Sick of Slick II

David Maister has a great podcast on relationship building, including key messages on listening and showing appreciation.  He covers most of the bases.  But what about the way you use your voice when you are trying to build a relationship or reach agreement?  BBC radio pointed me to some research on this oft-overlooked aspect of communication and relationship building - it's by Alison Fragale at the University of North Carolina.  The full paper can be found here.

Basically, Fragale divides vocal styles into "powerful" and "powerless".  The former is the gold standard to which many of us aspire - clear, distinct, forceful, powerful etc.  The second is what most of us do all the time: hesitate, circumlocute, pause, stammer etc.  Turns out that in a situation where there is a high degree of interdependence between speakers (ie sitting round the table with your work colleagues, doing the shopping with your spouse, up a mountainside with your best buddies...) the powerLESS style is far more effective in terms of getting your message across and reaching agreement.

For me, this is an extension of the sick of slick post.  The more we polish our presentation skills, the less authentic we seem, and the less power our communication actually has.

Comments

[ED ROACH]

Steven,

I have to agree that an overly polished presentation is dead boring. More talking at me rather than to me. I saw a small presentation yesterday, he read every slide and as much as he was engaging from time to time, he periodically snubbed a line or two and you could notice, because he would hesitate to catch his balance, then forge on. The stupidest thing was he had an assistant changing the slides and he would say, "next slide" then he would mistakenly say, "next question". Weird.

What is your thoughts on where the speaker should stand?
I think you should be up next to the screen. I have collegues who think you should speak from behind the audience with the screen up front. This just makes me look back and forth from the presenter to the screen. I think my audience should see and the screen as partners in a message. This good be because I work off the screen's imagery.

[Steve Pearce]

Ed - I think the speaker should stand where he can easily get eye contact with every member of the audience. If that means he has to wander around a bit to get into proximity with everyone, great. I'd like to see more people dispensing with slides altogether. Give the audience a handout to take away, sure. But in the live moment, presenters should try to make this a conversation not a lecture.

[ED ROACH]

Steve, I also enjoy a speaker who wanders a bit. I find it friendlier. I don't know if eliminating slides completely would be something I'd recommend - I'd a least want my logo and theme up there as a constant reinforcement.

You'd have to be a pretty fromidable presentor to go graphics free. You're a better man than I.