Ep43: How Self-Awareness and Voice Shape Effective Leadership at Work with Alan Robertson
Unlock the secret to more powerful, productive conversations in your professional and personal life by discovering the transformative potential of your own voice. In this eye-opening episode of the Human Wise Podcast, people developer and Voiceprint creator Alan Robertson joins host Helen Wada to reveal how self-awareness, intentional communication, and data-driven tools can dramatically boost your influence and connection with others.
We delve into why most workplace talk happens subconsciously—and how harnessing conscious, considerate communication unleashes better collaboration, trust, and leadership impact. Alan explains his Voiceprint model, which categorizes our conversational approaches into three core “buckets,” and shares actionable strategies to shape your talk for influencing, exploring, or collaborating with colleagues, clients, and teams. Plus, hear practical stories from Alan’s extensive background in industrial relations, people management, and coaching, with relatable tips to address difficult conversations, read the room, and adapt your voice for any situation.
Whether you’re leading a team, coaching others, or looking to strengthen workplace relationships, this episode equips you with the mindset and methods to become more human—and more effective—at work. Don’t miss this game-changing guide to leveling up your conversations and driving positive change, one voice at a time!
Topics Discussed:
Effective communication in the workplace
Developing self-awareness in conversations
Using data to explore speaking styles
Building trust through active listening
Influencing leaders with conversational techniques
Timestamps:
00:00 "Exploring Data-Driven Communication Skills"
06:05 "Conscious Communication with Voice Print"
09:13 "Industrial Relations Leadership Change"
13:10 Take Your Time, Stay Composed
16:34 "Building Emotional Intelligence Muscles"
20:30 "Understanding Leadership Concerns"
22:19 Exploring Voices in Problem-Solving Conversations
24:36 "Exploring with 'What's On Your Mind?'"
30:16 Frustration as a Resourcefulness Indicator
32:25 Awareness in Communication Balance
36:21 "Embracing Embodied Awareness in Leadership"
38:58 Meeting Purpose and Communication Strategy
43:22 The Problem with Personal Questions
45:56 Human-Centered Leadership Insights
About Alan Robertson
Follow @alan-robertson on LinkedIn
Alan Robertson has worked in people and organizational development as executive, consultant, facilitator, coach and lecturer. The subtle challenges of talking and listening - sometimes done well but more often less well than anyone either desired, intended or realised - has been a central concern and interest throughout. VoicePrint is the tool he has created to raise awareness, skill and impact with which we use this distinctive form of human resourcefulness.
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Ep43: How Self-Awareness and Voice Shape Effective Leadership at Work with Alan Robertson
[00:00:00]
Introduction and Guest Welcome
Helen Wada: Hello and welcome to another episode of Human Wise. I'm delighted to have Alan Robertson with me this morning. Um, Alan and I were talking before we came on, and I said, Alan, how, how shall I introduce you? And he said, do you know what? I'm a people developer, and I'll kind of say the rest. So in a moment, I'm gonna hand over to Alan and he can tell you about all things he's asked to do with developing people.
Today we're gonna have a rich conversation. Around the concept of voice and the way that we talk. Um, I was introduced [00:01:00] to Alan a few years ago now actually through my, the coaching work that I do. And there's a lot of sort of psychometric tests and things that people do that I, I'm not really a fan of.
You know, it kind of puts people into boxes and things, but, but as Alan will share with us through business talk wise there's a concept about. How we can use data to explore the way in which we speak. And that kind of sounds a bit odd outta context and when we talk a bit more about that, but actually for me it's been hugely powerful in working with coaching clients because it's something I speak all the time, we're talking on this podcast, but very rarely do we think about how we speak and what voices we have and how these are needed, and.
In different situations in the workplace, but also at home as well. And so Alan is absolutely expert on this. And so Alan, I'm really delighted to have you on the show and [00:02:00] particularly delighted given that I've just come from a coaching session where we've been using the your voice data and example to really drive into what's important for the leader that I was working with.
So welcome to human wise. Tell us a little bit more about this people development work that you do.
Alan Robertson: Thanks, Helen. Nice to be here. Well, the reason I call myself a people developer is that my entire working life has been in people related roles. And if I quickly sketch the, the range of those things, you'll see how. A simpler definition is slightly hard to find. So my, my career started in industrial relations back in the 1970s when industrial relations was quite a thing in
Helen Wada: Goodness. I, I remember university, the, the 1980s and the industrial relations, wasn't it?
