Episode #404: Speaking With Impact In Japan

Recently I was teaching a class of technical experts to have more impact when they spoke. Like many specialists, their areas of expertise required great detailed knowledge and experience and they have to interact with other non-expert parts of the organisation. In their case, they have to report to senior management and they also had to deal with the sales team. The brief from HR was that the senior leaders didn’t take sufficient note of their reporting and advice because of the way they were delivering the information. Salespeople were also pushing back on the direction they were receiving and not accepting what they were being told either. They needed more impact when they spoke.

When we started the session, we discussed with them the areas where they wanted to improve. Many people mentioned being more clear and succinct when they spoke. They felt that the complexity of what they were trying to convey sometimes made it difficult for the listeners. Also, rambling during their explanation was identified as an issue.

One thing which I noticed was common across the group was their level of energy when they spoke. They were bringing the same voice strength they would employ when having a chat over coffee with their friend to their presentations. In Japan, this is a very typical area for more work needed when we are teaching presentation skills. When we are speaking up in a meeting or standing before a group, we have to switch gears and bring a lot more vocal range to the content of what we are saying.

Not every word should have the same voice strength, though, but that is what a lot of people do. They give keywords the exact same voice power, as they do less important words and phrases in the sentence. This is highly democratic, but not very useful when trying to get our message across. We need to either hit those keywords with more volume or we need to strip the volume out and make it an audible whisper. Both will work. Applying the same strength throughout the sentence from go to whoa is the death knell of messaging.

Voice modulation is critical to keeping an audience with us. Listeners are so easily lost today to the allure of the internet on their phones and if they feel disengaged they are gone, gone, gone. If the vocal power is set at the same dial strength from beginning to end, then listeners will just tune us out, as it becomes repetitious and morphs into a boring, sleep actuating monotone. Like classical music, we need crescendos and the opposite, decrescendos or lulls.

The problem though, is often we have a lot on our mind and are supremely nervous. We are not even aware that we are speaking at the one constant volume or in a monotone throughout our talk. By the way, this doesn’t have to be a formal talk. It can happen in a normal meeting, where we are presenting some results or giving some guidance on what needs to happen next. We lapse into a monotone and we are tuned out by the assembled masses.
Now, the nervousness has to be a best kept secret when we are speaking. During the training, it often happened that someone would suddenly laugh nervously during their talk as the pressure mounted within them. That laugh is a physical release from the internal mental pressure building up inside their mind. We can be nervous, but this information has to be kept from the audience, because it instantly diminishes our credibility as a speaker.

We were filming the talks and for the first round we had them do the talk facing the camera and conducted at a ninety-degree angle to the audience. In this way, the speaker couldn’t easily see the faces in the audience. Instead, they had to concentrate on me as the coach. We sometimes do this to try to lessen the pressure of having to present to a crowd where there are a lot of beady eyes and faces staring back at us. Later, when they had gained more confidence and poise, we had them give their talk directly facing everyone and they were able to do it without looking nervous.

Remember, only we know we are feeling nervous. If we don’t show it and if we speak with a strong voice, we come across as confident and the audience will believe us. That strong voice part can be a problem, though, for a lot of ladies who speak very softly. One of the dangers is that their soft voice is ignored by the executives, usually men, who they are presenting to. They lack what is called “executive presence” and a big part of that is confidence, portrayed though voice stength. Fair or unfair, a meek, soft, tiny voice just won’t command the attention and credibility of hard driving male bosses.

When these softly spoken ladies were presenting, and I asked them to increase their voice volume, I would ask their colleagues if they thought they were yelling? The answer would always be “no”. I would then ask if they thought they could go even louder and the answer would always be “yes”. What a difference it made when they did. Being softly spoken, for them, it felt like they were yelling. However, from an audience point of view, they just sounded very confident, credible and clear.

We can get into a debate about whether women should have to change their speaking style to pander to men, but reality is reality. Men occupy a disproportionate share of senior executive positions in most companies and they are an important audience for these ladies. By making a small change, they will be heard as opposed to being ignored, which was the current situation in this company.

When we understand that our presenting voice cannot be at the same volume as our coffee chat with a friend volume, we will make the required adjustments. The good news is that the results are immediate and we come across with a lot more credibly.