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You may be familiar with the prayer-like song that Bob Dylan wrote in which he wishes that someone, or all of us, can “stay forever young.”

May you always be courageous

Stand upright and be strong

And may you stay…

Forever young.

It turns out that, while a youthful spirit can enrich our lives, young doesn’t always cut it in the world of big business.

Granted, there are places in corporate America where youth is valued—in sales, customer service, and perhaps in research.

But at the senior decision-making level, executives tend to see new recruits as just so many puppies.  Smart puppies.  Eager puppies.  Maybe even successor-puppies.  But puppies nonetheless, inexperienced, naïve, and unfamiliar with the sharp-elbowed realities of business culture and global capitalism.

A degree from a prestigious university can help a puppy win a job, but it doesn’t guarantee that she will quickly earn the trust of an older, more experienced boss or client.

What does it take, aside from years of experience, for a young professional to overcome this bias?

One answer?  Five languages!

The first language to master is the language of the industry you’re in.  If you’re a consultant, you have to learn multiple languages.  Mastery of language implies mastery of the thinking beneath the language.

Within industry, there are functions—finance, marketing, R&D—all of which speak their own dialect.

Then there is the language of your own company, and the language of your client companies.  Again, if you are customer-facing, you must hold your own in substantive discussions conducted in the language of the client.

The second language is the language of your own vocal presence—the signals you send through the pitch, volume, speed, and resonance of your speaking voice.

Many young people speak quickly, have less chest resonance in their sound, enunciate poorly, use filler words such as, “Like, you know, I mean,” and demonstrate tentativeness in their pitch patterns—for instance, using a rising intonation at the end of a declarative sentence.

To senior people, all of these vocal characteristics signal immaturity and naiveté, and while they can be overcome with exceptional intelligence and sterling qualities of character, they represent another strike against the young.

The third language is what you say by listening.  Few of us, at any age, are highly effective listeners, but to excel at this under-rated behavior is to enjoy a profound competitive advantage.  The reason for this?  The greatest need that people have is the need to be appreciated, and the simplest way to show appreciation is to listen.

While the other guy is talking, younger professionals (I’ve been one) are often busy thinking of what they’re going to say in order to prove their intelligence or defend their position.  Wiser, more experienced hands are working to understand, and then recognize, the thoughts and feelings of others.

The fourth language is body language.  Older executives tend to have gravitas when they speak—with words, voice, or body language.  George Schultz, former Secretary of State, is someone who comes to mind when I think of gravitas.

Gravitas evokes a sensation of stability, solidity, confidence and calmness.  Gravitas makes me think of deep, still water.

The body language of younger people often evokes sensations of quickness, flexibility, and turbulent water.

Or, put another way, whereas older people tend to move like large animals at the top of the food chain—like elephants or giraffes—younger people are closer cousins to our friends the chipmunks, squirrels, and finches.

These frisky friends are beautiful creatures, but you don’t want to trust a million-dollar project to Alvin, Rocky, and Tweety.

The fifth language:  the language of clothes and grooming.  If you wear blue jeans and T-shirts to an executive meeting within the Fortune 500, you’re probably committing a CLM (career-limiting move.)

And when you show up with a mohawk or a mullet, you’re road kill, unless you walk on water in some rare way.

These are broad claims, but they represent a broad truth.  Large business cultures are more or less like the military.  Each has officers and foot soldiers, objectives and enemies, front lines and back offices, campaigns, strategies, and tactics.

And each has a uniform—clothes and haircuts that signal that you are a member of the team.

These, in short, are the five languages we must master in order to earn the trust and respect of senior business people.  The language of:

• Industry and function
• voice
• listening
• body language
• clothes and grooming

Some are easier to learn than others.  For instance, developing your voice to make it deeper, more resonant, or less nasal takes time.  And speaking more slowly can be a confrontation with a lifetime of habit.

But anyone can learn to speak all these languages more effectively, and thereby get people to take you and your ideas more seriously.

I’m with Dylan 100%:  May you stay forever young.  But may you also climb the learning curve quickly, to bring value to yourself, and to the enterprise you serve.

