Using Our Unique Voice To Increase Humaneness
Live answer… Try it, and your clients will love you. Because when they call you, they get to talk to a human instead of listening to, “please choose from one of the following five options…” And for us older people, this is important because we forget the first three options by the time the last option is being recited.
Live answer is loved, trust me. It’s loved by young people, even by introverts, particularly by extroverts. Hearing someone’s voice helps us recognize them as humans and therefore treat them more humanely. It’s often a key component in making a sale and a central element to any interaction we have. For instance, whenever we read, we do so with a voice inside our heads. You probably hear a voice echo as you read these lines.
Conversation is Our Evolutionary Heritage
The other day I decided to take my recently read books to the local library, where another person may benefit from them. My number one rule when sorting through my books is that they go to the library if they have no bookmarks or stickies protruding from a random page.
In my quest to clear out my bookshelf, I came across a book with a bookmark. It was called Do Nothing, How to Break Away from Overworking, Overdoing, and Underliving, by Celeste Headlee, National Bestselling Author of We Need to Talk. The bookmark was perfectly placed between pages 134 and 135, and the first paragraph I read went something like this:
“Human beings are perhaps the best communicators on the planet. Conversation is our evolutionary heritage and our biological advantage. However, we evolved to share information using our voices and ears, not text. As of 1960, less than half the world could read. In an incredibly short period of time, we’ve attempted to replace the most important platform for communication – speech – with a less advanced or efficient one – text.”
“The voice is an underrepresented and incredible instrument. It supplies us with data that we can get in no other way. Our ears evolved in ways that specifically help us listen better to other human voices, while our throats, mouths and lips changed over time so we could better speak. We evolved to talk to other humans and to hear them.”
Understanding and using the human voice is the first technology we master. The first sounds we hear are voices of care and authority, love, and learning.
This immediately brings up a memory from my grandmother, pioneer Dr. Mary Percy Jackson, who quite firmly stated, “Patricia, thank god there is only one of you, that’s all we can stand!” At that moment, I may have been talking instead of listening, touting my righteous opinion about something. Her point, in the moment, was that I was challenged to listen to understand. I do remember the comment, but I do not remember ever being upset. Grandma Doc always had a way of making a point and leaving the recipient’s psyche still intact.
When I reflect on this memory, the lesson I take away is that speech is a complicated and integrated system. Hearing the human voice and processing the message is what identifies and reveals our humanity. This is the power of the human voice.
Facilitation Instead of Lectures
I share another great example. As a speaker looking out at my audience, I found them all looking at their hands under the table. Most presenters may take this as negative feedback. Still, one of the benefits of seeing your audience playing under the table is realizing that you need to actively engage them during your presentations. For me, this led to a whole new concept of facilitation instead of lectures. People want to talk, so give them topics and problems to solve in groups, get them talking amongst themselves, and then present their solutions to the whole group. This works because the human voice engages us, making people think, empathize, and move closer to the person delivering the message. The brain that does the work does the learning.
Don’t get me wrong, voices are a crucial part of our personalities, but there is also a time and space for messages and text. Once, when someone was trashing the unfettered use of cell phones instead of talking, I noted that it was a perfect opportunity to practice Silent Socratic Dialogue. There is no doubt in my mind that sending a text or email is a beautiful silent way of connecting anytime for any reason.
Voices are an invisible but crucial part of our personalities and day-to-day interactions. A good voice starts a conversation. At first, one human speaks, and the other listens.
Let’s Connect
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