Want to sound like a leader? Start by saying your name right | Laura Sicola | TEDxPenn

Transcriber: Rafael Barranco-Droege Reviewer: Denise RQ One of the hottest topics in courses and books today, regarding

leader

ship communication, is the concept of executive presence. What does it mean? How do you define it? And can it be taught or learned? The Center for Talent Innovation identified three main pillars: appearance, communication skills and seriousness. Gravitas means things like "Do

your

words have teeth?", "Are you able to make difficult decisions and stick with them?" One of the missing pieces when you think about what's really embedded between the lines of broad concepts like communication skills and thoughtfulness is vocal executive presence, as I call it.

It's the missing link. How do you

sound

when you make those difficult decisions? Does

your

delivery reinforce your message and establish the image you desire? Or does it undermine it? What if I'm trying to diffuse a tense situation and say, "Okay, everyone calm down now, we need to reevaluate the situation." At worst, I'm just adding fuel to the fire, and at best, they may then kindly suggest I switch to decaf. It's about how we connect. I end up working a lot with people who are preparing for presentations and press conferences, and they make statements like, "We are very passionate about helping kids and improving the quality of our schools." And I think to myself, "Really?

Because you could have fooled me." There is a claim of passion, but there is no evidence of it. The problem is a disconnect between the choice of words and their execution, their delivery. And this creates a credibility problem. Now, there is a landmark and seminal study that looked at feelings and attitudes as a result of consistency or inconsistency in verbal and non-verbal message cues. And what they found was that when they asked people to rate speakers on whether they thought they

sound

ed sincere or not, 38% of that evaluation was based on the tonality of the speaker's voice.

Tonality is things like the ups and downs in your intonation patterns. In contrast, only 7% of those decisions were based on the words the speakers chose, and the remaining 55% were based on non-verbal cues, such as their posture, eye contact, etc. Now this is a study. We have to be careful because many people love to misquote him. And you'll hear people make big statements like, "Well, you know, 55% of all communication is nonverbal." That's not even remotely accurate and it's not what the study was talking about, but what we can take away from this study and much subsequent research in the area is the importance of appearing credible.

Now, I'd like you to think about this in the context of how you personally prepare for some type of presentation. Do you spend 38% of your time working on delivery? If you're like most people, you probably spend most, if not all, of your time working on your content: your outline, your script, your PowerPoint slides, making sure you have interesting graphics and some eye-catching animations, processing your data to put into your spreadsheets. But then, after all that work, we improvise the delivery hoping it's good enough. And in the end, that is comparatively weak and can undermine both your immediate goals and objectives and your long-term image and reputation.

The fact is, if you

want

to be seen as a

leader

, you have to look like one. You have to demonstrate vocal executive presence. Now, part of vocal executive presence is the ability to read an audience and identify the type of person who would be most open to receiving your message, and then figure out what that type of person would sound like. Now, to some extent, we are all born with the voice we have, but we have a lot of control over how we use it. Margaret Thatcher is a great example of this. She was the first woman in the British Parliament and many of her opponents openly mocked her with phrases such as: "I think the lady shouts too much" because when she was passionate in arguing certain points, her voice would rise higher. and she becomes quite strident.

So, when she decided to run for Prime Minister, she worked with a tutor from the National Theater who helped tone her down to seem more authoritative. And this is really important because the voice has both cognitive and emotional effects on the listener. Let's

start

with the cognitive. We talk about tonality, that 38%, the highs and lows of your voice. And if we use this strategically, we can help the listener focus on the most important words and parts of the message, which creates a lighter mode of processing and helps them understand and potentially remember what we are

saying

.

And this can have a persuasive influence. When we hear speech, we process it into what are called tone units or fragments. And we

start

by first looking at the intonation pattern and anchoring what we hear where those highest peaks are. And then, if necessary, we allow our imagination to fill in whatever is in those lower sonic valleys. An example of this is in the lyrics of the songs. We've all had this situation where we were singing our favorite song and suddenly we realize, or maybe someone else points out, not so kindly, that we've been singing the lyrics wrong.

Have you ever been there? Lots of nods. There is a classic song, "What a wonderful world" by Louis Armstrong. I think everyone knows this one. And in it there is a line that talks about: "the day b

right

and blessed and the night dark and sacred." But as a child he thought the phrase was: "B

right

blessed day and the dogs say goodnight." (Laughs) Now, does this make any sense? No, but I accepted it, in part because, first of all, it matches those intonation patterns and it also matches those pitch peaks, the vowels, these syllables that are at the top.

And then, in the parts that were less salient, that were less emphasized, in those valleys of tone, I let myself do the rest. This also reflects why effective speakers, when speaking, emphasize the most important words with a higher pitch. Now, tonality, if used strategically, can have a good influence on our first impressions when trying to establish ourselves as leaders from the moment we meet someone. Of course, it is very important to make a good, solid and memorable first impression. But this is difficult when many people feel that they are not even good at remembering people's

name

s.

