The Voice-Successfully Communicating with the V’s
Many of you may be fans of the NBC TV show, The Voice. Aside from the phenomenal talent in this singing contest, we can appreciate the impact of the vocal and visual aspects of communication. The premise is to select the contestants through blind auditions; the judges hear the voice, but cannot see the performer until the song is over. They turn their chair around if they want the performer on their team. This eliminates any of the positive or negative visual influences. Many a time, the judges are surprised when their chair turns around. The age, gender, size, race, or style may be completely different from what they thought when just hearing the voice. People who may otherwise have missed opportunities in the past, may move forward due to their voice alone.
Then we move to the Battle Rounds, whereby each coach plays one contestant against another member on their team. Now, the visual comes into play. This is a great opportunity to judge talent by vocal and visual presentation. Does their stage presence or lack thereof contribute to the decision-making? Who wins out? Turn the volume off on your TV and see who looks the most confident and professional. Who would you choose by looks and stage presence alone? Then turn up the volume and see if this matches your first impression. Some of the singers look confident and others appear intimidated or nervous. Regardless, they all have excellent voices. So, does the visual help or hinder them?
Speaking on the telephone is somewhat like The Voice. Decisions and impressions are often made by what we hear. We don’t get to see any visual communication. In face-to-face meetings, we must consider the entire package. How do we present ourselves visually? Do we exude confidence or insecurity? How do we hold our head, how is our posture? And how do we sound? Is our voice irritating or pleasing? Finally, in the non-singing world……what do we say? Are we concise or rambling?
We can learn a lot of lessons from The Voice and see how these V’s affect our impressions. On to the Battle Rounds!
Contact Successfully Speaking for more information on how to align the V’s to form a powerful and confident impression lkwilner@successfully-speaking.com.