One of the ups and downs of what I do – training people to make better presentations and use their voice properly – is that I tend to listen out for the way other people are currently doing it. It’s not conscious, it’s just a background activity, if you see what I mean. Every now and then, I’ll have the radio in the background and something will bring my full attention to what’s on: I start actively listening, which is quite a lot different to just letting it play in the background……
I should add at this point, that we are a house divided in terms of radio. We split roughly along generational lines between Radio One and Radio Four. I’m carefully not offering a prize for correctly guessing who listens to what.
On the occasion I’m thinking of, I was half aware of some politician from Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition telling people what the government was doing wrong and what they should be doing instead. So far so good – my cornflake eating went on as normal. It was the next question, or more specifically the answer to it, that brought me up short. The question was simple enough: “So how would you do it?” . The answer should have been simple enough too, but right from the first word I could hear in his voice, as clearly as though he was actually admitting it, the fact that right down at the bottom of him – deep in his heart of hearts – he simply didn’t know. (Or at least, if he did, he wasn’t at all sure it would work.)
How can you tell?
Simple.
His voice tightened up. He sounded strained and even (though this is probably more subjective than something a spectrograph would pick up on this particular occasion), slightly higher pitched.
To make matters worse, it was one of those situations when it wasn’t unreasonable for him to have said something like “I don’t know all the details yet” but for some reason, saying that seems to be a major taboo in politics (and business!).
He should have bitten the bullet and done just that.
Even if he’d been given a hard time by the interviewer at least he’d not have sounded ’shifty’, losing the respect – at least in part – of tens of thousands of listeners. Surely, surely, surely, in a time when politics is seen more and more as a dirty word and there’s a received wisdom that people are disengaged with politicians it isn’t beyond the wit of an otherwise intelligent man to be honest and courageous enough to say “I don’t know”.
Either that or learn how to fake it so that he doesn’t sound like he’s making it up as he goes along, which is pretty much what happened.
So that’s the story of my breakfast. Some calories in the cornflakes, some protein in the milk and some vitamins in the fruit I put on top….. and some cynical thoughts about politicians.
Maybe it’s a good job you can’t hear my tone of voice as I type.
By the way, if I’d been forced to give him a crash course in ‘faking it’ I’d have said “Don’t”. If he really, really had to, I’d have said: “Take half a second to drop your shoulders and breathe out for half a heartbeat before you say anything. Let the tense air out of the top of your chest before you speak.”. It’s a very simple way to make you sound ‘cooler’ when you’re under pressure.
Come to think about it, that’s pretty good advice in the rest of life too….
…and one day I’ll be honest and courageous enough to take it myself.
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