Have you ever felt like this? Well, I'm going to absolve you of about half of that blame. And that's because when most people introduce themselves to you, they mispronounce their

name

s. Well, technically maybe it's not wrong, but they pronounce them in a way that uses a rhythm and intonation pattern that makes it harder for you to understand what they're

saying

. And by the way, I absolve you of only half of that responsibility because the other half of the time you are the one introducing yourself to someone else. So if I

want

to know that I'm introducing myself and helping the listener really understand my name, and by understanding it, then hopefully they'll be able to remember it and therefore remember me, I want to start by letting my voice rise. up like this, in your name, as if to say, "I'm not done yet," and then, up there, we'll have a little break, that little pause that will allow a sound to be interrupted to indicate the word. limit, and then in our last name, we want to go down, drop the pitch, as if to say, "And now I'm done," like you're putting a little local dot at the end.

So instead of blurring your way through your introduction, like "Hello, my name is Laura Sicola" and blah-blah-blah, I want to focus and help my listener understand, so I'll do my best to say to them: "Hello, my name is Laura Sicola". And you'll be surprised at the difference this strategic hue can make even on something so small. Now, of course, if we use intonation haphazardly and place it in the wrong place, we can have exactly the opposite effect. We can distract the listener's attention from what is most important and make it harder for them to process what we are saying.

And one of the most common and, in my opinion, annoying examples of this, which is becoming more and more prevalent in society today, is a phenomenon called "up-speak," also known as up-talk or, more technically, high-speak. upload terminal. And that's the pattern in which people talk, and they keep adding these question-like tones at the end of all their phrases and sentences, "You know?", like they're hinting at a bunch of little "OKs" and "rights." . ," one after another, as if there's some kind of deep-seated insecurity and a pathological need for constant validation? (Laughs) You know? The problem with talking like that is that what ends up being emphasized is just what falls by chance at the end.

It doesn't help anyone process what you're saying. And that monotonous, melodious chanting over and over again can be quite hypnotic and, after a while, we don't really know if the audience is listening to anything we're saying, let alone what. By the way, I should also point out that this is not just a "Valley Girl" phenomenon, as many people seem to attribute it to. Today, increasingly, this crime against humanity is perpetrated by men and women. , old and young, with high and low educational level. Congratulations guys, you have closed the gender gap. Way to lead! (Laughs) From there, one of the other problems is that when people, of course, listen. something, tends to have a very negative and even visceral response.

It is not just the antithesis of vocal authority. It's almost like the vocal equivalent of twirling your hair, you know? So when people have that visceral response, this will lead us to now talk about the emotional effects of the voice. Let's start by thinking about some people who have really different voices. We'll start with James Earl Jones, perhaps best known as the iconic voice of Darth Vader. Now, in my opinion, with that deep, rich, gravelly voice of his, you could read the ingredients on the back of a shampoo bottle and it would sound like poetry. But he probably wouldn't have been as successful if he had tried to play the role of Elmo on Sesame Street. (Laughs) What about someone like Fran Drescher with that nasal, whiny, completely unmistakable voice straight out of Queens, New York?

He was great on TV as The Nanny, but probably would have been less successful as Darth Vader. Can you imagine her standing next to Luke Skywalker saying, "Luke, I'm your father!" (Laughs) It doesn't work! That's a great voice for comic relief, but it's not necessarily the voice you want to find when looking for a funeral director. It's all a matter of context. In the funeral context, you are looking for someone who sounds understanding, who sounds compassionate, who sounds like you can trust them to take care of you and your family during your time of greatest emotional need.

And the problem is that when we find someone who has a voice that we find unpleasant or who somehow seems to lack the characteristics of the type of person we are looking for, - they don't sound like that type of person - we can tune into them. outside. We can shut down and not even want to hear the rest of the message, no matter how important the information is. Unconsciously, we really want the messenger's voice to fit the message. Now, does that mean that vocal executive presence is about taking action? No, on the contrary, it is exactly the opposite.

You have to be authentic. You have to be yourself. But the key is recognizing which parts of your personality need to shine at a particular moment and how to convey that through your voice and speaking style. Now, you're listening to me here today in part because the way I'm presenting makes sense to you and will meet your expectations of what a TED Talk speaker should sound like. But I can't use this same style of speech when I talk to my 3-year-old nephew. He would wonder what happened to Aunt Laura because I don't seem fun anymore and he would probably stop playing with me.

But at the same time, I can't come here today and talk to you the same way I talk to him. Can you imagine if he started by saying, "Everyone, I have a great idea! Talk about vocal executive presence!" (Laughter) You'd say, "Are you kidding me? Who is this crazy woman? What does she know about leadership or anything executive? And, in fact, who invited her?" And by the way, it was them. (Laughs) I call it "working on your prismatic voice." In the end I don't act. It's just a matter of recognizing and being aware of the different needs and expectations of the two audiences.

And then identify which parts of my personality I want to let out and how, to ensure your openness to my message. And with respect to the great notion, the metaphor, the prismatic voice, in many ways, in the same way white light would pass through a prism and be divided into all the colors of the rainbow that make up that white light, when white light of your personality passes through the prism of some situational context, you need to look at all the colors that are available, all the different parts of your personality, and decide which one you need to highlight at the moment and how, in order to be most effective and appropriate for that moment. moment.

And if you can figure out how to do it successfully, then you can create your own, unique, authentic sound of leadership. Thank you. (Applause)