Shouting Into the Void

What do you do when you’re communicating clearly, raising legitimate concerns, and the people around you still aren’t listening?

In this episode, we’re talking about what happens when women are interrupted, dismissed, talked over, or ignored, especially in male-dominated environments. We unpack the instinct to assume the problem must be how we’re communicating, which can lead us to overprepare, soften our language, rehearse everything we say, or eventually decide it isn’t worth speaking up at all.

We also get into what happens when we raise a concern, it gets dismissed, the exact problem we warned about happens, and suddenly we’re being asked why we didn’t say something.

We talk about communicating clearly, making our expertise visible, protecting ourselves when important concerns are dismissed, and recognizing the point where adapting how we communicate stops being professional growth and starts becoming self-erasure.

Thank you for listening to NDA!

If this episode made you think, challenged a perspective, or helped you recognize a pattern in yourself, consider sharing it with someone else who might need the conversation.

You can connect with us on Instagram at @nda_pod, where we continue the discussion between episodes.

Until next time, notice the pattern. Then decide what happens next.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

I was having a conversation recently with a fellow entrepreneur, and she works in the manufacturing space, but she hasn't spent her entire career in the manufacturing space. And I was telling her about the podcast, and she was super interested. And so we got to talking about being women in male-dominated fields. And yes, she said before I got into manufacturing, I would hear women talking about how it's tough to be a woman in manufacturing, and you have some really tough personalities and just cultural mindsets and roadblocks that you have to navigate. And she said, I never really thought too much about them until I was in the situation myself. I've realized how true it is. She said, Because I went into this thinking that I would just continue to be myself, be strong and empowered, and it would be okay. And she said, I, this is a direct quote. I feel like every time I open my mouth, I watch the men I work with automatically tune me out. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

Yes. And just so our listeners and me, because I don't know anything about this conversation you had, so we can appreciate it. What level role is she in where she's observing that? She's the owner. Are these men? Oh, she's the owner. Okay. She's the owner who report to her who are acting that way.

SPEAKER_00 1:29

Yes. And there's another owner in the situation. So she's a part owner, I guess I should say. She said even sometimes gets this treatment from her business partner.

SPEAKER_01 1:39

Oh girl, let me tell you. I can relate to you. Yes. I just want her to know I can relate. I just thought if I could keep being myself, it would work. But yeah, that just her story that just hit a really deep nerve for me professionally.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

Because as you know, I could keep going. Yeah. It's uh oh, I hate that. The question that she asked that followed kind of broke my heart a little bit and was the inspiration for today's episode, which was how do I make them listen? Oh, to me, it was like, okay, so this that question is assuming something, which is if they aren't listening, there must be something that she can do differently or change about herself to make them listen.

SPEAKER_01 2:21

Yeah, because there's a difference between how can I say what I'm trying to get across more effectively, and how do I diminish or twist or contort who I really am enough so that this person will finally acknowledge me? Not the same question. Most NDAs keep people quiet. Ours does the opposite.

SPEAKER_00 2:45

Around here, NDA means no dicks allowed. Not men, the behaviors that keep women small. This is the podcast for women who are done shrinking and ready to rise. I'm Amanda Kachurka. And I'm Elizabeth Cipola. Welcome to NDA.

SPEAKER_01 3:10

We'll call this person that you spoke with. I need a name, because I just feel like I hope she's listening to today's episode. Let's call this. Okay, Kim, I want to say this too because I see you. I have been you. And I think what Amanda just shared about your conversation hit such a big nerve for me professionally and personally, is because we're constantly given communication advice to not sound so emotional or not to be too aggressive, to be more concise, or to watch our tone. And it's almost like, would you just like to write the fucking sentence for me or just put an earpiece in my ear and tell me how I can and can or should and shouldn't behave? There's definitely value in becoming a better communicator, but there is a big difference between what's effective and what are you being asked to totally scrub from your authenticity. Right. If you're raising a concern or giving an idea and nobody's listening, and then someone is like, Well, why didn't you speak up? Or if you're noticing worse yet, this happened all the time. And I bet you, Kim, you experience this. If you're saying something and then Joe Blow is like, Oh, you know what idea I have, and it's what you just fucking said that matters.

SPEAKER_00 4:26

It absolutely does. It also creates the pattern of when you are a woman in that experience who's being dismissed or interrupted or ignored or talked over. We do tend to try to start to solve that problem by changing ourselves. And so that results then in we start rehearsing everything before speaking. We overprepare so nobody can have any questions. We edit out any semblance of our personality. So we sound more authoritative, we speak faster or louder, we soften concerns because we don't want to come across as difficult. And essentially, what we're doing is we're shifting from that question of how do I get them to listen to why do I even bother saying anything at all?

