seems to play a role in whetherand when people ask questions. For example, of allthe observations I’ve made in lectures and books,the one that sparks the most enthusiastic flash ofrecognition is that men are less likely than womento stop and ask for directions when they are lost. Iexplain that men often resist asking for directionsbecause they are aware that it puts them in a one-down position and because they value the indepen-dence that comes with finding their way by them-selves. Asking for directions while driving is onlyone instance – along with many others that re-searchers have examined – in which men seem lesslikely than women to ask questions. I believe this isbecause they are more attuned than women to thepotential face-losing aspect of asking questions.And men who believe that asking questions mightreflect negatively on them may, in turn, be likely toform a negative opinion of others who ask ques-tions in situations where they would not.

Conversational RitualsConversation is fundamentally ritual in the

sense that we speak in ways our culture has con-ventionalized and expect certain types of responses.Take greetings, for example. I have heard visitors tothe United States complain that Americans are

hypocritical because they ask how you are butaren’t interested in the answer. To Americans, Howare you? is obviously a ritualized way to start a con-versation rather than a literal request for informa-tion. In other parts of the world, including thePhilippines, people ask each other, “Where are yougoing?” when they meet. The question seems in-trusive to Americans, who do not realize that it,too, is a ritual query to which the only expected re-ply is a vague “Over there.”

It’s easy and entertaining to observe different rit-uals in foreign countries. But we don’t expect differ-ences, and are far less likely to recognize the ritual-ized nature of our conversations, when we are withour compatriots at work. Our differing rituals can

THE POWER OF TALK


Women are likely to downplay

be even more problematic when we think we’re allspeaking the same language.

Apologies. Consider the simple phrase I’m sorry.Catherine: How did that big presentation go?Bob: Oh, not very well. I got a lot of flak from the VP forfinance, and I didn’t have the numbers at my fingertips.Catherine: Oh, I’m sorry. I know how hard you workedon that.

In this case, I’m sorry probably means “I’m sorrythat happened,” not “I apologize,” unless it wasCatherine’s responsibility to supply Bob with thenumbers for the presentation. Women tend to sayI’m sorry more frequently than men, and often theyintend it in this way – as a ritualized means of ex-pressing concern. It’s one of many learned elementsof conversational style that girls often use to estab-lish rapport. Ritual apologies – like other conversa-tional rituals – work well when both parties sharethe same assumptions about their use. But peoplewho utter frequent ritual apologies may end up ap-pearing weaker, less confident, and literally moreblameworthy than people who don’t.

Apologies tend to be regarded differently by men,who are more likely to focus on the status implica-tions of exchanges. Many men avoid apologies be-cause they see them as putting the speaker in a one-down position. I observed with some amazementan encounter among several lawyers engaged in anegotiation over a speakerphone. At one point, thelawyer in whose office I was sitting accidentally el-bowed the telephone and cut off the call. When hissecretary got the parties back on again, I expectedhim to say what I would have said: “Sorry aboutthat. I knocked the phone with my elbow.” Instead,he said, “Hey, what happened? One minute youwere there; the next minute you were gone!” This

lawyer seemed to have an automatic impulse not toadmit fault if he didn’t have to. For me, it was one ofthose pivotal moments when you realize that theworld you live in is not the one everyone lives inand that the way you assume is the way to talk isreally only one of many.

Those who caution managers not to underminetheir authority by apologizing are approaching inter-action from the perspective of the power dynamic.In many cases, this strategy is effective. On theother hand, when I asked people what frustratedthem in their jobs, one frequently voiced complaintwas working with or for someone who refuses toapologize or admit fault. In other words, acceptingresponsibility for errors and admitting mistakes


may be an equally effective or superior strategy insome settings.

Feedback. Styles of giving feedback contain a rit-ual element that often is the cause for misunder-standing. Consider the following exchange: A man-ager had to tell her marketing director to rewrite areport. She began this potentially awkward taskby citing the report’s strengths and thenmoved to the main point: the weaknessesthat needed to be remedied. The marketingdirector seemed to understand and accepthis supervisor’s comments, but his revisioncontained only minor changes and failed toaddress the major weaknesses. When themanager told him of her dissatisfaction, heaccused her of misleading him: “You toldme it was fine.”

The impasse resulted from differentlinguistic styles. To the manager, itwas natural to buffer the criticism bybeginning with praise. Telling hersubordinate that his report is inade-quate and has to be rewritten putshim in a one-down position. Prais-ing him for the parts that are good isa ritualized way of saving face forhim. But the marketing director didnot share his supervisor’s assump-tion about how feedback shouldbe given. Instead, he assumedthat what she mentioned firstwas the main point and thatwhat she brought up later wasan afterthought.

