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Today I’d like to pass on three simple tips for improving your own assertive communication through choosing and using your language more appropriately.

1. Don’t over apologise or over justify.
2. Minimise the use of hesitant language.
3. Know when to shut up.

Tip one: Don’t over explain or over apologise.
Here I would like to concentrate on the language you use when you are standing up for yourself. Perhaps you want to turn down a request from a friend or a colleague because you have something else planned.

The unassertive person might say something like;

“Uh..well, I’d really sorry. I’d love to be able to help you with that but, uhm.. it’s a bit difficult for me right now because….well I said I’d finish the report on X by Friday and .. well it would be a bit..I mean, I don’t think I could really do your bit too unless I worked really late if that would help..and …Oh alright then, I’ll do it!”

Contrast this wordy, apologetic and rambling effort with that of a person who has learned to be a bit more assertive;

“Thanks for asking me, I’m flattered but I really can’t help you at this time. I’ve already got more than I can handle to get done by Friday”.

The key difference is clarity directness and brevity.

Tip 2: Avoidance of hesitant language.
Words like possibly, maybe, hopefully, sort of, and kind of suggest that you are unsure or uncertain of your position which in turn undermines your position assertiveness.
Replace them with worlds like definitely, can, will, must and your assertiveness will increase and people will take you more seriously.

Tip 3: Know When to Shut Up.
Less is more in assertive communication. As we have already seen in tip one, assertive people speak clearly, directly and succinctly. They also have learned to be comfortable with silence. After they have stated their position they shut up and wait for the other party to respond. Learning to use pauses in this way helps you gain control in communication situations, both face to face and over the phone. Gaining control helps you to feel better about yourself and so builds a virtuous circle.

Today I had the privilege of working with some fantastic year 10 pupils from Mayfield School in Portsmouth as part of a pre-work experience conference organised by Portsmouth Eductation Business Partnership (EBP) .

I was part of a speed networking event where various local employers and entrepreneurs spent 10 minutes each with several year groups,being grilled about the world of work. These students were about to go out and spend two weeks with local businesses to give them a taste of what the world of work was really like.

To be honest I was a bit nervous of the whole thing as modern teenagers get portrayed as inattentive troublemakers. These amazing young people proved that this is a gross generalisation. They were great and asked some searching questions.

What I particularly noticed, was how confident many of them were and how that were able to meet and hold my gaze as we conversed. I am a passionate believer in the importance of ones ability to make and hold eye contact in order to facilitate assertive communication and establish mutual respect. Well many of these students could have put a lot of much older people to shame.
They weren’t aggressive, they just wanted to be taken seriously and respected. By connecting with each other through eye contact, we were quickly able to establish mutual respect and effective communication.

I’m confident that they will enjoy their placements and learn much, not only about work but also about themselves. So take a leaf out of their book and make sure that you make and hold comfortable eye contact.

Today I was reading an article about human rights abuses and it reminded me that these things also apply much closer to home too. When a person behaves assertively they are affirming that they have rights and so do those they are dealing with.

Contrast this with the two alternative behavioural styles. When people behave aggressively they are giving themselves rights but denying those rights to others. When somebody behaves non-assertively, they are giving rights to others that they don’t give to themselves.

Hold on! What sort of rights are we actually entitled to?
In their excellent book Assertiveness at Work, Ken and Kate Back propose the following list. Take a moment now to consider each in turn and to give yourself a score between 1 and 10 as to how comfortable you are with each right:

• The right to hold your own opinions
• The right to a fair hearing for those opinions
• The right to need and want things that may differ from other peoples needs and wants
• The right to ask (not demand) that others respond to your needs and wants
• The right to refuse a request without feeling guilt or selfish
• The right to have feelings and to express them assertively if you want to
• The right to be wrong sometimes
• The right to have others respect your rights.

Now imagine that you chose to fully embrace these rights and also to recognise that everyone else has the same rights too. How would you act? How strong and confident would you feel?

So next time to read about human rights abuses in the news, ask yourself how fair you are being with yourself and those around you. Are you abusing your own rights? Are you short changing yourself by giving rights to others that you don’t give to yourself?

One of the challenges around assertiveness is that people seem to be unsure what it really is.
It often appears that we live in a world of extremes; good and evil, left wing/right wing politics etc.

Under this model then, if you are not being passive or non-assertive you must be being aggressive. We all need a reminder that, whilst passivity and aggressive behaviour are polar opposites, there is a third alternative called assertiveness which is neither passive nor aggressive.

Passive behaviour stems from a set of beliefs that suggest that others have more rights than you and that their rights are more important.

Aggressive behaviour stems from a belief system that claims that your rights are more valid, more important, than everyone else’s.

Assertiveness requires a different mindset where you have rights and so do the other people you deal with. You have the right to say no, to challenge, to change your mind, to make mistakes, to ask for clarification, to set boundaries. And so do others.

