The Communicative Leader
On The Communicative Leader, we're making your work life what you want it to be. Do you need years of training or special equipment? Not at all my friends. Simple, yet thoughtful changes in your communication can make great strides in displaying your leadership ability. And why the heck should you care about leadership communication? Well, communication is the yardstick others use to determine whether or not they see you as a leader. Ahhh don't be scared, I got you. We will walk through common organizational obstacles and chat about small, but meaningful communication-rooted changes you can integrate immediately. No more waiting for the workplace to become what you hope it will. Nope. You, my friends, will be empowered and equipped to make those changes. Let's have some fun! Can't get enough?
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The Communicative Leader
Speak like a leader: Transform your voice, Transform your influence: A Conversation with Jimmy Cannon
Jimmy Cannon shares his transformative approach to voice work by merging vocal techniques with anxiety management strategies to help leaders communicate with confidence and authenticity. His Canon Method focuses on three key elements—voice, confidence, and presence—to help individuals overcome communication barriers and develop their authentic leadership voice.
• Exploring how the voice connects to our nervous system through the vagus nerve and diaphragm
• Using elongated vowels and longer phrases to reduce anxiety when speaking
• Practicing proper diaphragmatic breathing to improve vocal control and presence
• Understanding the importance of pausing strategically to create space for impact
• Identifying common vocal pitfalls like monotone delivery and limited pitch range
• Learning to use different vocal registers to match your communication intent
• Expanding beyond your comfort zone through consistent practice in real situations
• Embracing authenticity by aligning your voice with your core values and purpose
• Using your voice as a leadership tool to command attention and respect
If you're interested in working on your voice, confidence, and presence, try incorporating strategic pauses in your communication and explore different tones of voice for different situations. Remember that your voice is an instrument that can accentuate your personality and help you achieve your goals.
Hey leader! Thanks for listening. For more leadership communication tips, check out https://www.thecommunicativeleader.com/
Welcome to another episode of the Communicative Leader. I'm your host, dr Leah oh, and today we're excited to introduce you to Jimmy Cannon, a transformative voice expert who seamlessly merges voice work with anxiety management strategies to redefine leadership communication. Jimmy's distinctive approach offers fresh perspectives on overcoming public speaking anxiety and really mastering the art of vocal delivery. Through his innovative Canon method, he has empowered countless individuals to harness their voice, conquer their nerves and cultivate a leadership presence that really inspires and connects. In today's episode, we'll explore key topics such as why your voice might be your most underutilized leadership tool and how subtle vocal shifts can dramatically enhance your influence. Jimmy uncovers the common vocal pitfalls that undermine confidence and guides us through practical techniques so we can sound more authoritative and impactful. If you're ready to elevate your communication skills and leverage your voice as a leadership superpower, this episode is packed with insightful strategies. Let's have some fun.
Dr. Leah OH:Hello and welcome to the Communicative Leader hosted by me, Dr Leah Omilion- Hodges. My friends call me Dr O. I'm a professor of communication and a leadership communication expert. On the Communicative Leader, we're working to make your work life what you want it to be, jimmy. Thank you for joining us on the Communicative Leader. We're so excited to have you today and I was hoping you could start by sharing a bit about your journey and how you came to develop the Canon Method for Mastering Voice and Managing Anxiety.
Jimmy Cannon:Hi, leah. Thank you so much for allowing me on your podcast. It's a pleasure to be here. So that's a good question. How did I start? It's a long story. I'll try to keep it short. That's probably best, isn't it? Otherwise, we'll be here for hours. I'll try to keep it short. That's probably best, isn't it? Otherwise, we'll be here for hours. So the Canon method is about three things. I've realized that when people come to me about the voice, they generally come to me saying Jimmy, I've got a weak voice, I'm not being heard, I'm struggling to cut through the crowd, so it works. But what I find is it's not just the physiology of their voice, it's not just the fact that they are speaking too quietly, it's about the behavioral environment, it's about the psychology. So there's three things that I help people with, and it's a holistic approach, which is their voice, but also their confidence and their presence. So, voice and confidence and their presence.
Dr. Leah OH:I love that. I imagine that's kind of the trifecta of, you know, projecting, leadership and influence and connecting with others, because they're all those magic ingredients.
Jimmy Cannon:That's it, absolutely.
Dr. Leah OH:So, jimmy, you talk about the Canon Method and I was hoping you could walk us through these core principles of the Canon Method and kind of how you help individuals transform their vocal presence and also manage anxiety at the same time yeah, well, it's it's.
Jimmy Cannon:It depends on the individual and it depends on what results they're looking for, but generally speaking, the voice is an incredibly. I mean, I'm hesitating and I'm putting a caveat out there in my mind because I know and this is my imposter syndrome coming through probably as well is that I know that you're an expert in this and this is what you do and I obviously you know, you know this. So I'm just going to, I'm just going to put a caveat out there that you probably a lot of the listeners and yourself know all about this as well.
Dr. Leah OH:I'm just, I'm just going to sort of, you know um spill everything as if, as if you didn't know you, you are the expert we know a little about some other things, but voice jimmy, this is you okay, well, in that case, I uh then.
