You can tell she is lying by the sound of her voice!!! lol
There it was. A sound in his voice that indicated to the experts on Cal Lightman’s team that the suspect was lying. It was a change in his sound at the end of the sentence. Dr. Gillian Foster could tell easily that the man was smiling, even though she couldn’t see him. She described his voice thinning out and getting a little higher. In this case, this led her to conclude that the man was lying.
Now, let me ask you this. Did YOU hear the change in his voice? I did. In fact, I’d be surprised if you didn’t. We can “hear” facial expressions and attitudes reflected in a person’s voice. That’s because of physiological changes in the way we make sounds based on how we feel.
However, we can also “hear” a person’s intentions. The voice is incredibly revealing. This is why it’s so important to prepare for a speech or a presentation, to identify your intentions or purpose and keep them in mind. Actors and performers are well aware of this. Method acting was born of this phenomena. But even dancers know about it. In an article in Dance Magazine, I read this:
“I dance better when I have a reason to do the steps,” says Kimberly Cowen of Kansas City Ballet.
Good communication requires clarity; clarity requires clear intention. Too often we go into a presentation or a discussion without a clear intention for our communication. We are then surprised that our message comes across confusing and ineffective. A recent series on one person’s blog discusses the effect of intention and tone of voice in parenting. In fact, this topic is so important to Amblin that she is dedicated to discussing it through January of 2010!
Unclear intentions result in unclear communication. Conversely, you don’t have to be a Cal Lightman to hear where a speaker is coming from. It’s written all over their voice!
P.S. You can replay that episode of Lie to Me on the Fox website and check it out for yourself. By the way, I think the web site is pretty cool. Play the video that shows you tips and techniques for uncovering lies. Not only is it fun, but I think it’s very helpful for speakers and performers.
I have been traveling a fair amount lately. Today, I began working on this post and had to connect to the Internet. As I browsed the Sheraton site, I noticed a link on the home page that encouraged you to share your story. When you click on the link it takes you to“Good Stories,”a site with stories on Sheraton travel from around the world. Kind of cool! It’s interactive and you get to explore the world through stories.
Storytelling is a form of communication that is common to everyone’s experience, and is becoming increasingly important as we face the large amounts of data and information that are now available to us, such as where to stay and what to see when traveling. Statistics on the recession are made more understandable when we hear stories of people losing their homes, or getting jobs in some innovative way. And presentations are more interesting when the presenter is a storyteller.
In business, creating a story out of raw information can help you see the problem better in order to understand the solution better. By collecting information to create stories, you can assure yourself that you can answer the key issues that need to be addressed to qualify your lead, to solicit a donation, to make your point or to find the best solution.
My first introduction to the importance of storytelling in business was the book, The SpringBoard Story by Stephen Denning. I love this book and highly recommend it to anyone who wants to be inspired about the importance of a great story.
And since reading that, I have explored this with many people, and watched as storytelling has become more and more important. Again, storytelling makes sense out of a complex world. However, it’s not all that easy to create a great story, and many people call something a story when it is not a story.
To paraphrase the words ofClarissa Pinkola Estes, stories are a conduit. They connect us to each other because your story reminds me of my own. In the simplest terms,
A story has to have a beginning, a middle and an end.
In addition, it needs to have emotional content, a feeling that we can relate to, even if it is a story about business.
It needs to have an obstacle to be overcome.
If you want to learn more about storytelling, here are three places you might look.