Assertiveness is a set of learned behaviours that allow you to express your rights whilst honouring the rights of others. Assertiveness comes from a place of internal strength but emotional neutrality. You can state your opinions, wants and needs clearly and assertively without shouting, using strong language or going red in the face. As I’ve mentioned in an earlier post, brevity and silence are two key tools of the trade for the budding assertive person.

Assertive behaviour is a choice that we could all learn to make more often.

Assertiveness is not just about the words you say and the way you say them. It’s also about the body language you adopt. If your words are saying one thing and your body language is saying another, people will give more weight to what your body language is communicating.

Here’s a quick and simple tip to help you adopt a more assertive stance.

• Stand or sit with your toes pointed slightly outwards.

Did you get that? I did say it was a quick tip but it is also extremely powerful. If you don’t believe me try this little experiment.

1. Stand upright with your feet parallel and hip width apart.
2. Give yourself a score between one and ten for how confident and assertive you feel right now. (0= not assertive 10 = extremely assertive)
3. Now turn your toes inwards by a small about and become aware of what this does to the rest of your posture.
4. Now check in with yourself and re-score your assertiveness level. Has it gone up, gone down or stayed the same?
5. Return your feet to the forward facing, parallel position you started with.
6. Now turn your toes very slightly outwards and become aware of what this does to your posture.
7. Re-score your assertiveness level again, has it gone down, gone up or stayed the same?

You almost certainly noticed that when you turned your toes in, your shoulders rounded , your knees may have started to bend a little, your head came down a touch and you felt less assertive.
When you did the opposite, and turned your toes outwards, you naturally took up a much more upright stance with your shoulders back and your head up. I’ll bet your assertiveness levels increased dramatically too.

Now try this, toes out stance for real next time you want to project a more confident, assertive image and you’ll be amazed at how much better you feel.

Now at first sight the title for today’s article may seem a bit odd to say the least. How can anyone be more assertive by saying less?

Well, the interesting thing is that, non assertive people have a habit of overdoing it when they try to be assertive. They over justify or over apologise which undermines the very messages that they are trying to give. In Assertive Communication, as in many other areas of life, Less Is More.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that to be assertive you shouldn’t say anything! But rather that if you say it more concisely it will come across more clearly and assertively. Now if you are in the habit of overdoing the words and talking yourself into doing things that you don’t want to do then don’t worry. You can change. The key is to start by doing a little homework.

Think about one or two situations where you would like to be a little or a lot more assertive. What would you like to say if the situation arises again. What is a polite and concise way of expressing your wants desires of feelings? Imagine you are a script writer and you are writing the dialogue for this scene. What would the character that you play say to express their opinions assertively?

And finally….
Don’t forget the power of silence. When you have made your point clearly and assertively, shut up! Zip the lip! Confident, assertive people are comfortable with silence and this communicates authority and assertiveness.

Today being Friday, I’d like to share some practical thoughts on assertive communication. This follows on nicely from yesterdays tip on negotiation skills because, successful negotiators always negotiate in an assertive rather than aggressive or non-assertive manner.

The good news is that Assertiveness is not a personality trait, it is a set of learned behaviours that revolve around our ability to state our wants and feelings openly, whilst respecting the wants and feelings of those we are talking to, even if they differ from ours.

Next week I’,m going to give you some practical tips as to how you can behave more assertively however today I don’t want to put the cart before the horse. Before we look at behaviours, we need to address what drives our behaviours, i.e. our thinking.

In order to use assertive behaviours effectively we need to be thinking assertively first - make sense? By thinking I mean the scenarios we are “seeing” in our minds eye, the dialogues and self talk we are “hearing” in our head, and the mental strategies or programmes we are running.

For example, people who are behaving assertively are not seeing themselves being steamrollered by the other person in the conversation. Nor are they telling themselves “I’m not important.” “I don’t have the right to say no.” or “If I ask for what I want they’ll not like me.”

In my experience, assertive people “see themselves as equals who have certain rights and respect that the others they are dealing with have the same rights too.

• The right to say no.
• The right to change their mind.
• The right to make mistakes.
• The right to express their feelings and opinions honestly.
• The right to disagree or put forward an alternative interpretation.
• The right to choose to be assertive.

So here’s a little exercise to help you with this:

1. Think about a time in the past where you would like to have acted more assertively than you did.
2. Now take a moment to recall what you were thinking just before, and during the exchange.
3. As you recall that thinking now, how did those thoughts make you feel?
4. Notice how these feelings affected your behaviour and influenced you to use non-assertive language, voice tone and body language.
5. Now go back to step two and ask yourself, if I could have re-written my mental script, what could I have thought about myself, the other person or the situation, that would have helped me be more assertive?
6. Now imagine the feelings that you would have felt then, now if you had been thinking these new thoughts? What are you feeling? Whereabouts is that feeling in your body? Notice how it is different from the feelings in step 3.
7. Finally, If you were feeling these new feelings, how would you behave differently? What sort of language would you use? What would your tone of voice sound like? How would you be holding yourself? How much eye contact would you make if you were feeling these new feelings now?

That’s it, experiment with this and let me know how you get on.