Jimmy Cannon:Then I have the, I have the platform. That's great, wonderful, yes, so, okay, fantastic, so. So the voice is an incredibly powerful thing. It and one example is is that, as we, as we're elongating our vowels, as we're lengthening our phrase to to give you a very simple example the, our sympathetic nervous system will be told, via the diaphragm, which is linked directly to the vagus nerve, that we can calm down, we can reduce the anxiety, we can mitigate the fight-flight response that we might be having when we're in a situation where we might find that we're feeling nervous or anxious to speak.
Jimmy Cannon:So, actually, by doing the opposite to what most people do, which is avoid speaking entirely or freeze or pause or stop speaking, actually the best thing to do is to keep speaking and make your words, to make your phrases much longer. Now, to do that, you need to have control over your out-breath and then, therefore, you need control over your in-breath, because if you haven't got enough breath, then you can't use the breath to elongate it in the first place. So that one example is, for me, absolutely fascinating that, as a doctor, you'll know that there is evidence and there is research out there that attests to the connection between the vagus nerve and various areas of the body, such as the larynx, the diaphragm, the abdomen, to tell us that, actually, if we can control the sympathetic nervous system, we can control the, the signals that it's giving both our body and then, vice versa, back to our mind to control how we feel.
Dr. Leah OH:You know, so that's fascinating, yeah you know, it's so counterintuitive, I think that yeah because you're right. Your body is telling you be quiet, don't say anything, don't embarrass yourself, and the best thing you can do like you're right, your body is telling you be quiet, don't say anything, don't embarrass yourself, and the best thing you can do, like you're saying, is to use your voice then, but it's not easy?
Jimmy Cannon:Yeah, no, absolutely you know. I think the opposite to that is, if you are experiencing these behavioral responses so you are avoiding certain situations, then that's got to be dealt with. So that's, that's really the confidence issue. That's that, that's the you know, why are you avoiding the scenario? So what I do there with, with as well as the voice, so by improving your vocal skills and your, your, your instrument, which is your voice, you're then, by definition and by factor, going to be improving the confidence and how you sound, how you feel.
Jimmy Cannon:A lot of people say they hate the sound of their voice. They just don't speak up because they really can't stand. So I help people with that, but also I help people with the, the psychological aspects as well. So I ended up studying acceptance and commitment therapy, which is I'm sure you're aware of it, but if you're not aware of it, then it comes from rational frame theory. It's very similar to CBT, which CBT very simply and I'm not an expert in CBT reframes negative thoughts and puts them into positive affirmations, which is fantastic, and there's thousands of papers that celebrate that.
Jimmy Cannon:The act is something which is slightly different, which is about recognizing or being aware of these negative thoughts that are there and putting the putting the energy back onto your uh, your values. So, depending on what your values are, then then the focus is on that so committed action towards your values. And the practice that I I help people with is present moment exercises, so mindfulness exercises to keep yourself in the present moment, because we are constantly distracted and fused with our negative thoughts, whether that be avoiding speaking or it might be a somatic response. Say, your larynx or vocal tract is very tight, so therefore very strained, and it feels like you know you can't control, or you might be getting distracted by something that somebody walks into a meeting, they're late and all of a sudden the whole flow has just been dissipated so you've got to come back and recenter yourself. So there's lots of exercises that you can do in the interim period that help you in that moment.
Dr. Leah OH:Yeah, that's a really helpful reminder and I think something I imagine you find in your work a lot of people haven't really thought about yet is the preparation they can be doing and leading up to raising a hand or giving that update in the meeting or whatever that looks like. So that's a really great reminder, jimmy thank you very much.
Jimmy Cannon:I think the preparation is really. Uh, my background is I'm sorry if I'm talking a lot here. That's the idea, isn't it? That?
Dr. Leah OH:I'm no, you are my guest, please yes okay, is that all right?
Jimmy Cannon:I hate talking about myself. This is a very difficult thing to do, isn't it?
Dr. Leah OH:It is difficult, but thank you, it is difficult my pleasure.
Jimmy Cannon:It's an absolute pleasure. I'm passionate about what I do, so, like you are, so it's very easy to keep going, keep talking, but tell me the shush if you need to. That's absolutely fine. So my background is performance, so my my background is singing. I also play saxophone as well, so preparation is absolutely key. Yes, and if you do have the time, you know I tell my clients all the time to send me videos of them practicing and I can give them feedback, etc. So it's really important that you have this consistent practice, that that you're doing and and. So, to give you an example, really, really simple but effective thing to do is, if you are working on a pitch or presentation, then, rather than I mean something that I used to teach my students all the time rather than go from the beginning and and and start at the beginning and then keep, you know, keep going through it until the end and then just keep repeating that Work on the bit that you're not very familiar with, work on the section that you're not that confident with, and really get that right and paraphrase.
Jimmy Cannon:So change it up a little bit, mix it up. You know, for instance, there's a most heightened time of anxiety is 60 seconds before you're about to speak. So it's that you know when you're waiting to be introduced. Or you're waiting on a Zoom call. You know that you're going to be speaking about your topic, you've got some data to share with the rest of the team, whatever it might be. Or you're at a conference and you've got the headset in and someone says to you right, okay, five seconds, jimmy, jimmy, five seconds. That point, or just before that point, that's the most heightened bit of anxiety, right? So you know this is a. This is a big challenge.
