From Girl Talk to Woman Talk: 3 Shifts to Command Respect

TLDR: Explores 3 crucial differences between "Girl Talk" and "Woman Talk" in professional settings. Helen Jonsen shares three key strategies for women to command respect and authority: eliminating unnecessary apologies, owning the room through strong introductions, and always using your full name. These simple yet powerful communication shifts can significantly impact how women are perceived and treated in the workplace.

This is part one of a series of blogs based on my conversation with Helen Jonsen,

Helen has built a kaleidoscope career based on decades of experience from newsrooms to corporate boardrooms really interesting Variants there from startups to established publishers from nonprofits to government agency.

She's been an entrepreneur and an executive at the confluence of digital media and business disruption. Storytelling's in Helen's DNA and at the heart of everything she creates. She speaks on the craft of communication, strengthening advocacy, resiliency in the face of life's challenges, life/work balance, leadership and the advancement of women.

You'll find Helen's fuller bio and where to find her below.

Susan: Helen, it's such serendipity that we even connected with each other. So I'm excited to bring you to my listeners.

I reflect back on our first conversation, it was  wide ranging and exciting. One of the things in that first conversation that perked my ears up was when you mentioned the work that you do around what you call girl talk versus woman talk.

I loved the differentiation. So tell us briefly what you mean by those terms and why it matters to our listeners that they understand and act on the difference.  

Helen: The difference between Girl Talk and Women Talk is really important. We as women, and first as girls, learn from the people around us how to present ourselves.

And a lot of that comes through speech and speaking. We've all heard of the "Valley Girl" sound (vowel shifting and uptalk features), right? It set women apart. It made them sound ditzy in some ways.  Not everybody adopted it, but there are other things that women do that become self deprecating, particularly in the workplace.

We must convey our accomplishments without self doubt and avoid bad habits. Here are 3 ways to do that:

1. Don't apologize. For instance, apologizing every time we want to ask a question.  How many times you've been in a room, Susan, where a woman constantly says, "I'm sorry, but I, I need to ask this" or "I'm sorry, but I need more clarification."

Why do we do that?

Susan: Good question. I can relate to having done that in the past in my career.

Helen: We do it because we've heard so many times that we should be apologetic for interrupting. But when you're in a meeting, and you need clarification, you have every right to ask a question.

Asking the question gives clarity. And it also gives you power to take on the answer.

But if you apologize first, it sounds like you just didn't get it. Or there wasn't enough information coming to you, and that's your fault. But of course it's not your fault. You need clarity, and so do other people in the room.

So eliminating unnecessary apologies is a really important thing for most women to do,   

2. Own the room. Another thing is, we've all heard this story, Susan, of an executive woman, even a leader or even an elected official, walking in a room with a bunch of men, that don't know who's who, and they immediately assume that the woman is the assistant and ask her to get coffee.

We need to own a room. We need to control the room. And one way to do that is don't wait for introductions.

Start the introductions. Start the introductions with your whole name. Your first name and your last name. 

Give your title or what your role is in that room. Are you the advisor? Are you the lead? Are you the team lead? Are you the CEO?  Say that up front so that people don't make the mistake to already put you in a box that's not the box you're supposed to be in.  

Susan I love that as a way of preventing mistakes that are embarrassing to both people. For example, a CEO being asked to go get coffee is embarrassing to her, and ultimately it's also embarrassing to him. So your advice about owning the room by starting introductions. Brilliant.

Helen: It's not only embarrassing when you think about it, it also takes the meeting off onto the wrong foot.

And that's what you don't want to do. You want to start things at a high note and not on a low note. So by introducing yourself and then properly introducing your colleagues, you've now set everyone up for success in that meeting.

3. Say your name. When I talk about introductions, I say a woman should always use her first name and her last name because that's very empowering.

Listen to the difference of a phone conversation. You pick up the phone and you're calling a major company because you're trying to set up a meeting. Now you're either an entrepreneur or a high ranking member of another company. You call and you say, "Hi, this is Jen. I'd like to talk to so and so's office."

Okay, person on the other end of the phone is now thinking, Jen is somebody's assistant, and we'll try to figure this out.

If you call and say, "Hello, this is Jennifer Smith, I run such and such an organization, and I'm very interested in speaking with so and so, can we set up that meeting?

Which one do you think is going to move forward faster?

Susan: Definitely the full name.

Helen: Do you hear that sometimes? Do you hear in conversations where women do that?

Susan: Yes. I run into situations where women either don't introduce themselves at all or introduce themselves with only their first name. .

Helen: This started to become very real to me when I was working particularly with young women as they moved into college and they moved into business. You'd bring in an intern or a new hire and they were young and starting out and maybe felt like they didn't have to control the room.

But if they had started using their full names at that beginning stages, it would be their comfort level. And people would take them more seriously right from the beginning.

Susan: That's a really important thing that women need to do for themselves, but also for need to mentor the young women around them because never too early to start to take control of a room and to, own your identity, but It could be too late.

Helen: It's never too early to start because you're building your confidence the whole time. If you start a meeting or an introduction on the right foot, that gives you more confidence in the entire conversation, whether it's on the phone or on Zoom or in person. It goes back to owning the room, and I think that's an important place to be.

Those are 3 things that I would suggest women embrace and use. They put them in a different power position.

Susan: Those are all fabulous because they're concrete and actionable, which is what I constantly strive to deliver.

Owning your right to be there is a theme through all of them,  and it very clearly differentiates Woman Talk - which is when we're coming from the full power of who we are from Girl Talk - when we are making ourselves small.

Catch you next time,

Susan

About Helen Jonsen

Helen’s kaleidoscope career offers decades of experience from newsrooms to corporate boardrooms, from startups to established publishers, from nonprofits to government agencies. She has been an entrepreneur and executive at the confluence of digital media and business disruption.

As a multi-platform journalist, media coach and media relations pro, writer and trainer, Helen has been a strategic business and editorial advisor to executives and entrepreneurs, media networks, nonprofits, government agencies and corporations.

Storytelling is in Helen’s DNA and at the heart of everything she creates. As a veteran journalist, Helen covered breaking news and financial/business news, long-format feature news, and other coverage for national and international television networks and online media. She has been a contributor to a variety of publications and the author of several books.

In recent years, Helen took her skills to public service serving the City of New York and Westchester County working closely with elected and appointed leaders on crisis management, strategic and executive communications, and thought leadership.

Currently, she is the founder and chief storyteller at helen jonsen media, a boutique consulting firm, based in the Hudson Valley.



Helen is known as a public speaker on the craft of communication, strengthening advocacy, resiliency in the face of life’s challenges, life-work balance, leadership and the advancement of women. She has moderated and organized panels for leading conferences including Forbes Women’s Summits, Working Mother Best Companies and the Swedish-American Executive Women’s conferences in the US and Stockholm. She has been called upon to emcee events for nonprofit corporate/fundraising, and industry associations.

Read more about Helen’s Kaleidoscope Career here: https://helenjonsen.com/helen-s-story