The Artists
December 15, 2011 by Admin · Leave a Comment
You’ve all heard of the importance of nonverbal communication. But have you ever wondered if it is all that it’s cracked up to be? Let me give you the evidence shown in the new film, The Artist.
- It is a ‘silent movie’ that allows you to experience how much meaning – both broad and subltle -there is to be had without words.
- Oh sure, from time to time, they throw a pinch of dialogue on the screen, but the meat of the movie is in the expressions, the context, the attitudes and movements that need no language to tell us what is going on.
- The music also moves the agenda in a nonverbal way.
Have you noticed that digital devices are fed streams – gushing rivers – of alphabetized code letters? Have we not come to see this alphabetic tidal wave as the alpha and omega of human communication?
But, have you also noticed that those who gorge themselves at the digital trough are frequently unskilled in the human nonverbal world of animal presence and subtle expression? This nonverbal world is the home of all human relationships worth having. This is the world where you are most fully alive and authentic. This is the world where you can fall in love.
See the picture and see how much of life you can know without a word being spoken.
If you want to learn more about how Dr. Fleming can help you improve your communication skills, please call her at telephone 415.391.9179 or send her an email a tquery@speechtraining.com
Carol Fleming, Ph.D., is the author of “It’s the Way You Say It”! Becoming Articulate, Well-spoken and Clear. A comprehensive guide to vocal development and improvement of communication skills.
Kindly speech
November 22, 2011 by Admin · Leave a Comment
This story takes place in a lovely care-taking facility that anyone would like to have as their residence when they age and become dependent.
The little old lady in a pink chenille robe stood in the hallway of the nursing home. Her face twisted in anguish as she proclaimed to the attendant, “Somebody stole my glasses! They were right there and somebody just took them!”
What did the attendant say?
How about
Mrs Simmons! You are always putting them down somewhere and then you forget and walk off. You’ve got to be more careful!
Or
Have you looked in your pockets? Did you check your bed stand? How about the bathroom? Are you sure they aren’t on your television table?
Or
Now who’d want to go and steal your glasses anyway?! Nobody’s going to do that. You just left them where and forgot! You shouldn’t be charging people with stealing when it your own darn fault in the first place.
Did she say any of these statements?
No.
She said,
“I think that’s just terrible. I’m going to look into this and find out just who did that! Now let me take you down to dinner and we’ll get this straightened out. Don’t you worry about a thing. We’ll get those glasses back!”
We all know that Mrs. Simmons glasses were not stolen but were probably nestled under her newspaper, or bed. But Mrs. Simmons didn’t need a lecture, a scolding or the third degree. A little kindness and soothing was just the thing to solve her distress. Mrs. Simmons was not aware that a sweet kindness was bestowed on her. But I was. And now you are. Sometimes we don’t need to fix something as much as we need to understand someone.
If you want to learn more about how Dr. Fleming can help you improve your communication skills, please call her at telephone 415.391.9179 or send her an email at query@speechtraining.com
Carol Fleming, Ph.D., is the author of “It’s the Way You Say It”! Becoming Articulate, Well-spoken and Clear. A comprehensive guide to vocal development and improvement of communication skills.
Playing the Game of Conversation
November 3, 2011 by Admin · Leave a Comment
Managing graceful small talk appears to be a difficult challenge for many of us. Do take comfort in knowing that there are things to know and do that will be of enormous help in dealing with small talk.
One such tip is the concept of ‘turn taking’ in conversation. First let’s look at how this can go wrong:
- One person starts talking and never gives up the floor; a long story, a monologue ensues, requiring no interaction. This feels really good to the speaker and really boring to the listener.
- One person smiles and nods and asks more questions of the other (like the person above) but never really makes a contribution to the conversation. They are cheer-leaders, not players.
Two sides of the same coin, wouldn’t you say?
The solution: think of any conversation as having a format like ping-pong or tennis. There is a back-and-forthing to make a game actually happen. You hog the ball, there is no action. And there is no fun if you let every shot go by without a return.
So:
- Always strive to pass the ball (topic) to the other person by asking a question
- Avoid long stories
- Understand that putting your two cents in is a conversational obligation
- Treat other people attempts to converse with respect and encouragement
Back and forth it must go; it is an ”inter-action”.
Speak up, – but not too much!
If you want to learn more about how Dr. Fleming can help you improve your communication skills, please call her at telephone 415.391.9179 or send her an email at query@speechtraining.com
Carol Fleming, Ph.D., is the author of “It’s the Way You Say It”! Becoming Articulate, Well-spoken and Clear. A comprehensive guide to vocal development and improvement of communication skills.