Jimmy Cannon:So, instead of a difficult, if you've got a, if you've got a conference or you're doing a ted talk, or and then it's absolutely planned word for word, but if you've got a meeting or you've got a workshop or you've got something that you're doing, that you can change around slightly instead of going into your intro, why not ask some questions? So do maybe do a q a at the beginning, so you're taking the pressure off the beginning as soon as you know, right? So as soon as you know and the you, as soon as you get used to the environment, the acoustic environment of the room, the personalities in the room, you can feel a lot more settled more present, and then, as soon as you've had some, you know what, leah, I've got a question. Hey, great, what's the question?
Jimmy Cannon:Okay, blah, blah, blah, and then you answer the question and then, all of a sudden, you've broken the ice. You're having a wonderful conversation and you answer the question, and then, all of a sudden, you've broken the ice. You're having a wonderful conversation and you know. So that's just one little sort of tip that I always give my clients.
Dr. Leah OH:Yeah, that's so helpful too, and I think, too, an audience appreciates that, because we're spoken at so often. But to actually immediately be integrated is something that we welcome, absolutely, absolutely yeah.
Jimmy Cannon:So it's an incredibly effective way to manage that anxiety at the time. So, with presence, there's a lot of literature on presence and I come from the Patsy Rodenberg school of thought, which is that we create the space, we fill the space, we use the space that we're in A lot of the time and I'll give you an example In England. This is a strange example, but in England we don't have a lot of space. I, I happen to live in a quite a rural area. So if you're, um, if you're in the states, then generally if you're in a big city, you're, you know, you've got a lot of room and and you can, you can use that space that you're in. But in england, especially if you're in london, which I lived for 30 odd years, you know you don, you don't have it on the tube. We call it the tube right on the tube. It's very, very small. Nobody wants to put their head above the parapet, so we're very.
Jimmy Cannon:There's a lot of sort of how can I? Sort of false humility. I suppose there's a self deprecation, right, it's kind of a classic cliche of English people. So I'm not suggesting that every american is, is, has that also has that stereo, the opposite stereotype, but the, the, the idea of getting on stage or or taking up that space is frowned upon to a degree, especially in the education system. So I, I grew up in a, in a state education system, and it was sort of frowned upon if you had a bit of um, what did my clients um, he's, uh, he, one of my clients is, is, uh, is hebrew, and he what? Um, what's the? I'm trying to think of the word he used. Is it schmutz or or what's the phrase? I can't think of what it is called. Oh, come to me, what's that? Chutzpah, chutzpah, chutzpah.
Dr. Leah OH:Yeah.
Jimmy Cannon:So not everybody's got that chutzpah.
Dr. Leah OH:Yes, and I think it should be.
Jimmy Cannon:I think we should encourage this. I think we should encourage this chutzpah and the space that you create when you're speaking or whatever environment that you're in. So I think finding that space and using that space and breathing into that space is a really important thing to be able to do.
Dr. Leah OH:Yeah, yeah, you're right, and let's dive more into voice, because I imagine that can also help us feel more at home in a space. And I know that you talk about voice as an underutilized leadership tool, and I couldn't agree with you more. And I was hoping, jimmy, you could kind of elaborate on some of these vocal elements like tone, rhythm, projection. How do these elements shape the way that others perceive us?
Jimmy Cannon:Sure, well, okay, the first thing is that we, our voice, is an immediate tool for connection, immediate way of people judging you in, in, in, in, either in a positive or negative way. So if you have a particularly quiet voice, or weak voice, or you have a harsh voice, for instance, then and I'm, I'm, I'm purposely doing this now, so I'm, I'm softening my tone, so I'm thinking right, okay, how am I going to appeal to most of the listeners out? I'm not doing this maliciously, right, I'm just doing it as an example, and but by just widening the tone of your voice, making as warm as and as a and chesty as possible. We have seven areas of resonance in the voice and we can access those, and we can. What we're looking for is a what's called a balanced phonation. So that depends on your physiology, so it depends on the shape of your larynx, but, excuse me, the one way to, to appeal to to most people is to have a balanced tone and that means that you're, you know, and that's very much dependent on how you feel about your voice and how other people listen to your voice.
Jimmy Cannon:What's really interesting, I think, is that we, a lot of us I've mentioned this before but a lot of us hate the sound of our voice, but actually what we hear is not what other people hear, okay, so what we hear is a binaural effect of which is in the head cavity, and so the resonance in the head cavity, going through our auditory system, our ears, is what we hear as we speak.
Jimmy Cannon:And especially, you know, you're, you're listening to me with headphones, right? So I'm going through this microphone. Okay, I'm going through a microphone, and that's being analog signal to digital signal being converted to your ears. That's already been manipulated in that zone, right? So even if you were here in this room, in this space, what you'd actually be listening to is the first reflection of the sound coming out of my mouth, from the first wall that it hits, and that's what you hear, which is slightly different to what I'm hearing as my voice. So just to know, that is a really good start. So back to your question, which I've forgotten completely. It's about how do you use tone of voice, pace, pause.