SPEAKER_01 5:07

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:07

And that's a real dangerous shift.

SPEAKER_01 5:10

Absolutely. A dangerous shift is when you start noticing that you are editing the way you're showing up. So if in that example that you just gave, if you're usually vocal, if you are usually someone who shares their ideas and is enthusiastic about it, and then you say, screw it, and then you just sit there quiet in meetings, that's a red flag. You're shrinking yourself to fit whatever label they're trying to put on you.

SPEAKER_00 5:39

There's always opportunity in these situations for some self-reflection. So communication is relational. And absolutely, I encourage you to examine the part that you control. Were you clear? Did you bury the point? Did I give people enough context to understand the recommendation that I'm making? But if the answer to all those questions is yes, I did all those things, and someone still routinely is dismissing you, you can't communication strategy your way out of their unwillingness to value your contribution.

SPEAKER_01 6:10

I love how you said that. You cannot strategize your way out of it. What we do as women that unintentionally, I think, make ourselves less powerful because we're working so hard to try to be heard in situations like that. But if we're starting out saying something like, I don't know if anyone else is seeing this, but or maybe it's just me, or this may be completely off base, or I'm probably overthinking this, but it's almost like we're apologizing for what we want to say and we're issuing some sort of of a disclaimer before our thoughts. Can you imagine one of those male nincom poops walking into a meeting and saying, This is probably stupid, and maybe I'm totally wrong, and I'm sorry for taking up everyone's time, but no fucking way. No fucking way would never happen. But if you are someone who is behaving in a way that is teaching them how to treat you, such as you're not saying what you want to say, and you're hinting or you're softening or you're implying and you're hoping they pick up your beats, or you say it's fine, he freaking believed you. So ain't nobody got time to hear your evidence of why you're the victim because you're expecting them to mind read. Right. So I I do want to be kind of shoot us straight as women about that too.

SPEAKER_00 7:33

Absolutely. There's another layer to this that I want to talk about, which is what happens when you are someone who you've raised a concern, it gets dismissed, the team proceeds anyway, and the exact concern or issue that you expressed comes to fruition. And then suddenly there's questions why didn't anybody catch this? Or worse, why didn't you raise this concern? So now the issue is no longer simply whether or not you feel heard, it goes to accountability. You're in a situation where you find yourself being held responsible for a problem that you explicitly identified but didn't have the authority to prevent. Got it and weren't able to leverage the authority through communicating. And now you're being blamed for the shortcoming. Do you want to know my two cents about that?

SPEAKER_01 8:22

I would love to hear it. My two cents is if you can be direct about whatever the concern is, here's what I'm concerned about, whatever it is, and then be direct about here's the risk that I'm seeing if we do thus and such the way that you're recommending, and then you're direct about what you are recommending. Girl, you have done your job. And if they choose differently, that's on them. And even though inside you might want to scream, I freaking told you so. If they're like at the Monday morning meeting, why didn't anyone see this coming? Or we could have planned differently. I don't think there's anything wrong. In fact, I think it's a great idea to say, Oh, I did raise the risk. And I know you, Amanda, you have receipts for everything. I did raise the risk on this date. Here's what I said. And ultimately you decided to move forward with blah, blah, blah. That's a very different energy.

SPEAKER_00 9:19

It is. Yeah. And there's even a difference in how you raise that with saying, Well, I mentioned that this might become an issue versus I identified this as a risk. I recommended a different course of action. Here's what I said, and here are the dates I said it. And the decision was made to proceed anyway. Yes. Unfortunately, the reality of many workplaces these days for women is that you have to keep receipts. One of my biggest pieces of advice, and it's annoying because it does create more work for you, but I think it's necessary is that especially when you're raising any kind of material concern, put it in writing. You can certainly have the face-to-face conversation, but even just following it up with a concise recap where you're just saying, hey, following up on today's conversation, I want to reiterate my concern that proceeding with X creates Y risk. My recommendation is Z. And so I understand the decision is to proceed with X, you know, if a decision was made during that conversation. But just documenting that in writing again for your own protection, honestly, to be able to have something to point back to if and when that concern does become a problem, you have something to point back to to say, look, I did raise this concern.

