Julian Treasure: How to speak so that people want to listen

The human voice.

It's the instrument we all play.

It's the most powerful sound in
the world probably.

It's the only one that can
start a war or say I love you.

And yet many people have the
experience that when they speak,

people don't listen to them.

Why is that?

How can we speak powerfully to
make change in the world?

What I'd like to suggest
there are a number of

habits that we need to move
away from.

I have, I've assembled for your
pleasure here seven

deadly sins of speaking.

I'm not pretending this is
an exhaustive list,

but these seven I think are
pretty large habits that

we can all fall into.

First: Gossip.

Speaking ill of somebody who's
not present.

Not a nice habit and we know
perfectly well the person

gossiping five minutes later
will be gossiping about us.

Second: Judging.

We know people who are
like this in conversation

and it's very hard to
listen to somebody if you

know that you're being
judged and found wanting

at the same time.

Third: Negativity.

You can fall into this.

My mother in the last
years of her life became

very, very negative and
it's hard to listen.

I remember one day I said
to her,

it's October 1st today and she
said, I know, isn't it dreadful.

It's hard to listen when
somebody's that negative.

And another form of
negativity: Complaining.

Well, this is the national art
of the UK.

It's, it's our national sport.

We complain about the
weather, about sport,

about politics, about
everything,

but actually complaining is
viral misery.

It's not spreading sunshine and
lightness in the world.

Excuses.

We've all met this guy.

Maybe we've all been this
guy.

Some people have a blame
thrower.

They just pass it on to
everybody else and don't

take responsibility for their
actions.

And, again, hard to listen to
somebody who's being like that.

Penultimate, the sixth of
the seven, embroidery,

exaggeration.

It demeans our language actually
sometimes.

For example, if I see something
that really is awesome,

what do I call it?

And then of course this
exaggeration becomes

lying, out and out lying, and
we don't want to

listen to people we know are
lying to us.

And finally, dogmatism; the
confusion of facts with

opinions.

When those two things
get conflated,

you're listening into the wind.

You know, somebody is
bombarding you with their

opinions as if they were
true.

It's difficult to listen to
that.

So here they are, seven
deadly sins of speaking.

These are things I think we
need to avoid.

But is there a positive
way to think about this?

Yes there is.

I'd like to suggest that
there are four really

powerful cornerstones,
foundations, that we can

stand on if we want our
speech to be powerful and

to make change
in the world.

Fortunately, these
things spell a word.

The word is "hail," and it
has a great definition as well.

I'm not talking about the
stuff that falls from the

sky and hits you on the head.

I'm talking about this
definition, "to greet or

acclaim enthusiastically,"
which is I think how our

words will be received if
we stand on these four things.

So what do they stand for?

See if you can guess.

The H, honesty, of course.

Being true in what you
say.

Being straight and clear.

The A is authenticity,
just being yourself.

A friend of mine described it as
standing in your own truth,

which I think is a lovely way
to put it.

The I is integrity, being your
word, actually doing what you
say,

and being somebody people can
trust.

And the L is love.

I don't mean romantic love, but
I do mean wishing people well.

For two reasons, first
of all I think absolute

honesty may not be what
we want.

I mean, my goodness, you look
ugly this morning.

Perhaps that's not necessary.

Tempered with love, of course,
honesty is a great thing.

But, also, if you're
really wishing somebody

well, it's very hard to
judge them at the same time.

I'm not even sure you can do
those two things simultaneously.

So hail.

Also, now that's what you
say and it's like the old song,

it is what you say, it's
also the way that you say it.

You have an
amazing toolbox.

This instrument is incredible,
and yet this is a toolbox

that very few people have ever
opened.

I'd like to have a little
rummage in there with you now.

Just pull a few tools out
that you might like to

take away and play with,
which will increase the

power of your speaking.

Register, for example.

Now falsetto register may
not be very useful most of

the time, but there's
a register in between.

I'm not going to get very
technical about this for

any of you who are voice
coaches.

You can locate your voice,
however.

So if I talk up here in my noise
you can hear the difference.