Dr. Leah OH:Yeah, just some of these vocal elements. How do they shape others' perceptions?
Jimmy Cannon:Yeah, sure, okay, interesting. How do they shape others' perceptions? Well again, quiet voice, harsh voice People are going to be judging you on the tonality of your voice. So if you're somebody that speaks far too quickly, if you don't use pace, pause.
Jimmy Cannon:If you've got a particularly aggressive or uh, feral or alpha male type voice, maybe you've got a voice that, unfortunately, if you're female, a lot, of, a lot of um, female speakers speak in by by. Naturally they speak in their head voice, so they're very high and they're not taken seriously, so their credibility is lost. So I work with a lot of women that want to find more of a sort of a deeper sounding voice to, and unfortunately, the research shows that people with a deeper, more mellifluous sounding voice are respected more. Their credibility is noted, and it's just a shame that in this culture that we're in, that is the case. I also think that AI is something I've been thinking about recently and obviously this at the moment it's on everybody's ears. I think AI is going to change the way we communicate vastly, in that people are going to need to be heard even more, so their voice is going to need to be able to communicate. Through our voice, our desires, our message, etc.
Dr. Leah OH:Yeah, that's so helpful, and I know that you can see voice as one of your leadership superpowers. And I'm wondering, in your experience and maybe some things you've heard from clients, is why do you think people initially overlook the power of voice and then the second part is then what can we do to start using our voice more effectively, especially if we want to be seen as a leader?
Jimmy Cannon:Yeah, okay, well, I'll answer the latter, if I may. The way we can use our voice I think predominantly I'm sort of counterintuitive actually is to listen, is to pause, is to create space. So find the space, fill the space and use that space to create a connection to the person that you're speaking to or the group of people that you're speaking to. Pausing is a very, very difficult thing to do. It's very challenging for people that are nervous, people that don't have the confidence to speak up and speak for a long period of time, particularly to groups of people. So by taking a breath and using that pause is really, really effective. So, leadership wise, I think, I believe that saying less is more, very similar to music and how that space to really compose, if you like, what you're going to say. So by listening, by taking the breath to show that you're listening and then to use that space in an effective way to speak in a very efficient and simple prose.
Dr. Leah OH:Yeah.
Jimmy Cannon:I think that's the answer. I couldn't agree more. You're right.
Dr. Leah OH:That's yeah, that's the. You know, the longer I've been researching and hosting this podcast, the more the simplest advice is the most effective. Nine out of 10 times.
Jimmy Cannon:Yeah.
Dr. Leah OH:Because it works right. And I think too, even when we're looking at our voice as a leadership superpower, recognizing that if we're not listening and engaging in meaningful ways, it doesn't matter how our tone is or how our pauses are, if they're not, you know, connecting with our audience pauses are, if they're not, you know, connecting with our audience absolutely.
Jimmy Cannon:And I think I think, as leaders and and you know, people that want to be in that field, in that industry or not in in that sort of vet, you know how would I, how would I put it in that dome, if you like we want, you know, we want our leaders to go from the other perspective, to respect other people. We want to be respected, we want to feel that we're listened to and appreciated, and I think that's really, really key for leaders to have that less authoritative or less doctoral approach to speaking. I think that's really, really key.
Dr. Leah OH:Agreed. So, jimmy, let's think about some vocal pitfalls, and you kind of mentioned that many high performers might inadvertently undermine their own confidence through different vocal patterns. So I was hoping you could kind of walk us through what are some common vocal pitfalls, and then how do we identify them in ourselves and course correct?
Jimmy Cannon:Yeah. So I think the biggest pitfall is to I'm trying to do this now. The opposite way is to produce a monotone sounding voice. Right, it's a bit of a cliche. I have basically a voice that is repetitive, whether it's monotone as in one pitch, and, to give an example, if I'm speaking on a monotone sort of voice, it would be something like this and if I'm speaking from the throat and it sounds a little bit tired and too shouty, then it would be something like this and that sort of that sort of sound.
Jimmy Cannon:After a while the person who's all the group who's listening is going to tune out, they're going to switch off, right. So we need to vary the three sort of um pillars, if you like, of the voice for me are pitch, dynamics and tone. So I've spoken a little bit about tone and I often work with people with their pitch. So we use roughly 20 percent of our speaking voice that we can dip into, we can, we can find. So, generally speaking, there's another 80 percent or, you know, nearly an octave. So in musical terms, that's quite a lot that we can, you know, we can dip into and use. So that's really that's, I think, fascinating that we don't use that and, generally speaking, because we're either, depending on where you know where we're from, what you know what culture we're from, we are assigned a sort of a limitation, like a threshold of pitch, if you like, when we're speaking, a sort of a dialect of pitch. So when I'm working with my clients, I really encourage them to expand their pitch range. So, instead of speaking on one level all the time and it's just that drone going on this, particularly in middle-aged men probably I'm doing a cliche, you know a stereotype, but it's very common, you know. Thank you very much for coming. I've got a few words to say and uh, then I'll leave you to it. You know you're all doing very good work. Well done everyone. That sort of sound, right, um? I encourage you to really explore a little bit lighter sound maybe, and they can go a little bit higher than they can come down if they want to.
