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Lead the India Learning Center for Qualcomm India Pvt. Ltd

Alka Pinto

At the 2024 ATD Org Dev conference, we used the SAFE framework to discuss how leadership development can significantly improve organizational psychological safety. 

Building Psychological Safety Into Leadership Development

I have good news and bad news. The good news is that you now have access to affordable, high-quality recording equipment and software. The bad news is that even though your equipment may be semi-pro, your voiceover performance is still amateur. And, hey, that’s not something you should beat yourself up about. If it were just a matter of showing up and talking into a microphone, there would be no such thing as a professional voiceover actor. Unfortunately, you can’t always afford a pro, but you can learn from their craft to improve your own DIY performance.Get Over YourselfSo let me guess…you hate the sound of your own voice, right? We’ve all had the experience of hearing our voice on a recording and wondering, “Do I really sound like that?”  Yes, you really do.That “awful” voice you hear in the recordings? That’s what the rest of us hear when you talk, and we think it’s just fine. As a voiceover performer, your voice is your instrument, so you had better make friends with it. The more you practice and listen to your recordings, the more comfortable you’ll be.Got a bad case of the nerves? Practice is the best medicine for that, too. You might lock up when you sit down in front of a microphone the first time, but the more you practice, the easier it will get. Remind yourself that no one listening to your performance is judging you as harshly as you are. Take a deep breath and just keep practicing.Preparing for the GigProfessional voiceover performers drink water like it’s their job, because it is. Hydration will have a huge effect on your performance, so be like a pro and start sipping water at least two hours before you’re scheduled to record. This prevents strained, rough-sounding recordings full of the dreaded “mouth click.” Avoid smoking and spicy foods before a performance unless you’re going for the Clint Eastwood/Batman/sandpaper sound. Also, don’t eat dairy the day of your performance—it produces mucus (a.k.a. “mouth sludge”). While you’re drinking your water, take a look at the script and read it out loud. Are there any tongue twisters? Awkward phrases that look fine on paper but sound weird when you say them out loud? If this is your own script, you still have time to improve it. If it’s someone else’s and you’re not allowed to touch it, at least you can practice those tongue twisters so they don’t sneak up on you during the recording.  Give yourself some direction. Take a pencil and mark up the script. If you want to emphasize a particular word, underline it. If a phrase should be spoken with a rising inflection, draw an upward arrow next to it. There are some industry norms for markup notation, but use whatever works for you. ShowtimeThe best way to deliver copy is standing up, but that’s usually not practical in a DIY recording situation. If you must sit, sit on the edge of your chair with your left knee pointed down at the floor. This forces you to straighten your back and allows you to breathe more easily. It also gives your diaphragm plenty of space. Also, keep your chin parallel to the floor. (When you look up, your vocal chords stretch; when you look down, they constrict. Neither is good for your performance.)Your breath is the fuel of your performance, so take a deep in-breath before starting each new line of copy. This will prevent you from needing to take a distracting catch-up breath in the middle of a line. A deep inhalation should move your belly, not your chest. Shallow chest breathing will cause you to run out of gas in the middle of a phrase.When you deliver, don’t try to imitate a “radio voice.” You don’t have a radio voice, and even if you did, that probably wouldn’t be the right tone for your e-learning project anyway. Instead, visualize a member of your audience and imagine you’re talking directly to him or her. A conversational voice is going to carry more credibility than the kind of smooth announcer voice that most people associate with used car ads.Put some emotion in your voice when the script calls for it. In fact, ham it up a little. Remember that the audience will not be able to pick up on your non-visual cues. What feels like a subtle, understated performance to you will sound like a boring monotone to your audience. What feels like a slightly over-the-top emotional performance to you will usually be just enough for your audience to hear in the final product.Deliver multiple takes for each line of copy, even if you think you’ve nailed it on the first one. Your perfect delivery might have the sound of a chair squeaking in the background. Having multiple takes to choose from is called “coverage” and you want lots of it. It will help you later in the editing process if you call the take out loud before each delivery (“Take 1…” “Take 2...” etc.).Cut!If your nerves get to you, take a couple of deep breaths and start a new take. If you’re really stuck on a given section, just move on to the next one and come back after you’ve built some momentum. Just keep going until your nerves cool off. Remember: you’re recording digitally, and you’re not going to run out of tape.If your mouth is sludgy and you’re getting a lot of “mouth click” or other gross sounds in the recording, take a few sips of water. (You should be drinking it throughout the session anyway.)  If you’ve got really stubborn sludge, eat a green apple. The acid will dissolve the mucus and other gunk to give you a clean, click-free mouth.That’s a WrapEven if you’ve got a good voice and a decent recording setup, you might still feel unsatisfied with the results. Keep things in perspective: you’re not recording a movie trailer or a luxury car commercial. E-learning is about learning, after all, and your audience will probably learn just as much from you as they would from James Earl Jones. Now go have some fun and don’t forget to keep your most embarrassing recordings for the outtake reel.