SPEAKER_01 10:36

I am not great with receipts because honestly, I'm too impatient to want to screw around with them. But I have been a champ at receipts and making sure that I save all my communication and this and that. And it does make a difference. I've used it a lot already in our other business venture. And you know, it also helps me not to gaslight myself into not trusting my own voice because I can look back and say, wow, I said this. I was very clear. And to me, that's very reaffirming. And another thing, too, is just think about what belongs to you and what belongs to the other person. Ask yourself, am I communicating clearly? That belongs to you. That's on you. Is the other person actually listening? That doesn't belong to you. That belongs to them. And then what else belongs to you, ladies, is okay. So what am I gonna do with the information if they repeatedly don't? Right. Well, that belongs to you again. And kind of to the point of Kim, a lot of times the next step is not how can I communicate this better? Because I don't know how to communicate. It's okay, I've communicated this clearly, and now I need to pay attention to what this other person's response is telling me. And ladies, what you choose to do next, you're teaching the other person how to treat you.

SPEAKER_00 12:11

Yes. There's also a point to be made here about how we communicate things. So just the language that we use, kind of to the example I gave a little bit earlier, instead of saying, Oh, I could be wrong, but try saying my concern is, and then whatever it is, or instead of, well, maybe we could potentially think about doing this, try my recommendation is being more assertive in the language that you're using, because the more we soften ourselves, the more the opinion of us will be softened by others.

SPEAKER_01 12:46

Absolutely. And by the way, the opinion of others, nine times out of ten, they're not gonna say, Oh, you're soft or oh, you're a pushover, but their behavior is going to show you that.

SPEAKER_00 12:58

As a general rule of thumb, and we've talked about this nasty, nasty word before. If what you're about to say includes the word just, revise it. Yes, just blow. That's a general rule of thumb that is really helpful in these situations. If what you're about to say includes the word just, rethink it, rework it. Especially from women when we're raising a concern or giving a recommendation, it does. It really softens our authority. Right. Yeah. So it definitely does. A couple of other things, recognize when you're moving toward what I like to refer to as learned silence. So if you're noticing that you're sitting in meetings or you're having conversations with the people who you just wish would listen to you, when you're having thoughts like, why but why bother? Why should I even say anything? They're not going to listen anyway. I'll just let them figure it out. I'm tired of saying the same thing. Someone else can deal with it. Because those thoughts are certainly understandable, especially when you've been part of this pattern for a really long time. That's tough. But silence removes you from decisions that affect you and leave your expertise invisible. It is.

SPEAKER_01 14:07

You did a really, really good job of that where we were together previously. And I'm being vulnerable. I was behaving very uncharacteristically unlike myself. And I was doing that. I stopped talking, I stopped contributing, and I was telling myself it's not worth it. And that was absolutely shrinking behavior. And I'm not saying that to shame that version of me at that time. I'm saying that that is a clue to pay attention to if any of our listeners feel like that. Because whether it's where you're you are now with your boss or your colleagues, or maybe it's your husband or your father, whoever it is, you don't want to resign yourself to offering your extremely valid insight, opinions, ideas. That's not keeping peace.

SPEAKER_00 14:58

Right.

SPEAKER_01 14:59

That is training you to stop trusting your own voice.

SPEAKER_00 15:02

One other point that I want to make before we switch to our shrink this segment for this week. Resist the urge to over-defend yourself. I think that's an important point, too. You don't need to frantically prove your innocence, apologize for something you didn't decide on, or become triumphant because you were right, or throw out the I told you so. Like, don't do that either. Stay factual, really stay focused on this was the date I raised the concern. This was my recommendation, the decision at that time was this, and this happened. Let's focus on resolving the issue and moving forward. I like that. I think, switching over to shrink this, do you have one you'd like to share?

SPEAKER_01 15:42

I do. This is involving a very special young man in my life, my middle son. And he's a senior in college, and I miss him, right? He went back to his university a few weeks ago. And what I found myself doing this morning, I have these ridiculous internal negotiations about whether I should call him or not. And just to be clear, yeah, I'm not talking about should I call him every day? I'm talking like once a goddamn week. And still, my brain this morning, it was telling me things like, don't bother him. He needs space. Are you being too much? Maybe you should wait for him to call you. Meanwhile, I'm his freaking mother and I just miss my son. And I caught that shrinking behavior and then I gave myself some grace because I didn't exactly have great examples of what a healthy parent adult-child relationship looks like. So, this to be honest, this is one of those areas where I'm flying blind and I don't have a good internal blueprint. And you know what happens when we don't have a blueprint and we're flying blind, we overthink the shit out of something that is actually pretty basic. So this is happening, it just happened this morning, and I am trying so hard to respect his independence that sometimes I wonder if I'm overcorrecting because there's definitely a difference between giving your adult son space and then convincing yourself you're not allowed to let him know you miss them. And and that's what I'm still figuring out. I don't want to tie this example up with a perfect little bow because I want to be honest, this is happening now, and I don't have it figured out yet. And I'd love if any listeners who did have healthier blueprints to follow and have been there done that before. How do you know what a healthy amount of contact is with your adult kid when you didn't have a healthy example yourself? He's 21, he's building his own life, let him without it turning into don't even call your own son because you're afraid of being an annoying mom. And maybe the answer isn't finding the perfect rule from a listener for how often I should call him. Maybe it's I don't know, just getting more comfortable trusting the relationship we have enough. That one phone call isn't gonna carry this much fucking meaning. So that's mine. Yeah, I like that.

