Today's topic: "In my opinion…"

But not just "in my opinion." On the block today are "the way I see it," "in my head," "to me," "from my perspective," and anything else vaguely resembling these phrases. They are often used as nothing more than vocal pauses—a chance to say something meaningless to use a second or two to gather a string of thoughts. But that doesn't make it right.

You've been in meetings like this before. It's a round table discussion and you're brainstorming your division's next great idea. Everyone is contributing and the creative juices are really flowing. But that one guy, usually his name is Tad or something like that, he just sits there quietly taking it all in. Your manager notices that he's not had any input.

“Tad, what do you think?”
“Well...in MY opinion...”

Really Tad? You've giving us your opinion? We figured that you'd give us the opinion of someone else.

If someone asks us a question and we answer, aren't we usually giving our own opinion? So why do we often start sentences by saying, "in MY opinion…" as if our listeners might think we have suddenly begun channeling another entity? Of course it's your opinion. Why else would you be talking?

Now this doesn't apply when you're telling "he said she said" stories or when you're giving the opinions of multiple people–that's why we need these phrases. But business related conversations mostly involve sharing our own thoughts. So these kinds of phrases are usually unnecessary.

Now, I'm not suggesting that we throw these phrases out. And, by all means, clarify when you need to. But there's no reason to count on people being confused.

Just assume that if you are sharing your own thoughts, people know that it's your opinion.