Speaking So People Will Listen
What I watched: How to speak so that people want to listen by Julian Treasure. Posted June 2013.
Part of the professional and community work I’ve done over the years is to speak in front of people. Sometimes I speak to one person, perhaps during a media interview or when I’m trying to carefully pitch an argument or proposal. Sometimes I speak to small groups of people in a classroom or small conference workshop space trying to impart information or facilitate meaningful discussion. Sometimes I speak to a roomful of people, audiences small and large, about a topic I consider of significant importance.
As I’ve experienced these various speaking situations I’ve come to realize that I consciously do a few things that I don’t typically do in more casual settings. Since I’ve clearly decided making some adjustments to how I speak increases the effectiveness of my communications, it begs the question why I don’t apply the same adjustments to my day-to-day verbal communications. Isn’t communicating effectively always a good thing? This is definitely fodder for self-reflection.
When I first watched Julian Treasure’s TED Talk, I recognized a few of the things I do when trying to ensure my speaking voice lands on the ear to the greatest effect. I also learned a few things I haven’t thus far done that might further improve my speaking and might improve yours as well.
Being able to speak effectively to optimize the level of engagement and understanding in your audience, be it one person or thousands, seems like a life skill we should all try to acquire.
Let me recount here Treasure’s tips for better speaking outcomes and let me add a couple of my own into the mix. First though, indulge me in a recollection.
As a gay man I grew up being sensitive about any male with a “high” voice. I equated it with effeminacy. I grew up in an era when a man’s high voice immediately called their manliness and sexuality into question until proven otherwise. I recall having a teacher in high school who had a naturally high-pitched voice. Rumblings of gossip would often ripple through the school that perhaps he was gay, something that in the 1960s Midwest was tantamount to being declared a witch in late 1690’s Salem. Was my voice unmasking my budding sexual orientation identity? It was a concern.
Even earlier in life I recall other kids lobbing insults at a boy in my neighborhood who spoke a bit too high for the haters’ tastes. He was teased and bullied incessantly. I learned rather quickly that if I wanted to hide my as yet unaccepted gayness it would be wise to keep my voice a bit lower than might naturally come out of my mouth. Each accidental high-pitched squeak I uttered was immediately met with a harsh self-correction to never do that again lest I be deemed one of those queers. Thankfully the LGBTQ community has taken back the word queer for ourselves, but to this day I recall how much that word hurt.
So, my self-awareness of how I spoke made its debut at a young age. However, even then, with all that I discovered about how to speak to be “undetected,” I still fell back into other speaking patterns that likely did not serve me well. Treasure’s video brought some of those shortcomings back into clear focus again. Plus I learned a few new things.
Treasure starts out by noting the seven deadly sins of speaking. They are gossip, judging, negativity, complaining, excuses, lying, and dogmatism. These are fairly self-explanatory. We all know that we’re turned off when we hear someone gossip, judge others, wallow in negativity, complain constantly, make excuses for everything, lie far too often, and pontificate in a dogmatic fashion. I don’t think much in-depth explanation here is necessary. We should try to not do those things.
Let me point out though that while Treasure’s advice pertains specifically to the speaking voice, those seven deadly sins rear their ugly heads in our written communications too, including casual text and social media interactions. Don’t we all know that person on social media who judges others constantly or is nothing but negative or complaining in post after post? There are seven deadly sins of communication whether spoken or written.
After Treasure expounds on the seven deadly sins, he offers us four powerful communication cornerstones, foundations upon which we can stand if we want our speech to be powerful and to make change in the world. The initial letter of each of the concepts happens to spell HAIL, which fortuitously means “to greet or acclaim enthusiastically." The concepts are honesty, authenticity, integrity, and love.
Honesty ensures that our words are clear and understood without the suspicion of inaccuracy that a history of dishonesty might create.
Authenticity is about being yourself. Speaking from a false persona inevitably leads the listener or reader to not trust what’s being said. Even actors who are professionally tasked with adopting a persona other than their own for their characters seem best at acting if the foundation of their character feels authentic.
Integrity means you’re a person of your word. Promise made, promise kept. When you fuck up, apologize. If you’re misunderstood and your integrity is called into question, explain the situation quickly because otherwise the wound will fester.
Love doesn’t necessarily mean of the romantic kind. Rather, in this case it means wishing others well, speaking from a place of true caring and compassion. When I walk down my local San Francisco neighborhood streets on my way to coffee each morning I greet many people I see along the way, whether I know them or not, with a “Good morning. Have a great day!” Everyone wants us to wish them well. It might seem like nothing more than a cultural nicety, but I think it matters.