Those who expect feedback tocome in the way the manager present-

ed it would appreciate her tact andwould regard a more blunt approach asunnecessarily callous. But those who sharethe marketing director’s assumptionswould regard the blunt approach as hon-est and no-nonsense, and the manag-er’s as obfuscating. Because each one’sassumptions seemed self-evident, eachblamed the other: The manager thought themarketing director was not listening, and hethought she had not communicated clearly or hadchanged her mind. This is significant because itillustrates that incidents labeled vaguely as “poorcommunication” may be the result of differing lin-guistic styles.

their certainty; men are likely to minimize their doubts.

Compliments. Exchanging compliments is acommon ritual, especially among women. A mis-match in expectations about this ritual left Susan, a manager in the human resources field, in a one-down position. She and her colleague Bill had bothgiven presentations at a national conference. Onthe airplane home, Susan told Bill, “That was agreat talk!” “Thank you,” he said. Then she asked,“What did you think of mine?” He responded witha lengthy and detailed critique, as she listened un-comfortably. An unpleasant feeling of having beenput down came over her. Somehow she had beenpositioned as the novice in need of his expert ad-vice. Even worse, she had only herself to blame,since she had, after all, asked Bill what he thoughtof her talk.

But had Susan asked for the response she re-ceived? When she asked Bill what he thought abouther talk, she expected to hear not a critique but acompliment. In fact, her question had been an at-tempt to repair a ritual gone awry. Susan’s initialcompliment to Bill was the kind of automaticrecognition she felt was more or less required af-

ter a colleague gives a presentation, and she ex-pected Bill to respond with a matching compli-ment. She was just talking automatically, buthe either sincerely misunderstood the ritualor simply took the opportunity to bask in the one-up position of critic. Whatever hismotivation, it was Susan’s attempt to sparkan exchange of compliments that gave himthe opening.

Although this exchange could have oc-curred between two men, it does not seemcoincidental that it happened between a

man and a woman. Linguist Janet Holmesdiscovered that women pay more compli-

ments than men (Anthropological Lin-guistics, Volume 28, 1986). And, as I

have observed, fewer men are likelyto ask, “What did you think of my

talk?” precisely because the questionmight invite an unwanted critique.In the social structure of the peer groups

in which they grow up, boys are indeed

looking for opportunities to put others downand take the one-up position for themselves. Incontrast, one of the rituals girls learn is takingthe one-down position but assuming that theother person will recognize the ritual nature of

the self-denigration and pull them back up.

The exchange between Susan and Bill also sug-gests how women’s and men’s characteristic stylesmay put women at a disadvantage in the workplace.If one person is trying to minimize status differ-ences, maintain an appearance that everyone isequal, and save face for the other, while anotherperson is trying to maintain the one-up positionand avoid being positioned as one down, the personseeking the one-up position is likely to get it. At thesame time, the person who has not been expendingany effort to avoid the one-down position is likelyto end up in it. Because women are more likely totake (or accept) the role of advice seeker, men aremore inclined to interpret a ritual question from awoman as a request for advice.

Ritual Opposition. Apologizing, mitigating criti-cism with praise, and exchanging compliments arerituals common among women that men often takeliterally. A ritual common among men that womenoften take literally is ritual opposition.

A woman in communications told me shewatched with distaste and distress as her officemate argued heatedly with another colleague aboutwhose division should suffer budget cuts. She waseven more surprised, however, that a short timelater they were as friendly as ever. “How can youpretend that fight never happened?” she asked.“Who’s pretending it never happened?” he responded,as puzzled by her question as she had been by hisbehavior. “It happened,” he said, “and it’s over.”What she took as literal fighting to him was a rou-tine part of daily negotiation: a ritual fight.

Many Americans expect the discussion of ideasto be a ritual fight – that is, an exploration throughverbal opposition. They present their own ideas inthe most certain and absolute form they can, andwait to see if they are challenged. Being forced todefend an idea provides an opportunity to test it. Inthe same spirit, they may play devil’s advocate inchallenging their colleagues’ ideas – trying to pokeholes and find weaknesses – as a way of helpingthem explore and test their ideas.

