Communicating in COVID-19: Masked Communications
I was about to take the elevator to my condo lobby to mail the dreaded income tax return for 2019 and I felt underdressed. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong. T-shirt check. Yoga pants, check. Shoes, socks, check. So what was wrong? In a lightbulb moment, I realized I had forgotten to don my COVID mask before leaving my apartment. Of course, we all hate wearing this necessary garment, but that I had inculcated the rule about wearing a mask shocked me.
In centuries past, a woman going out may have felt underdressed if she’d forgotten her gloves. In the era in which I grew up and held my first job, I felt underdressed if I had forgotten to wear earrings to work. And now, in the year 2020, the heinous mask is our new essential accessory.
I hear all kinds of complaints about wearing a mask.
It makes my face itch. Yep
My breath fogs my eyeglasses. Yep
I can’t hear people adequately to reply appropriately. Yep and Yep
Let’s talk about helping people hear adequately. We all have regionalisms in our speech patterns and depending on how your family or school raised you. It’s obvious on the face of it but how many of us are actually adjusting our speaking patterns during COVID? Not many.
Add to that the millions of people who are hearing impaired and rely on reading lips to fully comprehend what a friend, customer, or boss is saying. It’s a problem. We must now begin the era of over-enunciated speaking.
I’ve been doling out tips to clients help them get a leg up on a rapidly changing world of sales and business meetings. Here are some tips I’ve been sharing about masked communication during in-person meetings:
1) Make sure your mask fits properly. If your mask is not snug, if there are pockets along the sides of the mask (common in generic blue paper masks) you can still pass and catch infection through aerosols flying through the air.
2) Speak with your eyes. Your audience cannot see your mouth so it’s essential to engage with our eyes more than ever. Practice expressive eyes in front of the mirror for when someone gives you a compliment, let’s say, or someone is sad and you want to console them. You can use your eyes to show compassion and concern.
3) Overenunciate. Please, I beg you. Speak using all the necessary facial muscles, which propel the words more productively. Otherwise, you’ll be greeted with choruses, of “what?” and “I don’t understand what you’re saying,” which is exhausting for both speaker and engaged listener, and wastes precious time.
4) Turn up your volume. You need to speak louder when wearing a mask. Yes, I know refined people don’t yell, but social mores change in a crisis, especially in a pandemic. Speak at least 25 percent louder than usual when wearing a mask.
5) Verbalize your feelings. Consciously or unconsciously, people are used to reading body language and facial expressions. Now we have to tell people that the story they’re telling is sad or funny. While it may feel robotic, and sort or Mr. Spock-like, you need to verbalize your emotion when reacting to someone’s story. Remember that no one can see you smile or frown—at least not with your mouth.
Get more tips about getting out of your own way in Your Self Sabotage Survival Guide by Karen Berg: https://tinyurl.com/y786t4ax