Then Treasure touches upon the vocal instrument at our disposal and how we might use it better. He calls it our speaking toolbox. Much like other tools, we can utilize them to craft more effective communications.
Because I’m not fully educated on some of these terms, I have included a link to their definitions. If you aren’t entirely sure what timbre means or you’ve never heard of prosody before, you’re not alone.
Register is the range of tones the human voice can produce. Treasure appears to focus on the head voice versus the chest voice aspect of register. He says that when you want to be heard and make an impact, speak from the chest. He notes that research shows we vote for politicians with lower voices because we associate depth with power and authority. Knowing this, I bet there is an entire profession of vocal coaches who instruct politicians, especially during political campaigns.
One thing I noticed that over time I began to do when in front of a room speaking or when being interviewed is to consciously lower my voice into my chest. My natural speaking voice is much more of a head voice and lands on the ear higher than I’d like sometimes. I now do this lowering more or less unconsciously when I’m speaking in a professional or official capacity, but not so much when the conversation is casual. Maybe I should.
Timbre is the way your voice “feels” as we speak. We tend to like voices that are rich, smooth, and warm. It’s that special “something” that some voices have that attracts us to them and makes us listen more carefully. I’m not sure how to do this. So this will be something I investigate in the future to see if I can give my own voice a more appealing timbre.
Prosody is the musicality of our voice. As Treasure puts it, it’s the sing-song, meta-language that we use in order to impart meaning when we speak. When we speak in a monotone it’s boring and harder to listen to. Repetitive prosody, such as the stereotypical “valley girl” tendency to end every sentence as though it’s a question, also lands on the ear rather badly. Shake up your speech patterns. Give it some rhythm, some ups and downs. Variety is good in most things including how we speak.
Pace is the speed at which we speak. This is a big one for me. I can be a rapid-fire motor mouth if I don’t consciously check myself and slow down. Slowing our speech heightens emphasis. The judicious use of silence, pauses in our speech, adds emphasis and makes the listener lean in a bit. We don’t have to fill every moment with sound. This is difficult for many people including myself. I often find myself rattling off a slew of words while barely catching a breath and then realizing I need to shut up for a moment and breathe.
Pitch is useful when accompanied by good pacing. We often find pitch referring to singing voices (soprano, alto, tenor, and bass), but it also applies to the speaking voice. Variation of pitch can increase the effectiveness of a statement or question.
Volume is quite simply how loud you’re speaking. Just yesterday I caught myself staring daggers at someone within close proximity of me at a café speaking incredibly loudly into his phone while I was trying to read a book. I like the name Treasure gave the practice of broadcasting loudly the whole time, sodcasting, which typically references playing music loudly on a phone in public. Here it references imposing a loud voice on people around others carelessly and inconsiderately. Navigating how loud we should or should not speak is important.
I recall the first time I was speaking to a room of about 300 people at a conference and decided to try out an intentional variation in volume. I leaned in and whispered the next line of my speech slowly into the microphone and I could see many audience members physically leaning in to listen to what I was saying more carefully. Vary volume for effect and don’t be the overly loud, annoying one in the room.
Treasure suggests that for those important moments in life when our speech matters most, we owe it to ourselves to look at this speech toolbox and utilize it to our advantage. I’d add that perhaps most of our speaking communications are important and always trying to adhere to these guidelines is a good idea.
The video concludes with some simple vocal warm-up exercises that Treasure does before every talk he delivers. I can’t adequately describe them with text, so I recommend you watch them when they appear near the end of the video.
Finally, let me add a couple tips of my own. Don’t step on others speaking. This is a bad habit of mine. I’m so anxious to make my next point I step on the words of the other speaker before they’ve concluded. I try to wait and make sure the other person has finished before I speak, but it’s an old habit I find myself constantly having to self-check. I find that lots of people do this and it’s annoying. So when I experience myself doing it, it’s that much more unattractive.
There is a concept called active listening and it’s something everyone will find useful. It means making a conscious effort to listen to what someone is saying including what we sense is the complete message of the words. Most of us, myself included, don’t always truly listen to others fully and we should. It improves everyone’s conversation experience.
Treasure concludes with this, a beautiful sentiment I agree with.
What would the world be like if we were speaking powerfully to people who were listening consciously in environments which were actually fit for purpose? Or to make that a bit larger, what would the world be like if we were creating sound consciously and consuming sound consciously and designing all our environments consciously for sound? That would be a world that does sound beautiful, and one where understanding would be the norm, and that is an idea worth spreading.
Treasure’s talk is a brief 10 minutes and you’ll learn something about how to speak more effectively by watching it. Maybe you’ll be able to use some of the tips in your next conversation later in the day or at that next important business meeting.
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