The words you use in day-to-day speech convey everything about you.  Certain words are key markers that act as benchmarks delineating your way of thought.  They tell everyone what you think, your state of mind, what confidence level you have, and how knowledgeable you are on the matter you’re discussing.  Because of this, understanding how your choice of words affects your dealings with colleagues, clients, and future employers is critical. How to do this, is to engineer your speech.

Designing Your Vocabulary

The power of words is a force many engineers pay little attention to.  We’re more interested in the power of our designs, concepts, or processes.  Designing our vocabulary, however, greatly augments our engineering skills.  This winning combination will catapult you past others quickly, since everyone rallies behind the person best able to convey ideas.

Start by removing words and phrases that convey doubt, fear, or lack of focus.  These are words and phrases such as:

Can’t:  a simply “yes” or “no” will suffice.  “Can’t” conveys no, but in a negative way.

Should:  Either do it or don’t do it.  Should conveys that you can, however, you’ve let excuses stand in your way of action.

Avoid negative references to yourself (e.g. stubborn, stupid, slow, etc.) or others.

Then begin adding to your vocabulary, words and phrases of speech to increase your language.  The best way to do this is simply by reading – books, trade journals, on-line blogs, etc.  Reading opens you to an expansive array of styles of writing as well as more and more ways of speech, grammar and vocabulary.

In twenty years of research conducted by Johnson O’Conner, he showed that a person’s vocabulary was the single largest predictor of a person’s career success.  O’Conner took great care to ensure the statistical variables were isolated as he conducted his aptitude testing across many large manufacturing companies.  Besides highlighting that vocabulary was the single largest contributor to occupational greatness, he also identified that the vocabulary came before the achievement.

Regardless of your current position or past education you can engineer your vocabulary from where you stand today.  The essential two tasks you need to undertake are: (1) pay attention to what you say (or write) to eliminate the negative; and (2) read and write more to expand your vocabulary.  With professional success riding on the ability to think and communicate, why not start today?

"The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug."  Mark Twain    

Christian Knutson, P.E., PMP is a leader, civil engineer, and author.  He’s an accomplished professional specializing in A/E/C work internationally and author of The Engineer Leader, a recognized blog on leadership and life success for engineers and professionals.