The advantages of a sexy voice
September 27, 2011 by Admin · Leave a Comment
Let’s say you are the biggest bullfrog in the pond. .. Because you are the largest frog your voice (croak, mating call) will have a lower pitch than that of the other males. You will croak to let the lady frogs know where you are and they will be driven mad with desire by the sound of your deep froggy voice. The lady frogs will make their way to you, for clearly, you are the alpha male in this pond.
BUT the other male frogs who have the less compelling voice, know about the drawing power of this lower voice and use it to their own advantage. They position themselves around the Big Frog and lie in wait for the ladies who are approaching him. They nab a passing female and try to become a parent.
While this approach probably does not provide useful guidance for the gentlemen reading this blog, it does confirm that the lower voice in the male has certain advantages. If you examine the relative pitch levels of the parent and the infant in any species, you will find that the parent has the lower voice. Now imagine the voices of the predator and the prey. Same difference. The lower voice communicates size, power and, maturity. Ladies do find this to be sexy.
If you want to develop a sexy voice, please send an email to query@speechtraining.com
Getting to Know the Sound of Your Voice
August 4, 2011 by Admin · Leave a Comment
The Sound of Your Voice
To listen to the blog posting in Audio, please click here —- Getting to Know The Sound of Your Voice
Do you want to know the impression you make by the way you speak?
I can help you do it in a way that won’t cost you a dime.
But, do I believe you will actually do this? No. So prove me wrong!
What to do:
Create a time for you and few (same sex) friends to get together around a good recording device, sit equidistant from the microphone, hit ‘record’….now talk to each other. Let’s say you chat about this or that for 20 minutes. Turn it off, rewind, take a lunch break, then sit down and listen.
What you might listen for:
- Who is doing the most talking?
- Who does the most interrupting?
- Who talks too softly to be heard?
- How low or high is your voice relative to the other people in the group?
- Can you understand yourself as easily as you do others?
- Do you like the sound of your laughter or are you embarrassed to hear that you sound like a Canadian goose?
- Do you hear something in your speech that you don’t like, like ‘like’?
- Does your voice sound flat as a board or should you consider opera?
And so on. Don’t worry; you’ll find much to notice. This may be a painful experience, OR you may well find much that you are pleased with.
I encourage your courage. This exercise allows you to know how you really interact with other people, more than I could possibly predict from a private interview. Consider how valuable this could be for you.
My offer: Do this exercise and write a short report on your communication behavior as you observed it on the recording. Send your report to me. (I can’t wait to read it!) I will write a blog about your findings. You can stay anonymous in the blog posting, should that be your choice. And I will send you a copy of my book, It’s the Way You Say It: Becoming Articulate, Well-spoken and Clear. Deal? I look forward to hearing from you.
When Old Folks Talk
July 15, 2011 by Admin · Leave a Comment
Grandma starts to talk and the smiles become forced and the eyes start to roll, because Grandma is going into a recital of her current medical concerns. There’s the hearing problem, the blood pressure, the bowel stuff, the swollen ankles, and that mysterious dizziness that pops up from time to time. Then there’s what she can’t eat anymore and the new medications. And don’t get her started on her teeth!
Welcome to Life as it Turns Out. The older we get and the more broken down we get, the more our world shrinks to our immediate environment and concerns. Finally our own body and its depredations constitute our most passionate focus. And that’s the way it is.
Yes, I am sure you have better things to do than listen to the ‘organ recital’ of the elderly.
Your life is full of meaning and activity and you can take your healthy body for granted. And this too shall pass, and your horizons will shrink and you will become grateful for anybody to listen to what is most important and pressing to you at that time, like your prostate.
So, please listen and respond with your own ‘organ recital”: an empathetic ear, a kindly eye, and a caring heart.
Pay your dues. Your turn is coming.
The Speech of Young People
July 6, 2011 by Admin · Leave a Comment
“Kids today! Why can’t they talk proper? Drives me up the wall.!”
Young people entering the business world frequently have speaking styles that are irritating to older folks, to say the least.
- All the “like”s , and ‘ya know”’s, the up-ending sentences, and the vocal dramatizations.
- Did I mention the hyperbole?
- How about the smarty pants attitude?
- And the language!
Yes, your parents would have knocked you across the room if you talked that way. These young people seem to be poorly educated, disrespectful, immature, and just plain wrong .
Consider another viewpoint: This style is part of their group identity, a dialect, even a code. Most people do speak in a slightly different way, depending upon the situation. Do you speak to the judge the same way you speak to the baby? Thought not. You switch codes, even without thinking about it. The older you get, the more you become aware of the need to modify your speaking style to suit the circumstances.
So too, our younger people will assimilate into the larger culture and they also will adopt the vocabulary and stylistics of the adult culture…..just like you did. The mannerism can be efficiently dealt with directly by a speech coach and a new code or style can be modeled for rapid learning.
You help by making the new work place warm and welcoming ,i.e., give them a chance (and try not to let them catch you making fun of them).
