The Power of the Pause

Workshop participants regularly bring up their uneasiness with pausing. “I feel uncomfortable pausing,” one said. “I’m worried I’ll come across as less prepared and less intelligent if I pause too often or too long. Is this all in my head?”

Our short answer: Yes.

The long answer is more interesting. In the BBC article, “The Subtle Power of Uncomfortable Silences,” writer Lennox Morrison presents thoughts on pauses that may have you looking at them in a new way and—in keeping with SpeechSkills’ training—practicing how to use a pause to your advantage.

Pausing: When and Why Different cultures react to silence with varying degrees of comfort; native English speakers in particular find long pauses hard to handle. “Silence is the hardest technique to learn,” Katie Donovan, founder of U.S.-based consultancy Equal Pay Negotiations, agrees in Morrison’s article. “It’s against our instincts. We want to fill in the blanks.”

But as many cultures outside of ours have discovered, how speakers use pauses can be powerful. Some of the big takeaways from Morrison’s exploration include:

• Silence can be positive and effective.
• Silence can serve as a moment of reflection or observation.
• Silence can serve as a focal point for greater understanding.

How to Practice? At SpeechSkills, we recommend that you practice pausing by playing a game we call Snap Two.

Here’s how it works: Give yourself an impromptu speaking topic. Each time you reach the end of a sentence, pause and snap your fingers twice before moving on to the next sentence. As you get comfortable with this rhythm, you can progress to silently snapping in your head.Then try adding pauses at other natural segue points, such as between clauses or when you want to pause for effect. Eventually this relaxed pace will feel natural and comfortable.

We all know words are important; but silence, you’ll discover, can be an equally important tool.