The Blog

#5: Slow Down! You Speak Too Fast

Effective communication depends greatly on getting and listening to feedback. So here is feedback from a listener to my earlier radio show, feedback that we can all use. Slow down, you speak too fast.

Speaking too fast is a common mistake. We know that we can listen faster than a speaker can speak, and so when it is our turn to speak, we speed up. We also speed up because we know that a listener tends to listen ahead by completing our sentences, often incorrectly.

My funny accent is even more reason for me to slow down, or so I’ve been told. Which reminds me, for globalization to work, we should all speak slower, even as communication tools speed up.

Then again, some of us talk fast so that we don’t forget what we wanted to say in the first place. But that’s another bit of nonsense all together.


Welcome to my side of the nonsense divide.