Weekly Voice Insights#114 -Tell Me How to Do It

At the end of my last blog, I said I would try some of the ideas I’d been exploring and let you know how they worked. This is part of that follow-up. At breakfast during the Business Analysts World Summit in Boston, I heard someone say, “Tell me how to do it, not that I can do it.” I understood the point. “You can do it” is encouraging, and encouragement has its place. But when someone is trying to improve a skill, encouragement alone doesn’t show them what to try next.

If I’m mentoring someone to become a better listener, pay attention to their tone, or speak clearly enough for an idea to land, I can offer more than the outcome. I can suggest steps to practice and ways to notice what happens along the way. How does the thought feel before it’s spoken? What changes when the speaker slows down or lets a sentence finish? What can they hear in their own tone?

That was part of my presentation at the summit. I shared ways to pay attention to the voice and body, so people could begin to recognize the choices involved in listening and speaking. Confidence and authenticity can describe what we’re working toward, but those words can feel abstract on their own. A moment of practice gives us something to do. Self-awareness helps us notice what happened and consider what to try next.

In one exercise, I split the group in two. One half delivered a word with an extended vowel and a clear intention toward the other half. The participants were surprised by what they heard: the sound changed with the intention. They were also surprised by what they saw in their colleagues’ faces. The exercise gave them a way to experience how intention travels through the voice and how listeners respond.

I think about that distinction in voice teaching, too. Telling someone, “You can do this,” can offer encouragement. Then we can work on their delivery, choose the intention behind a phrase, feel what the breath and tone are doing, and make an adjustment they can feel. Encouragement can support the process; practice gives the singer something specific to try.

There’s also room for curiosity in that practice: What can your voice do? Of the four pillars, which tool or aspect feels most available to you right now? What could you explore to become more effective in the way you listen, speak, and connect with others? You don’t have to work on everything at once. You can begin with one choice, try it, and notice what changes.

“Every habit and faculty grows through the actions that strengthen it: listening by listening, speaking clearly by practicing how we speak. If you want to become a more effective communicator, make a practice of it; if one approach isn’t helping, train yourself to try another.” 

—Adapted from Epictetus, Discourses 2.18

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