Inside the Voice Actors Studio

In 1996, Abraham Maslow (best known for his theorem of the hierarchy of needs in psychology) quipped that “I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.” Two years earlier, the American philosopher Abraham Kaplan made a similar observation: “Give a small boy a hammer, and he will find that everything he encounters needs pounding.”This adage came to life in my own family recently, when we learned that our future daughter-in-law found her new car covered with a half inch of ice after an overnight storm. Not sure what to do, she found a hammer in the trunk and proceeded to use it to smash the ice loose from bumper to bumper. Predictably, it was difficult to convince her insurance carrier to reimburse her for the multiple broken windows and sheet metal dents. (I’m sorry to confess that she will fit in nicely with our family!)What does this have to do with business and training? A great deal. Let me explain: Recently, I have become concerned that the “hammer du jour” in our metaphoric trunk is high technology.First, let me say that this article is not a Luddite rant against technology per se. This new millennium has brought to our training tool boxes a host of promising, wonderful technologies like web-based training, virtual instructor-led classrooms, simulations, gaming, and social media, to name a few. These tools make it easier to deliver training to more learners, less expensively, more consistently, and across broader geographies and time zones. In short, we can get more done with less as a result of the technology advances that have emerged.However, there is a tendency for people to use these technologies like the proverbial hammer. Some organizations have pushed forms of e-learning into cultures with little online learning interest and/or infrastructure. Others have insisted on taking an exclusively “high-tech” approach to teaching “high-touch” skills such as coaching and conflict resolution.More recently, the universal technology panacea in some quarters seems to be the application of new social media technologies to learning (a.k.a. “Learning 2.0”). The notion that most people learn better and enjoy it more in a social environment is inarguable. For that matter, the traditional classroom (when led by an interactive teacher or facilitator) can be a very social milieu within which to learn, particularly if the learning objectives are focused on human skills, such as leadership.The DownsideThe social media buzz, meanwhile, is about technology-based interactive experiences including blogs, chat rooms, and discussion forums, not to mention the wildly successful commercial social platforms—Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Yammer. Clearly, these tools can be harnessed within our organizations to make learning more interactive, involving, and spontaneous, while also spanning geography and generation, and capitalizing on the collective wisdom of groups.However, some of these platforms can be risky for organizations in terms of security and legal liability. Technology can sometimes be surprisingly difficult and inconsistent. Corporate firewalls can be fussy about what they let through. And technology is always changing, which is good for progress but frustrating for infrastructure investments.In addition, corporate cultures differ, just like people do, and what is easily adopted in one organization may be ineffective in another. And finally, there are regional and international variances in uptake, technology, and governing laws and institutions. Thus, the promise of social media is tempered by the complexities and uncertainties experienced by organizations to varying degrees.Force-Fitting Doesn’t WorkUnfortunately, some learning and development professionals have tried to force-fit social learning tools and platforms into topics and cultures, whether or not they are necessarily well-suited. And regardless of the tools in our tool box, a few maxims about effective learning systems haven’t changed. Next week, I’ll post these tenets of learning systems design that are key, despite mode or technology. I’ll also list a few guiding principles for using social technologies.

Training, Technology, and "The Law of the Hammer": Part 1

Maria Garrett is founder and managing director of MG Leadership | Coaching & Consulting, a boutique executive coaching and leadership consulting practice based in Austin, Texas. An ICF Associate Certified Coach and a Forbes Council Coach, Maria delivers one-to-one coaching, small group interventions, and development program solutions to executives, rising leaders, intact leadership teams, and high potentials who desire to better understand and increase their impact on organizational performance and results in their current leadership roles. She also facilitates data-informed development work with leaders who are preparing themselves for next-level leadership roles and challenges.Maria brings more than 30 years of corporate experience, working across several industries and job types. She is a pragmatic educator and people development coach with a passion for bridging theory with practice in ways that make it easy for people to put our learning into play on the job each day.Maria also has experience leading the learning function for a global, complex technology industry giant, where she and her team were responsible for bringing relevant compliance-oriented, job-specific, professional skill, management, and leadership development solutions to the workforce in cost-efficient yet effective ways.Maria has a master’s degree in organizational communication and leadership studies from Texas State University and undergraduate degrees in both business management and organizational communication and behavior studies. She serves on the board for the Breast Cancer Resource Center, a nationally recognized cancer support organization that provides no-cost services to cancer patients in Central Texas. She also serves as a volunteer mentor to MBA candidates and communication studies master’s candidates at her alma mater. She is certified to administer a broad range of competency and personality assessment instruments, including the Korn Ferry 360, DDI Lead, Stewart’s LEAD Now! Model, the Leadership Circle Profile, Myers Briggs Type Indicator, and the 9 Types of Leadership (using Enneagram).

Maria Garrett

Marcia Merrill, aka “The Transition Chick,” is a life transitions and career expert. She is an avid blogger and has authored numerous articles. Her e-book, Turning Midlife Into The RIGHT Life!, is scheduled for release in 2015. Marcia has 25+years of experience, and completed coaching training at the Adult Development Network. She also is also a behavioral specialist in DISC and CASI assessments. She can be reached at m.merrill9@verizon.net or via her website, www.transitionchick.com.

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