If I go down here in my
throat, which is where

most of us speak from most
of the time,

but if you want weight, you need
to go down here to the chest.

You hear the difference?

We vote for politicians
with lower voices.

It's true.

Because we associate depth with
power and with authority.

That's a register.

And we have timbre.

It's the, the way your voice
feels.

Again, the research shows that
we prefer voices which are

rich, smooth, warm, like hot
chocolate.

Well if that's not you, that's
not the end of the world,

because you can train.

Go get a voice coach.

And there are amazing
things you can do with

breathing, with posture,
and with exercises to

improve the timbre
of your voice.

Then prosody.
I love prosody.

This is the singsong, the
meta language that we use

in order to impart meaning.

It's root one for meaning in
conversation.

People who speak all on one
note are really quite

hard to listen to if they
don't have any prosody at all.

That's where the word
monotonic comes from, or

monotonous, monotone.

Also, we have repetitive
prosody now coming in

where every sentence ends
as if it were a question,

when it's actually not a
question,

it's a statement.

And if you repeat that
one over and over, it's

actually restricting your
ability to communicate

through prosody, which
I think is a shame.

So let's try and break that
habit. Pace.

I can get very, very
excited by saying

something really, really
quickly, or I can slow

right down to emphasize.

And at the end of that, of
course,

is our old friend silence.

There's nothing wrong with
a bit of silence in a talk,

is there.

We don't have to fill
it with ums and ahs.

It can be very powerful.

Of course, pitch often goes
along with pace to

indicate arousal, but you can do
it just with pitch.

Where did you leave my
keys?

Where did you leave
my keys!

There's a slightly different
meaning in those

two deliveries.

And finally, volume.

I can get really excited
by using volume.

Sorry about that if
I startled anybody.

Or I can have you really pay
attention by getting very quiet.

Some people broadcast the
whole time trying not to

do that.

That's called sodcasting.

Imposing your sound
on people around you

carelessly and inconsiderately.

Not nice.

Of course, where this all
comes into play most of

all is when you've got something
really important to do.

It might be standing on a
stage like this and giving

a talk to people.

It might be proposing
marriage,

asking for a raise, a wedding speech.

Whatever it is.

If it's really important,
you owe it to yourself to

look at this toolbox and
the engine that it's going

to work on.

And no engine works well
without being warmed up.

Warm up your voice.

Actually, let me show
you how to do that.

Would you all like to
stand up for a moment?

I'm going to show you the
six vocal warmup exercises

that I do before
every talk I ever do.

Anytime you're going to
talk to anybody important,

do these.

First, arms up, deep
breath in, and sigh out,

like that.

One more time.
Very good.

Now we're going to warm up
our lips and we're going

to go ba, ba, ba,
ba, ba, ba, ba, ba.

Very good.

And now, bvoo,
bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb,

just like when you were a kid.

bbbbbbbbb.

Now your lips should
be coming alive.

We're going to do the tongue
next with exaggerated la,

la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la.

Beautiful, you're getting really
good at this.

And then roll an R.

That's like champagne
for the tongue.

Finally, and if I can only
do one,

the pros call this the siren.

It's really good.

It starts with we and goes
to oh.

The we is high, the oh
is low.

So you go
weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee,

ohhhhhh
weeeeeeeeeeeeeee, oh.

Fantastic.

Give yourselves a round of
applause.

Take a seat.
Thank you.

Next time you speak, do those in advance.Now let me just put this in context to close.

This is a serious
point here.

This is where we are now.
Right?

We speak not very well
and to people who simply

aren't listening in an
environment that's all

about noise and
bad acoustics.

I have talked about that on this
stage in different phases.

What would the world be
like if we were speaking

powerfully to people who
are listening consciously

in environments which were
actually fit for purpose.

Or to make that a bit
larger,

what would the world be like if
we were creating sound

consciously and consuming sound
consciously and designing

all our environments
consciously for sound.

That would be a world that
does sound beautiful and

one where understanding
would be the norm and that

is an idea we're
spreading.
Thank you.