Jimmy Cannon:So having that, having that um control or access to a much higher uh pitch, now there's just very quickly we've got. I mean, I could talk about this all day, but we we have four main registers in in our voice, so the low one is what's called vocal creek and it can be a little bit detrimental if you're speaking in that uh, in that way all the time. It's sort of that creaky vocal fry, right. So that's our, our lowest register.
Jimmy Cannon:The next one is called modal one, which is in in old old terms or old school terms, is your chest voice. So we, we generally speak in chest voice, most men speak in chest voice, and then we've got modal two, which is our head voice, most women speaking in their head voice, and then we've got whistle tone, which are really just accessible for dogs and Mariah Carey, and that's you know, very, very, very high tones that we probably wouldn't get to. But there is. What's really interesting is that between a chest or modal one and modal two, which is our head voice, there's what's called the passagia or the bridge, and that can create the connection between the two.
Jimmy Cannon:You can blend the two voices. So you can create and I'll demonstrate now. So it's this kind of voice here that I'm using. It's just to exaggerate that I'm using this very sort of mixed blend in the voice and singers use it to create a very sort of um, uh, giving example would be sort of marvin gay singing, um, my girl talking about my girl, that sort of sound, right, I'm not suggesting we speak in that way, but there, unless you, unless you want to sing everything like marvin gay when you're, you know you never, who knows If you're.
Dr. Leah OH:Marvin.
Jimmy Cannon:Gaye yeah, exactly. So the blend of those two voices can just create another tone. It's using another pitch. If I demonstrate it now, that's a bit exaggerating, but I could come down and just use it a little bit softer, a little bit lower, and it just gives a different dynamic to the voice. So if, for instance, if you're speaking to somebody and you want to give the impression that you're empathic, that you have empathy for what they're experiencing, so if you're in HR I'm working with a client at the moment.
Jimmy Cannon:She's in HR and she finds that when she speaks she does come across a little bit too judgmental, let's say so. She's got quite a harsh, throaty voice. She speaks sort of quite hard like that. Thank you for coming to me. Thank you, I very appreciate your time. Now, if she's spoken in this more of a soft, open, mixed voice, it can sound a bit patronizing, but it's finding the balance between the two. So if you're and I really appreciate you coming thank you for sharing that with me, and it's sort of that sort of that late night dj voice sort of thing you know. So that's one thing that we can do which mixes the pitch and the tone and and also as well. So I've been speaking. I'm very conscious, obviously, of how I speak because I'm a voice coach, so I feel I've probably been speaking too quickly and too loudly for the last five or ten minutes. Right, that's my.
Dr. Leah OH:That's your take, but not what I'm picking up.
Jimmy Cannon:Oh, I appreciate that. So that's my take. So what I would want to do would be just to slow it down slightly, bring the volume down a little bit, and actually sometimes you know people say, oh, I've got a really weak voice, jimmy, it's really quiet, nobody listens to me. Sometimes having a really quiet voice is a really powerful thing, because if you're in a meeting with lots, of, lots of males, lots of alpha males or even alpha women, and they take over the meeting and they and they and they and they say, they say leah, what's your take on this? What's your point? Can give me your some ideas? And then you've got a very not you personally, but you might have a, a very controlled. Well, thank you for letting me give me the opportunity to speak. I do have some ideas, and these are my ideas and you're very succinct with them, but it's a very quiet, controlled voice. People generally listen to that more than they would somebody what Patsy Roggenberg says in the third circle, somebody that is just filling too much space with their voice.
Dr. Leah OH:Yeah, that makes a lot of sense because you think about two being on the receiving end of that voice, and that's a lot easier, I think, in my experience, in my preference is to have that even even that little bit on the quieter side, the loud trying to speak over others, because then my brain is going overloaded, it's trying to figure out why are you so upset about this? What is it that you're not sharing, in addition to what I'm actually trying to listen to? You say right?
Jimmy Cannon:Absolutely, and there are so many clues in the tonality, the inflections, the intention of the voice and how you use it. It's very, very, very interesting. I'm very conscious of how I sound, how other people sound, as I'm walking around where I live, you know, in shops and restaurants, you know it's really, I find it really fascinating. Obviously I'm slightly biased, but you know, I think it's a very, very powerful, powerful tool and it's actually, I think, what's so.
Jimmy Cannon:I mainly work with people that the voice is a barrier to them, it's something that is stopping them from being respected in in their work, I think, and being authentic as well yes and I think that's really interesting is is to is to find that authentic voice, because we all want to be and we should be as genuine, as we can not put on a persona just to please somebody. You want to please yourself and have that authentic voice. So if the voice doesn't feel connected to you, I think that's the key and that's what I'm really fascinating. Fascinated in is connecting the voice to oneself and finding that, that connection, that authentic connection exactly, and that really becomes your, your bridge to the outside world and it's it's funny.