This style can work well if everyone shares it, but those unaccustomed to it are likely to miss itsritual nature. They may give up an idea that is

challenged, taking the objections as an indicationthat the idea was a poor one. Worse, they may takethe opposition as a personal attack and may find itimpossible to do their best in a contentious envi-ronment. People unaccustomed to this style mayhedge when stating their ideas in order to fend off

THE POWER OF TALK


Men are more attuned than women to the potential face-losing

potential attacks. Ironically, this posture makestheir arguments appear weak and is more likely to invite attack from pugnacious colleagues than tofend it off.

Ritual opposition can even play a role in who getshired. Some consulting firms that recruit graduatesfrom the top business schools use a confrontational

interviewing technique. They challenge the candi-date to “crack a case” in real time. A partner at onefirm told me, “Women tend to do less well in thiskind of interaction, and it certainly affects who getshired. But, in fact, many women who don’t ‘testwell’ turn out to be good consultants. They’re oftensmarter than some of the men who looked like ana-lytic powerhouses under pressure.”

The level of verbal opposition varies from onecompany’s culture to the next, but I saw instancesof it in all the organizations I studied. Anyone whois uncomfortable with this linguistic style – andthat includes some men as well as many women –risks appearing insecure about his or her ideas.

Negotiating Authority In organizations, formal authority comes from

the position one holds. But actual authority has tobe negotiated day to day. The effectiveness of indi-vidual managers depends in part on their skill in ne-gotiating authority and on whether others reinforceor undercut their efforts. The way linguistic stylereflects status plays a subtle role in placing individ-uals within a hierarchy.

Managing Up and Down. In all the companies Iresearched, I heard from women who knew they

were doing a superior job and knew that their co-workers (and sometimes their immediate bosses)knew it as well, but believed that the higher-ups didnot. They frequently told me that something out-side themselves was holding them back and foundit frustrating because they thought that all that

should be necessary for success was to do a greatjob, that superior performance should be recog-nized and rewarded. In contrast, men often told methat if women weren’t promoted, it was becausethey simply weren’t up to snuff. Looking around,however, I saw evidence that men more often thanwomen behaved in ways likely to get them recog-

nized by those with the power to de-termine their advancement.

In all the companies I visited, I ob-served what happened at lunchtime.I saw young men who regularly atelunch with their boss, and seniormen who ate with the big boss. I no-ticed far fewer women who soughtout the highest-level person theycould eat with. But one is more like-ly to get recognition for work done if

one talks about it to those higher up, and it is easierto do so if the lines of communication are alreadyopen. Furthermore, given the opportunity for a con-versation with superiors, men and women are like-ly to have different ways of talking about their ac-complishments because of the different ways inwhich they were socialized as children. Boys are re-warded by their peers if they talk up their achieve-ments, whereas girls are rewarded if they playtheirs down. Linguistic styles common among menmay tend to give them some advantages when itcomes to managing up.

All speakers are aware of the status of the personthey are talking to and adjust accordingly. Everyonespeaks differently when talking to a boss than whentalking to a subordinate. But, surprisingly, the waysin which they adjust their talk may be different andthus may project different images of themselves.

Communications researchers Karen Tracy andEric Eisenberg studied how relative status affectsthe way people give criticism. They devised a busi-ness letter that contained some errors and asked 13male and 11 female college students to role-play de-livering criticism under two scenarios. In the first,the speaker was a boss talking to a subordinate; inthe second, the speaker was a subordinate talkingto his or her boss. The researchers measured howhard the speakers tried to avoid hurting the feelingsof the person they were criticizing.

One might expect people to be more carefulabout how they deliver criticism when they are in asubordinate position. Tracy and Eisenberg foundthat hypothesis to be true for the men in their studybut not for the women. As they reported in Re-search on Language and Social Interaction (Vol-ume 24, 1990/1991), the women showed more con-cern about the other person’s feelings when they


Those who are uncomfortablewith verbal opposition – womenor men – run the risk of seeminginsecure about their ideas.

aspect of asking questions.

were playing the role of superior. In other words,the women were more careful to save face for theother person when they were managing down thanwhen they were managing up. This pattern recallsthe way girls are socialized: Those who are in someway superior are expected to downplay rather thanflaunt their superiority.

In my own recordings of workplace communica-tion, I observed women talking in similar ways. Forexample, when a manager had to correct a mistake

made by her secretary, she did so by acknowledgingthat there were mitigating circumstances. She said,laughing, “You know, it’s hard to do things aroundhere, isn’t it, with all these people coming in!” Themanager was saving face for her subordinate, justlike the female students role-playing in the Tracyand Eisenberg study.

