Weekly Voice Insight #112 "Communication Begins Before You Enter the Room"

“Let your words be few and well-chosen.”

— Epictetus, Enchiridion 33.2

I was honored to present at ProjectSummit*BAWorld in Chicago and be in the lineup with such inspiring and thought provoking speakers!

At ProjectSummit*BAWorld in Chicago, I gave my Power of Voice presentation and attended other people’s sessions. I learned from the information they shared, but also from noticing my own experience as a listener. A few observations helped me think about how I prepare and how much I’m asking someone else to take in when I speak.

When I’m preparing, I know my material and how one idea connects to another. The listener has to discover those connections while I’m speaking. In some sessions, there was good energy and pacing, but so much information on the PowerPoint slides that I didn’t know where to put my attention first. I started thinking about content per minute: how much information someone is being asked to absorb in the time we have. I might be reading the slide while the speaker explains something else. If I stop to write something down, the presentation continues.

One speaker talked about talking at people because we’re nervous and have a lot to say. I’ve experienced that. You’ve prepared all this information and want to share it, but the person listening hasn’t had that preparation. They’re hearing it now in the moment.

Last week, I wrote about becoming comfortable with the pause and practicing outside the situation where we’ll need to use it. Another idea from this conference was that communication success begins before we enter the room.  Part of this is considering who will be listening as we decide what to say.

One of the business analysts talked about not knowing what the acronym PM meant when he first heard it. He felt insecure because everyone else seemed to know. We can forget that a term we use every day may be new to the person listening.

I think about that when I teach voice. I may use the familiar phrase “belly breathing” to introduce diaphragmatic breathing, even though the stomach itself has very little to do with the process. The familiar phrase gives us a place to start. Then I can explain what I mean and use an image to show it. Some people need to see an image along with the words they hear. That image can help make the explanation clearer.

That’s one reason I attend other people’s presentations. I get to be on the other side of the equation, hearing what’s already been said and how people are responding. When I present, I can connect my material to what the listeners have already been hearing. A question or a response can help me decide what may add the most value to the listeners experience.

Epictetus writes about listening as a skill and how a suitable listener can kindle a speaker’s desire to speak.

I chose “communication success begins before you get in the room” as the title for this week's insight because I heard it in one of the presentations, and I captured it.  At lunch with the other speakers and participants, the idea came up again; someone else wrote it down, too. It had resonated with all at the table. 

When I’ve done this work before I "enter the room", I’m not preoccupied with whether I’ve said every point. I can pay attention to the people listening. I feel honored and privileged to hear such speakers at ProjectSummit*BAWorld in Chicago, and grateful to everyone who joined the conversations and connected those ideas to their own experience.

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