Dr. Leah OH:So I used to be an appallingly bad public speaker and my voice. I would be so upset because I felt like it was betraying me. It would be shaky and it would cut in and cut out. And if you told me I had a job, most of my lecture to 200 students at once.
Dr. Leah OH:If you told me I had a job built around public speaking 20 years ago, I would have laughed at you and said that's not going to be possible, but you're right, it took a long time and I felt like I had to make friends with my voice in order to be able to communicate what I had in my head and what I was thinking about and wanting to share. Thinking about and wanting to share.
Jimmy Cannon:What did you, what did you do apart from apart from that, what, what sort of, what sort of strategy did you use over over time to was it just purely just getting on with it and doing it? Cause that's a, that's a, yeah.
Dr. Leah OH:That was a big part of it. I think too, that's also so that was undergrad days and then a lot of the confidence came from competence, like the more time I spent in organizations and working and realizing okay, I'm really good in these dyadic small situations. So kind of trying to draw from that when it was a larger group and then my master's and PhD were in communication.
Dr. Leah OH:So I think just really better understanding basics of we don't spend as much time with voice but just thinking about, oh, like the, the makeup of a good argument and of a speech, and thinking about diction and all of that kind of coalesced with a whole lot of practice and being really gritty, and just keep keep going and, uh, you know, allowing me to be where I am today.
Jimmy Cannon:And with, with. If you don't mind me asking one more question, I'm I'm terrible at this. I mean, if you don't mind't mind, I I'm just fascinated with people like yourself. So when you're doing what you do now and you're working with with teams, I presume and about the communication within the team, interpersonal communication then what is, if what is the the biggest challenge? Do you think for that, for the team in, in, in a communicating sense?
Dr. Leah OH:Oh, for teams and their ability to communicate well. I think, as you're saying, listening, I don't think we listen well. We listen in order to respond rather than listening to attempt to understand. So it would be starting with listening better to one another, and I think, too a lot of it is learning how to facilitate a discussion, especially in small groups. So if we recognize this is a louder voice or this person is a little bit more reserved and they need more time, having someone who can facilitate, to open that door to say, okay, jenny, what do you think You've been a little bit quieter? We'd love to hear your thoughts here. Or, thanks so much, john, we're going to wrap that door to say, okay, jenny, what do you think You've been a little bit quiet, we'd love to hear your thoughts here. Or, thanks so much, john. We're going to wrap that up and I'm going to hear from Jimmy now. So I think those are really two powerful tools for facilitating effective groups.
Jimmy Cannon:And do you feel that being a leader, part of your skills as a leader, is to facilitate that situation?
Dr. Leah OH:Yes, yes, I think that to me the simplest route leadership means to influence, and I think the way we influence shifts on the situation and the context. It is ever evolving. It is ever evolving and in that example, if we recognize there's a way to get more out of Jenny and a way to, you know, harness John's talents in a certain way, and we can do that simply by facilitating, then I think that's what leadership looks like in that moment yeah that's fascinating, yeah, so, but again, all because I can use this voice now in a very dependable, reliable way.
Jimmy Cannon:Exactly, exactly. There we are yeah.
Dr. Leah OH:So actually, this next question I have is about overcoming public speaking anxiety. So I am wondering. So I used to teach public speaking and we didn't think about voice too often. We think about you know how do you make this argument and what are some techniques for delivering this? But not so much on the voice. End with the work that you do? How do you blend your voice work with anxiety management strategies to help people be more effective, especially if they're going in with a big fear?
Jimmy Cannon:Yeah, so the voice is, it ends up being the two end up being linked and together anyway. So when we're rehearsing, when we're practicing the, the, either the practice, okay, so what? There's a? There's a couple that, for instance, the exercise I may I mentioned before. There's one exercise that I do which is called intoning, and that is a really, really amazing exercise. What it does is it you, what you what the exercise? I'll show you.
Jimmy Cannon:The exercise is this so if I, if I were to say the words, the two words, speaking better, right, I would sing on one note, and you don't have to be a singer to do this, right, any, any pitch, you have to sort of be able to hit, hold, a. But anyway, that's not incredibly. So here we are Speaking better and what I'm doing is I'm slowing everything down like the Matrix, my muscles and my muscle memory to feel and hold in the quality of the vowel sounds, because we're generally speaking when we're, when we're talking too quickly, we, we, we go over the vowels, we, we, we sort of uh, we, we forget the vowels and we just just talk. We use mainly the articulation and consonants when we're speaking, so it's very quick and so we normally forget the vowels and the quality of the vowel sound. And the vowels are everything about the tone, it's the middle of the note when you're singing or when you're playing something, so it's not the top of the tone, it's the middle of the note when you're singing or when you're playing something. So it's not the top of the note, it's in the middle of the note and how long you can use that. So by slowing down, so this exercise just lengthens the vowel sound so you're able to explore the color of that.
Jimmy Cannon:So as you're doing that, we can use breathing so that elongated breath. So the breathing and the breath is integral to reducing the anxiety. So by taking a long breath, a deep, deep breath I'm not going to do it for too long here, but taking a deep breath, as in the diaphragm needs to contract when you're taking a breath in the belly needs to come out, the lungs need to expand. Most people take far too many short breaths, what I call upper chest breaths. So very deep breath.