Is this an effective way to communicate? Onemust ask, effective for what? The manager in ques-tion established a positive environment in hergroup, and the work was done effectively. On theother hand, numerous women in many differentfields told me that their bosses say they don’t pro-ject the proper authority.

Indirectness. Another linguistic signal thatvaries with power and status is indirectness – thetendency to say what we mean without spelling itout in so many words. Despite the widespread be-lief in the United States that it’s always best to sayexactly what we mean, indirectness is a fundamen-tal and pervasive element in human communica-tion. It also is one of the elements that vary mostfrom one culture to another, and it can cause enor-mous misunderstanding when speakers have differ-ent habits and expectations about how it is used.It’s often said that American women are more indi-rect than American men, but in fact everyone tendsto be indirect in some situations and in differ-ent ways. Allowing for cultural, ethnic, regional,and individual differences, women are especiallylikely to be indirect when it comes to telling oth-ers what to do, which is not surprising, consideringgirls’ readiness to brand other girls as bossy. On the other hand, men are especially likely to be in-direct when it comes to admitting fault or weakness,which also is not surprising, considering boys’ readi-

ness to push around boys who assume the one-downposition.

At first glance, it would seem that only the pow-erful can get away with bald commands such as,“Have that report on my desk by noon.” But powerin an organization also can lead to requests so indi-rect that they don’t sound like requests at all. Aboss who says, “Do we have the sales data by prod-uct line for each region?” would be surprised andfrustrated if a subordinate responded, “We probably

do” rather than “I’ll get it for you.”Examples such as these notwith-

standing, many researchers haveclaimed that those in subordinatepositions are more likely to speak in-directly, and that is surely accuratein some situations. For example, lin-guist Charlotte Linde, in a studypublished in Language in Society

(Volume 17, 1988), examined the black-box conver-sations that took place between pilots and copilotsbefore airplane crashes. In one particularly tragicinstance, an Air Florida plane crashed into the Potomac River immediately after attempting take-off from National Airport in Washington, D.C.,killing all but 5 of the 74 people on board. The pilot,it turned out, had little experience flying in icyweather. The copilot had a bit more, and it becameheartbreakingly clear on analysis that he had triedto warn the pilot but had done so indirectly. Alertedby Linde’s observation, I examined the transcript ofthe conversations and found evidence of her hy-pothesis. The copilot repeatedly called attention tothe bad weather and to ice buildup on other planes:Copilot: Look how the ice is just hanging on his, ah, back,back there, see that? See all those icicles on the backthere and everything? Pilot: Yeah.

[The copilot also expressed concern about the longwaiting time since deicing.] Copilot: Boy, this is a, this is a losing battle here on tryingto deice those things; it [gives] you a false feeling of secu-rity, that’s all that does.

[Just before they took off, the copilot expressed anotherconcern – about abnormal instrument readings – butagain he didn’t press the matter when it wasn’t picked upby the pilot.]Copilot: That don’t seem right, does it? [3-second pause].Ah, that’s not right. Well–Pilot: Yes it is, there’s 80.Copilot: Naw, I don’t think that’s right. [7-second pause]Ah, maybe it is.

Shortly thereafter, the plane took off, with tragicresults. In other instances as well as this one, Lindeobserved that copilots, who are second in com-mand, are more likely to express themselves indi-


People in powerful positions arelikely to reward linguistic stylessimilar to their own.

rectly or otherwise mitigate, or soften, their com-munication when they are suggesting courses of ac-tion to the pilot. In an effort to avert similar disas-ters, some airlines now offer training for copilots toexpress themselves in more assertive ways.

This solution seems self-evidently appropriate tomost Americans. But when I assigned Linde’s arti-cle in a graduate seminar I taught, a Japanese stu-dent pointed out that it would be just as effective totrain pilots to pick up on hints. This approach re-flects assumptions about communication that typ-ify Japanese culture, which places great value on theability of people to understand one another withoutputting everything into words. Either directness orindirectness can be a successful means of commu-nication as long as the linguistic style is understoodby the participants.

In the world of work, however, there is more atstake than whether the communication is under-stood. People in powerful positions are likely to re-ward styles similar to their own, because we alltend to take as self-evident the logic of our ownstyles. Accordingly, there is evidence that in theU.S. workplace, where instructions from a superiorare expected to be voiced in a relatively direct man-ner, those who tend to be indirect when telling sub-ordinates what to do may be perceived as lacking inconfidence.