Sims Wyeth is a speech coach in Montclair, NJ specializing in presentation skills and public speaking training in order to give accomplished people the knowledge and skill they need to become accomplished speakers. Learn more public speaking tips at www.SimsWyeth.com.

If you are present in a conversation or a meeting, you demonstrate your engagement by listening, responding, and then paying attention to how the other person receives your response. 

I have found a technique called Motivational Listening (ML) to be helpful in sales conversations and in talks with clients I am coaching.  The technique comes out of psychotherapy, and is designed to help the other person think about their thinking. 

ML techniques are represented by an acronym:  OARS

O stands for Open-ended Questions, questions that cannot be answered with a “Yes,” or “No.”  For example, “Why do you say that?” or “Can you tell me what you mean when you say ‘concerned’?”  Caveat:  don’t ask more than two or three questions in a row: It makes the other person feel interrogated.

A stands for Affirm.  Affirm the feelings that are either overtly expressed or implied.  For instance, “You seem proud of that accomplishment,” or, “I hear your frustration.”

R stands for Reflect.  This means you simply repeat the words back to the speaker.  For instance, if my prospect says, “I need to have leadership presence,” I could say right back to him, “You NEED to have leadership presence,” and then stop talking.   He will most likely jump right back in and say, “Yes, that’s what I want, and what my boss wants me to do.”

S stands for Summarize. When you get to a point in the conversation where things seem to be wrapping up, you do your listener a huge service by summarizing the gist of what he’s said.  For instance, “So your boss is concerned about your presentations.  You think you did well at the sales meeting, and you are frustrated that he keeps insisting that you need to develop more leadership presence.”  And then be quiet, and let the other person respond.

One of the deepest needs we have is to be heard.  When somebody “gets” that they have been “gotten,” they feel good. 

Using this technique, you are present in the conversation, not as the subject of the discussion, or as an equal participant, but as a witness for the other guy as he sorts through his thinking.

Read other blogs in this series:  Presentation Skills:  Stay Tuned for a Month of Presence, and Presence of Mind.

Sims Wyeth is a private speech coach in Montclair, NJ specializing in executive speech coaching and public speaking training in order to give accomplished people the knowledge and skill they need to become accomplished speakers. Learn more public speaking tips at www.SimsWyeth.com.

I just came back to work after dinner, where, over roast chicken and salad, my wife began to explain to me why some people try too hard.  

I felt obliged to listen, but I was also tired, and had consumed enough wine to permit myself to disengage and become impatient.  I waved my hand and said, “You’re losing me!”  She had hurt feelings.

Part of the problem was that the topic (“people who try too hard”) is a recurring interest of hers, and I automatically leapt to the conclusion that I was about to hear the same story I’ve heard for many years.

But in the spirit of full disclosure,  like many husbands, I am a selective listener.  If I’m reading, or watching TV, or thinking about something else, and my wife speaks to me, I am mindful of my tendency to listen for a split second, conclude that whatever she’s saying is not all that important, and throw up a smokescreen of grunts and nods while I turn off my ears.

This is not good for our marriage, and I sense  she has learned how to do the same thing to me–listen for a few seconds, generate a hypothesis about what I’m saying, and conclude that it’s a re-run that she doesn’t want to sit through. 

One explanation for this state of affairs is that we are, in fact, repeating ourselves, (thematically if not with the exact same words) and that we are now able to predict what the other person is going to say. 

Because what we are saying is predictable, we don’t pay much attention.  There’s nothing new coming out of our mouths–no new thoughts, no radical new insights–and so nothing much of interest.

We know how to fix this.  Skilled in effective dialogue, we will say to each other, “We need new thoughts, new experiences, new growth.  Let’s make it happen.”   And we will.  We will go to the theater, on trips, on vacations, engage in new activities with new people.   We will grow and prosper.

But when that’s over, we’ll have to get down to the real work: the cultivation of curiosity–about eachother–without judgment. 

I can hear us talking about that now.   I will say, predictably quoting Steven Covey, “We must first seek to understand, then to be understood,” and then I predict she will roll her eyes as if to say, “Not that old chestnut!”

And then we’ll really be up against it, and have to be still–still as water–until we get curiouser and curiouser.