Book Review: How to be heard - Julian Treasure
”Unnecessary noise is the most cruel absence of care that can be inflicted on sick or well”
- Florence Nightingale
My first contact with Julian Treasure was his Ted Talk: How to speak so people will listen and you can find it here.
My second contact took place a few days ago, during an event with workshops and trainings dedicated to coaches where he has a 60 minutes session on ”Secrets of Conscious Listening and Powerful Speaking”. Of course, I reach out afterwards on LinkedIn and connected with him.
During the presentation I took a lot of notes here are the 7 most important ones to share them with you. And also, in case you have the opportunity to listen to Julian - join in cause he has charisma, sense of humour and he is in love with public speaking.
After the workshop I was surprise to know that I had his book on my reading list and yet somehow never got to it. You guess it - it become a priority. So today I can share with you a my review over the book.
The book has a lot of resources, exercises and tips that you can use to develop your listening skills, but also to become a more powerful speaker. If leadership is your thing than some of the tips and tricks in this book you might find them handy when connecting with your team or your community.
Chapter 1 - Why this matters
There are so many things that I want to share here - some of the things might be known, some might be new to you presented in a different perspective. A few pages are dedicated to the science of sound and some technical information that will support you in your further research and understanding how to measure the space when you speak. You will find out the way Julian sees the 4 powerful ways of the sound affects your life and how he distilled the process of sensing the sound in 3 core outcomes: happiness, effectiveness and wellbeing. There are several things I loved at this point:
How we become aware of the sounds we consume and how we can start to manage our environment.
”Wellbeing is enhanced by being able to express oneself clearly and effectively, but it can be compromised by the frustrations that arise when we feel we are not listen to in life”
Be aware of the power of sound (the vibration that humans can hear) and noise (unwanted sound)
Listening is a silent skill
Chapter 2 - The dark side - is about the common emotional drivers that tend to suck power out of communication or how Julien called them 4 Leeches. Noted in my coaching bag is the story of the Nan-in - a Japanese Master and his inquiries about Zen. The fact that my motto is quoted people listen to reply not to understand (from Stephen R. Covey in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. And 2 new notions: competitive speaking and maximisers as another world for generalisations :) This chapter has at least 3 exercises (there are more but I am building your curiosity) that you can practice in order to build more healthier communication with those around you, and also the 5 Danger Words like „should” (again coaching reference)
Chapter 3 - Exploring listening and speaking - if you read the book you will get to know in this chapter Dr. Seth Horowitz that works on ways of improving wellbeing through applied sound that can be effective sleep-inducing sonic products. Julien has a brilliant conversation in this chapter with Dr Horowitz and I note just one thing here: ”hearing is a sensation. It goes on all the time, whether you’re paying attention or not. Listening is hearing plus attention”. What I take from this chapter are the listening filters (a recap was needed for me), „you’re the one who’s listening” with its story and the meaning of ”created listening”.
Chapter 4 - How to listen consciously - Listening is a skill, not a natural capability like hearing. This is the chapter where you will explore in depth 7 listening practices with exercises for each and everyone to put them to work. From here I take the exercise to become conscious with what I am listening to practice under the mantra ”We listen with our ears, with our eyes, and with our heart!”. In coaching we use listening at 3 levels and having conversation with the 3 intelligences. During his talk ”Secrets of Conscious Listening and Powerful Speaking” Julian Treasure mentioned several times ”places to listen from or speaking from” and my practice to identify the place from where I am listening / speaking from. In this chapter you have also exercises to put to practice what you are reading if you feel that you need to go more in depth with your learning.
Chapter 5 - How to achieve perfect content - in this chapter you will find great exercises about how to speak clear and straight, authenticity, agree to disagree, love. Long time ago when I started training in public speaking - one of my mentors told me - when you are in front of a group (as a trainer or as a speaker) remember that it’s not about you but about them - their needs (learning, informative) and their emotions. One of the awareness exercises here is about training yourself to listen with a conscious effort
Chapter 6 - Your vocal toolbox - covers a lot of the areas you can practice in a public speaking club like the ones from Toastmasters, train to deliver speeches that have a good impact on your audience building on your voice and content. This is my favorite chapter.
Chapter 7 - Stagecraft - is the basic training you get when you start talking in public from a professional point of view. With my coaching clients in public speaking we work on so many details about prepping before and after the speech - voice exercises for their breathing, mouth and throat, all the little tech aspect that most of them (with years of public speaking experience on their resume) have never thought of them as being important in their delivery. There are so many small things that can ruin your speech and so many things that checked can make you fall in love with public speaking.
This book is about building better relationships.
From a coaching perspective you will have good information to support the development of your clients and if your coaching training does not included a lot on the intention of listening you will have a lot of exercises here to learn on your own in order to become a better coach for your clients.
As a trainer - great exercises to bring into design when you build programmes for development of leaders and managers (being a good listener and a leader that has public speaking skills is important)
As a professional speaker I learned some new tips and tricks so I add them to my decade of experience :)
I give this book 5 stars cause you have all you need: information, exercises, science and movie references ;)
