How to speak so people would want to listen
On 5/6/2023, I took “How to speak so people would want to listen” course on LinkedIn Learning. In the audio-only course from “How to Be Awesome at Your Job”, international speaker Julian Treasure shares tactics and techniques that improve how I communicate. Julian stresses the importance of learning how to listen first. Understanding how your audience listens will improve your speaking. Julian showed me words to avoid and roadblocks to work around. If I’m more concerned about looking good or being right than I am about giving value to my audience, then my presentation won’t have any impact. Julian showed me ways to vary how I speak to keep my voice engaging. Change up my pace, tone, pitch, and volume to make my speaking more dynamic. I can also resonate my voice from my chest to sound more authoritative. Moreover, he encourages us to keep our postures straight for more powerful speaking. Hunching prevents me from using my voice at its best, and Julian concludes with the four C’s of good listening.
Additional notes:
- To define silence as the absence of human noise. A birdsong, running water, and wind in leaves. They all are pretty acceptable departures from absolute silence.
- RASA:
- Receive: facing the person and looking at them
- Appreciation: the little noises and gestures that we make to show that we’re with them in the conversation. “Hmm, ah, really? Uh, huh.”
- Summarize: “So” allows you to close doors in the corridor or of your conversation.
- Ask: Ask questions all the way through at the beginning, at the end. Open-ended questions
- Prioritize “content” over delivery (appearance)
- Vary your voice and pause
- Speak from your chest (whistle/Monty Python/Modal register): deeper, easier to grasp attention
- . Put your hand on your sternum, that bone in your chest, and practice resonating so you can start to feel the vibrations with your fingers.
- Practice prosody, timbre, and posture
- Four Cs:
- Consciousness: being away or doing something (Listening)
- Compassion
- Commitment: you have to stop doing other things in order to listen well
- Curiosity (foundation)
In the end, as this is also related to my MIS major courses, I also further connected the lesson above with my future career and academic plans. Continuously striving to become a better self!