On your first point, I agree that the message is most often overshadowed by delivery.  But I also agree with mentat&#x27;s point that at some point &quot;um&quot; can make the speaker sound stupid.<p>&gt; It&#x27;s not good managerial advice to say, &quot;Tell your employees they sound stupid if they are bad public speakers!&quot; It&#x27;s better managerial advice to say, &quot;Know your employees, and how each individual might be best motivated, and don&#x27;t accept complacency.&quot;<p>I completely agree with this, and I got this from the article&#x2F;video as well.  In the &quot;um&quot; story, the manager tries twice to tell her in a nice way, offering to bring in a coach, etc, but she doesn&#x27;t get it.  Knowing her employee, she tells her that she sounds stupid and this works.  Kim says in her talk that Sheryl had done several things to establish trust in their relationship previously, so she knew that this case was not a personal attack.