If you are one of these young people, and it appears that the way you talk irritates your new colleagues, please understand that you are using a dialect that they find offensive. To learn more about mannerisms and guidance how to address your speaking concerns, please contact Dr. Carol Fleming at (415).391.9179 or query@speechtraining.com
How to handle male ‘banter’ as the only woman on my team
June 24, 2011 by Admin · Leave a Comment
This question appeared in an on-line column, as follows:
Q: I’m the only woman in an otherwise male sales team. Lately, I’ve felt that some of my colleagues have been dismissive and patronizing towards me, but when I confronted them about it they said they were only joking and it was just “banter. Should I make a formal complaint or grin and bear it?
There were three answers submitted to this by three men:
- this reveals a dismissive attitude; you are perceived as a threat and should report it
- don’t report it; give it back and humiliate them
- this banter reveals acceptance; you are in on a shared joke
Do you wonder why this woman is confused? (What’s the matter?! Can’t you take a joke?) This is an extremely complicated communication situation and I warn you right now, there is no easy answer.
You must first try to determine if the person meant to be hurtful or playful. You probably can’t do this right away. I advise you to think like an anthropologist and observe the behavior for a while. This attitude will help you develop a tougher skin and to find an appropriate response. If you get offended by a remark meant to be a joke, that relationship becomes strained.
While you are making up your mind to decide if you should feel insulted,
- You can laugh and go along with the joke
- Give as good as you get
- Ignore it
When you have had enough evidence to think clearly, you may have to deal directly with the offensive person by saying “That kind of remark is inappropriate in the workplace”, and walk away.
For other kinds of social communication you might get Dr. Fleming’s The Serious Business of Small Talk.
How communication is supposed to work
June 15, 2011 by Admin · Leave a Comment
You are going to give some important information to someone; perhaps an instruction or constructive criticism. You, the source, just open your mouth, articulate your message and it transmits to the receptive listener, right? Communication complete!, you think.
Pictured above is the dreamscape of perfect, unhindered message transmission. Isn’t it wonderful? It is also rare.
You tell somebody to do something and they don’t. There can be a lot of reasons for this lack of response and one of them may be that the message never really ‘got through’ to the intended listener. Messages can be corrupted by ‘noise’. And here’s a picture of that:
You will note that there is now an unhappy face in the illustration. There will be two such faces if the sender finds out that his perfectly articulated message was not even received because of intervening noise.
- There is the obvious noise constituted by loud sounds that make it difficult to actually receive a message clearly. Remember your last cocktail party?
- There is the noise of emotional upset. When passions are inflamed, and resentments churned, the incoming signal can be mutilated in the very act of reception.
- Then there is the silent ‘noise’ of the distraction of electronic devices that robs people of attention. Perhaps it is the competing signals such as you experience in a Powerpoint presentation when you are presented with simultaneous visual and auditory information. Can you ever be a complete listener when your smartphone signals have a priori importance?
I think we all assume that, because we said it, it was heard. This is a dangerous assumption. Be mindful of possible noise, eliminate it, address it or compensate for it. But do something.
To learn more about how to become articulate, well spoken and clear in the way you speak, contact Dr. Carol Fleming at query@speechtraining.com or telephone number 415.391-9179
How to listen when people speak
April 28, 2011 by Admin · Leave a Comment
She says to him, “When are you going to do that?”. An objective listener would have described her question as straightforward and neutral, seeking information.
She actually had two listeners; one who was in fact objective (me) and her soon-to-be ex-husband who was in no way objective. He was hurt, baffled and angry about the divorce, the betrayal, (the other man). This became evident only later, when he was recounting this conversation to someone else, as follows:
“And she just said to me: (His brow lowered, his face twisted in anger) , ‘And just WHEN are you going to DO that!!!?’”, his voice, his face, his entire body dedicated to the dramatization of accusation and intense hostility.
If you subtract what I heard in the original exchange from what he recounted in his retelling, you find yourself with a huge slug of hurt and anger that emerged completely from his emotional state. He was perfectly willing to attribute the venom to her. He was telling the truth, you understand, not about her, but about how he experienced what he had heard..
How we color what we hear
Once again, we are witness to the fact that we are emotional beings who are sometimes rational. We know that our emotions color what we say, but perhaps we are not so aware that they also color what we hear. We tend to think that we are clear observers of the life around us. In truth, we are seldom as clear as we think we are.
What can we learn from this?
- When hearing someone’s version of an event, be aware that the emotional component is usually lurking under the guise of reportage. Always use a grain of salt while taking it in.
- Most of us can’t really listen to other people when they talk because we’re so engulfed in our own emotions. To really HEAR what someone is saying, you need to be aware of your own preoccupations and set them aside so you can be more available to the other.
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"It's The Way You Say It"
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