Jimmy Cannon:In Using that breath as we're speaking, and the practice is to one, one pitch, just to open the vowels and open the quality and the color of the vowels. Now the deep breath releases end, sends a signal from the diaphragm, from the abdominal muscles back to the vagus nerve and says you know what? You don't need to be tight. You don't need to put in all the military and the infantry to control the fight-flight response and to stop everything and guard the king or the queen. You don't need to do that. You can relax, everything is going to be absolutely fine. So by slowing down your rate of speech and elongating and opening up the vowel, sounds actually mitigates the anxiety.
Dr. Leah OH:So really breath and voice together yeah is, is really really key, is really really powerful yeah, and I always think I always appreciate speakers who take their time, so I think it allows me to unpack excuse me, unpack what they're saying and I think there's a level of confidence that comes with that.
Jimmy Cannon:Sure, yeah, no, absolutely yeah, that's okay, no problem. The, the pause is really, really, really key and it's incredibly, incredibly useful. So, if you, if you're able to, there's a, there's a. There's some research that I can't remember exactly the figure, but it's something like five seconds or five and a half seconds, where if someone's paused for that amount of time, it's only after about five seconds that the audience will think that there's something wrong, that they might be having a heart attack or something like that. Something terrible, something's happening. You know, we need to excuse me, you know, security, nurse, whatever it might be at that point. So you can take a very, very long pause. If you think how long, five seconds is About that amount of time. Right, that seems very, you know, it seems a long time, but if you think about how long you would normally take a pause for, so you can take a pause before you start speaking, you can take a pause before you answer a question or in between a phrase or sentence, just purely by taking a breath.
Jimmy Cannon:So one, one trick that you can do is to use your nose. So taking a breath in through the nose, also called the Bottega technique, a Russian technique which has a more direct connection to the diaphragm. You're bypassing the vocal tracts because air is going through the nasal passages. So you're not bringing air in through the mouth. So therefore you're not bringing cold air in and you want to keep the larynx nice and relaxed and warm. So by taking a nice slow breath through the nose just gives you a little bit of time again. Take a deep breath and just to center yourself.
Jimmy Cannon:Give your listener, as you said, enough time to sort of process what you've said yeah and also your, your yourself time to process your own thoughts and how you're going to plan the next phrase.
Dr. Leah OH:So really yeah yeah, sorry that's so helpful yeah and and that's a nice segue I was thinking about authenticity and personalization when I was preparing for our conversation and I think, especially too, I imagine, with your clients. When people are learning to use their voice in different ways, it sounds different to them, it sounds different to others, others and you know, what do you recommend? So that, when we're working on voice, that we still feel authentic to ourselves and that we're we're conveying that authenticity as well?
Jimmy Cannon:I think.
Jimmy Cannon:I think the the authenticity comes purely through your, your own.
Jimmy Cannon:When it comes to a lot of things, it becomes. You need to be very true to your values. You need to understand your personality and to accept who you are, your personality, what you stand for, your values, your ethics, your morals, etc. And then therefore, actually life becomes a lot easier because your everything that you do is is is to, is that there's a song there everything, everything that you do, is determined by your choice, your values and what you, what you're committed to doing, and why you, why you do what you do, mainly your why or your purpose.
Jimmy Cannon:So, if you decide, you know what I'm going to speak it up in this meeting because I feel that my ideas should be listened to and I'm really passionate and I know that these ideas are going to make a positive difference to the company or to the team or to the project that you're working, whatever they might be. So the authenticity is about is not necessarily about perfection, how within your voice, but what I. What I think is interesting is we can improve the way we communicate. We can use the voice as a tool. It is an instrument. All it's doing is accentuating our, our own personality. So, rather than, rather than back off and avoid our voice, why not embrace our voice and the potential that it can do for you with your life and through your role in your business or?
Jimmy Cannon:in your business and I think that, again, having that absolutely clean connection from your cognitive mind to your body and vice versa, is really really key. So everything from the breath to the phonation, to the speech, to the intention, to the projection of your voice is controlled and thought about and practiced before it comes out of your mouth. I think that's really key and I believe that that is a genuine response to not my response, but that would be a genuine response to any communication situation that you might be in.
Dr. Leah OH:Yeah, and that's so helpful. And again, I really appreciate you calling attention to the preparation and, like you said, you're a trained musician. In that I imagine people in performing and performance arts you recognize. So much of the work happens before you show up to the stage or the gig or whatever that looks like. Happens before you show up to the stage or the gig or whatever that looks like. And I think for a lot of folks who don't have that experience, they don't realize that preparation is needed or that practice is why some people are able to show up in different ways and to connect and inspire maybe ways that they're not quite there yet Absolutely.