Consider the case of the manager at a nationalmagazine who was responsible for giving assign-ments to reporters. She tended to phrase her assign-ments as questions. For example, she asked, “Howwould you like to do the X project with Y?” or said,“I was thinking of putting you on the X project. Isthat okay?” This worked extremely well with herstaff; they liked working for her, and the work gotdone in an efficient and orderly manner. But whenshe had her midyear evaluation with her own boss,he criticized her for not assuming the proper de-meanor with her staff.

In any work environment, the higher-rankingperson has the power to enforce his or her view ofappropriate demeanor, created in part by linguisticstyle. In most U.S. contexts, that view is likely to as-sume that the person in authority has the right tobe relatively direct rather than to mitigate orders.There also are cases, however, in which the higher-ranking person assumes a more indirect style. Theowner of a retail operation told her subordinate, astore manager, to do something. He said he woulddo it, but a week later he still hadn’t. They wereable to trace the difficulty to the following conver-sation: She had said, “The bookkeeper needs helpwith the billing. How would you feel about helpingher out?” He had said, “Fine.” This conversation

had seemed to be clear and flawless at the time, butit turned out that they had interpreted this simpleexchange in very different ways. She thought hemeant, “Fine, I’ll help the bookkeeper out.” Hethought he meant, “Fine, I’ll think about how Iwould feel about helping the bookkeeper out.” Hedid think about it and came to the conclusion thathe had more important things to do and couldn’tspare the time.

To the owner, “How would you feel about help-ing the bookkeeper out?” was an obviously appro-priate way to give the order “Help the bookkeeperout with the billing.” Those who expect orders tobe given as bald imperatives may find such locu-tions annoying or even misleading. But those forwhom this style is natural do not think they are be-ing indirect. They believe they are being clear in apolite or respectful way.

What is atypical in this example is that the per-son with the more indirect style was the boss, sothe store manager was motivated to adapt to herstyle. She still gives orders the same way, but thestore manager now understands how she meanswhat she says. It’s more common in U.S. businesscontexts for the highest-ranking people to take amore direct style, with the result that many womenin authority risk being judged by their superiors aslacking the appropriate demeanor – and, conse-quently, lacking confidence.

What to Do?I am often asked, What is the best way to give

criticism? or What is the best way to give orders? –in other words, What is the best way to communi-cate? The answer is that there is no one best way.The results of a given way of speaking will vary de-pending on the situation, the culture of the compa-ny, the relative rank of speakers, their linguisticstyles, and how those styles interact with one an-other. Because of all those influences, any way ofspeaking could be perfect for communicating withone person in one situation and disastrous withsomeone else in another. The critical skill for man-agers is to become aware of the workings and powerof linguistic style, to make sure that people withsomething valuable to contribute get heard.

It may seem, for example, that running a meetingin an unstructured way gives equal opportunity toall. But awareness of the differences in conversa-tional style makes it easy to see the potential forunequal access. Those who are comfortable speak-ing up in groups, who need little or no silence be-fore raising their hands, or who speak out easilywithout waiting to be recognized are far more likely

THE POWER OF TALK


to get heard at meetings. Those who refrain fromtalking until it’s clear that the previous speaker isfinished, who wait to be recognized, and who are in-clined to link their comments to those of otherswill do fine at a meeting where everyone else is fol-lowing the same rules but will have a hard time get-ting heard in a meeting with people whose stylesare more like the first pattern. Given the socializa-tion typical of boys and girls, men are more likely tohave learned the first style and women the second,making meetings more congenial for men than forwomen. It’s common to observe women who par-ticipate actively in one-on-one discussions or in all-female groups but who are seldom heard in meet-ings with a large proportion of men. On the otherhand, there are women who share the style morecommon among men, and they run a different risk–of being seen as too aggressive.

A manager aware of those dynamics might deviseany number of ways of ensuring that everyone’sideas are heard and credited. Although no single so-lution will fit all contexts, managers who under-stand the dynamics of linguistic style can developmore adaptive and flexible approaches to runningor participating in meetings, mentoring or advanc-ing the careers of others, evaluating performance,and so on. Talk is the lifeblood of managerial work,and understanding that different people have differ-ent ways of saying what they mean will make itpossible to take advantage of the talents of peoplewith a broad range of linguistic styles. As the work-place becomes more culturally diverse and businessbecomes more global, managers will need to be-come even better at reading interactions and moreflexible in adjusting their own styles to the peoplewith whom they interact. Reprint 95510

THE POWER OF TALK


the power of talk: who gets heard and why · the power of talk: who gets heard and why by deborah...

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