SPEAKER_00 18:00

Thank you for sharing. Sure. You were well, partially witness to the example that I'm gonna give. There was a part of it that you missed, which is the part that I'm gonna share. You and I volunteered at an event last week, it was a golf event, and we were working in a tent where we were grilling food for the participants for lunch. So this year, there was one gentleman in particular, and gentleman's not even really the right word. There was a guy who kept making he came by the tent a couple of times, and every time he was making these like very awkward, inappropriate comments. And I don't do you remember the first one he talked about that you were there for.

SPEAKER_01 18:46

Oh, I do. Hey, because we were we were handing out food and we were handing out drinks and and different things to the golfers, and so every time a new group of golfers would come up, I would say, Hey, we have this, that, and the other thing. And are you talking about when he said, What about lap dances? Oh yes, that one, yes, yes, that's the one.

SPEAKER_00 19:06

So he made that comment, and Elizabeth was the one that was talking to him at that point. So I don't even remember what you said back to him. I don't did you black out?

SPEAKER_01 19:18

I might have. I said, No, but we're giving away a kick in the nuts for free.

SPEAKER_00 19:22

Oh, yeah, yeah, that's what I said. Oh, incredible. So, for a little context here, I'm a woman, I'm nearly 40 years old. I have been in plenty of situations throughout my life and career where men have made idiotic comments to me, things like this, much worse. That's a different topic for a different episode. But historically, in these situations, I become very uncomfortable and will usually just like laugh or kind of yeah, like right, agree, basically, or not not even agree, just not push back at all. So this guy came back again later in the day. And Elizabeth, you had stepped away for a few minutes. So, you know, I was handing them food and we were just chatting, and he made a comment about how the guy that he was golfing with, one of his children was conceived in a port-a potty.

SPEAKER_02 20:22

What the hell?

SPEAKER_00 20:22

For context, there was a porta potty behind the tent. So I don't know if he just like saw it and thought, hey, this is an interesting factoid to share. And so that made me really uncomfortable because what? Who says that? Who can normally I would just kind of laugh and like uh okay. But this time I looked him in the eye and I was like, what a strange thing to say. Oh, good girl. Nice, and that shut him down really quickly, and he just kind of walked away. But those types of interactions have always been really hard for me to stand my ground and come back with a response that is intended, whether it actually affects the person this way or not is not on me. But the intent behind it is to at least give them a second to pause to be like, did I say something wrong? Right, right. So historically, that's not my MO. I've not been very good at that because again, introverted, but it's something that I've made a commitment to because the climate that we live in today has made making comments like that more common. Yes, yes. And so I feel more of a sense of responsibility to myself, but also to other women to really call out the behavior and maybe hopefully get them to pause and be like, oh, wait, did I say something wrong?

SPEAKER_01 21:42

Yes, and I'm proud of you for doing that. I wish I were there to witness it. And I love what you just said. All of us are helping each other. We're helping one another, even if we never meet the other woman that we're helping a day in our life, because each time we stay silent or g giggle along, or to be honest with you, one of the women that we witnessed at that same event being kind of piggish herself, we are communicating that it's okay. It's okay to treat women that way. And it's not, it makes you feel dirty. And I promise the other woman I just referenced who's asked acting kind of piggish. I know that that's probably just something she was doing to deal with something that felt awkward and uncomfortable. And even if you've done that yourself, give yourself some grace and just like Amanda, you did in your example, make a commitment to yourself and all women to handle it differently next time. That's a great example.

SPEAKER_00 22:42

As always, if you have shrinking behavior you would like to share with us for the benefit of us sharing with everyone else, again, happy to anonymize it if we need to, but this really helps us all learn together and grow together. So find us on Instagram at NBA underscore pod. We would love to hear from you. Closing thoughts on today's episode. So the original question that was asked of me by Kim was How do I make my male colleagues listen to me? And just to reiterate, there are more useful questions like Am I making my point clearly? Am I making my expertise visible? Am I protecting myself when important concerns are dismissed? And absolutely continue to practice different communication skills and become a stronger communicator. But there's a point where adapting yourself stops being professional growth and becomes self-erasure.

SPEAKER_01 23:35

Yes. The thing that I want to say is communicate clearly, say what you mean, and resist the urge to explain it six more fucking ways. How's that? I love it. No notes.