Jimmy Cannon:And practice, I mean. Here's the thing. I think that. So I work with people that are they've made a conscious effort to commit to either coaching or CPD and they want to improve their life. They want to get a promotion, they want to be respected, they want to be less judged, they want to change the perception of how they feel about themselves. So part of that journey is committing to actions that are going to change, that are going to make that transformational change in their lives. So I suggest that people work on their voice, they work on their self-esteem, which I help them with with their through their confidence. They work on their presence, their work, which is, you know, presence. Going back to that is filling the space, your body alignment, how you connect with the breath, how you connect with the sound, how you resonate through your body. That's presence. How you control the space that you're in. There's loads of techniques to do that, but to practice all of this, we have to go out there and do it. It's all very well. All of this, we have to go out there and do it, it's all very well.
Jimmy Cannon:I'll give you the stereotype of a musician who practice for hours, practices for hours and hours in their bedroom, obviously when they're younger, maybe, or even still now, right, but but never goes on stage or never plays with other people. Being part of being a musician as it is with a leader and as is with a with a you know people who work in in business. They have to work with other human beings, they have to work with other people. Being part of a musician is being part of a team and you have to. You have to listen, you have to appreciate, you have to understand, you have to be able to respond in them in an appropriate way to a bass line or groove or a melody or a vocal. You have to be playing around, you have to support the vocalist. If you're a vocalist, you have to listen to the dynamics, you have to lead the band.
Jimmy Cannon:There's so many integral parts of being in a band so I'm going off piece slightly. Sorry, leah. Perfect parts of being in a band, so I'm going off piece slightly, sorry, but the the perfect, okay, the con. The concept is is not to stay in your bedroom and actually to get out there, yeah, and start doing some open mic nights or start going to jam sessions, but in the business side of things, the. The similarity to that would be to maybe join a Toastmasters group or start up a group yourself where you get the opportunity to tell stories, to put yourself out there, start thinking I'm going to hold a meeting, I'm going to chair the meeting. Perhaps, if you have the opportunity to do that, give yourself opportunities to speak as much as you can, in as many environments as you can, and that is desensitizing yourself to the environment that you're scared of, if you like, or you're worried to put yourself in in that you know.
Dr. Leah OH:So taking yourself out of your comfort zone yep, yep, not, not easy, but essential yes, absolutely.
Dr. Leah OH:Yeah, no, it's exactly yeah so, jimmy, I have two final questions for you, and they're um, they work well together and this is how we end all episodes of the communicative leader. So our first part of the question is what do you want to leave our listeners with, whether a leadership or communication tip, advice, challenge? So it's for our title leaders, our folks who are managers, directors, supervisors. And then the second part of the question is just what do you want to leave employees of, you know, all ranks across all industries, with?
Jimmy Cannon:Interesting. So I would say leaders and management, I would. I would focus on the pause and seeing how much space you can create in between phrases to allow that natural space to bring itself into that space. So let me rephrase that I don't know about you, but I've studied coaching. I did an L7 leadership coaching course a couple of years ago Very interesting, and even now my wife believes that I haven't. My listening skills are even worse. No, I'm joking, but something I learned was to embrace the pause.
Jimmy Cannon:Now, in speaking and in the voice and singing and et cetera and performing, silence is incredibly, incredibly powerful.
Jimmy Cannon:But in communication the pause is really, really powerful, because if you're talking to a team member or colleague and you want to find out more information, the best thing you can do is to shush and let them speak.
Jimmy Cannon:And if you've got the confidence to do that, to ask a question, they answer, but it's normally a superficial answer, it's normally the surface answer, right. And then you want to get a little bit deeper, then don't say anything for a couple of seconds and they will more than likely either paraphrase what they've said or or they will continue on the same path, the same journey, and they will give you a lot more deeper explanation of what you wanted in the first place and that's the answer that you get. So I think pause is really, really key. The biggest thing that overall industries with communication would bear fruit to work on would be using tone of voice. I think tone of voice is incredibly powerful and having access to different types of voice that you could use in different situations. So, whether that be a sympathetic voice or be a more authoritative voice or more projecting voice, that different tone of voices can really help in a lot of situations that you might be in.
Dr. Leah OH:Yes, yes, it is so much, not necessarily what you say, but how you say it.
Jimmy Cannon:Yeah.
Dr. Leah OH:I was just thinking that when you were sharing that example. One of my kids is in kindergarten and sometimes I volunteer in the classroom and the teacher is a master with tones of voice right and recognizing, you know, sympathetic or empathetic now, and authoritative now and just, and there's so much to learn from that, because you recognize that you are well, you're keeping people safe, but you're getting things done and you're doing it while maintaining and strengthening relationships.
Jimmy Cannon:Yes, very good, I like that, yeah, and that's a tool that they've had to adopt pretty quickly, I would imagine, to keep control over the class. Yeah, yeah absolutely, yeah, fantastic.
Dr. Leah OH:Excellent, jimmy. I have thoroughly enjoyed our conversation today. I have learned so much. I know there's so many things I'm going to be returning to, and thank you for sharing your time with us and all of your expertise.
Jimmy Cannon:It was an absolute pleasure, leah, lovely to meet you.
Dr. Leah OH:All right, my friends. That wraps up our conversation today. Until next time, communicate with intention and lead with purpose. I'm looking forward to chatting with you again soon on the Communicative Leader.