Alan Robertson: Right? Yes. Well, the seventies were even hotter than the eighties in that resp. So my career started in that space, and that was very formative. I then progressed through what we then called [00:03:00] personnel management which I rather like as a title, I prefer people management. I hate human resource management with a vengeance as a label.
Because it suggests that somewhere there's a thing called inhuman resource management. And actually I know there is, 'cause I've stumbled across it all the time.
Helen Wada: Well, it is part of the reason that human wise exists, right, is to build a more human working world for the people that are within it.
Alan Robertson: Exactly progressed from that into organization developments. Um, went from there into management consultancy and then added all sorts of other strands. But the including visiting teaching fellow the couple of universities, um. Combining that with my management consultancy work. And then as I got towards the, what inevitably must be the latest stages of my career by this stage I started to think about, right, how am I gonna leave something of enduring value when I'm not here or hopefully of enduring value?
And that's.
Helen Wada: We've got a lot more years of you to come yet Alan.
Alan Robertson: Not less hope.
The Concept of Voiceprint
Alan Robertson: So, uh, uh, but that's [00:04:00] where Voiceprint came from. So it's, it's a product that's designed to focus on the issue of talk and whether we use torque and indeed listening to good effect. Uh, and if we use it to less good effect than we might wish, how we might improve the way we do those things.
So, so that's my kind of career story in a nutshell.
Helen Wada: Brilliant. And it's, and it's really wonderful to have you on the show and can't wait to dive deeper into, to sharing a little bit more about what this is and. More broadly how we can think about the voices that we use in conversation. But I always start these conversations with one question, and it's interesting your your view on human resource management, but what does being human at work mean to you?
Alan Robertson: I in a single word. It's consideration. And, and what I mean by that is first and foremost consideration for the person you are interacting with, [00:05:00] with. And that requires a level of open-mindedness willingness to listen to what they have to say. Willingness to. Spot when you're jumping to conclusions interrupt yourself and ask for clarification if in fact you're not as clear as you thought you were at first.
Yeah it, at the end of the day, it comes down to that it's being considerate for of that person and then a applying consideration to what they're saying.
Helen Wada: And I think that that leads so well into conversations, right? So we talk about conversations and consideration for others, but actually the framework that you've got, and I think it's probably worth sharing a little bit. About the three buckets of different voices that we tend to have
And everybody has them within them.
But for me, number one is being self-aware and aware of what these voices are so that we can decide how to use them [00:06:00] when we're either trying to influence or collaborate or whatever it is.
Voiceprint Model Explained
Alan Robertson: Uh, in a nutshell, yes, that that's the point about the voice pri model is to, is to raise what we're doing into our conscious awareness as we're doing it. Because in the absence of that and this seems to be the fundamental problem for so much of human communication it, it happens largely automatically.
You know, it's operating, uh, the primarily subconscious level. So we open our mouths, stuff comes out. It has impacts. Not always the impacts not, we meant it to have. And the worst of it is that as the speaker we often don't notice 'cause we haven't set our intent carefully and we don't notice the impact that we're having and God's company can't put it right when it starts to go wrong. And, and if I kinda think so, this notion of voice print and as a tool goes right back to the early days of my. Working life because in industrial relations, I very quickly discovered [00:07:00] there's a lot of very ritualistic behaviors. You know, people would, would strike poses and they would adopt roles that they felt were appropriate.
Either, you know, for being a shop steward or even worse for being a manager, you know? And, and they wouldn't be thoughtful. About what they were doing and the effect that that was having and whether they were actually contributing to meaningful and useful interaction and communication, or whether they were simply stuck in a position, stuck in some sort of stereotype which wasn't solving things.
Helen Wada: Yeah, and I think what's interesting, and I'm really drawn, you probably don't realize, but I'm really drawn to the David Cantor book, reading the Room Behind You. Because what you're saying there is, yes, we speak, yes, we, you know, talk all the time. But actually going back to your point about being human at work, it's having consideration for others.
Having the ability to read the [00:08:00] Has somebody actually understood what you said? You know, have you understood where they are coming from?
Alan Robertson: Yes. When I first became an industrial relations manager, which I did at what was back in the 1970s, an absurdly young age, um, so I was 27 when I became the IR
Helen Wada: still only a couple of years older
Alan Robertson: Go to a well-known spectacle provider. Other providers are available. Um. No, but I got the role there because my predecessor, um, as industrial relations manager had actually done the job very badly indeed. And what he used to do is he would turn up for the meeting with the trade. There was a scheduled meeting every week.
He would turn up for that meeting. He would ostensibly listen to whatever issues they were raising or grievances they had. And he would not say very much in the meeting. He would then say, okay, I'll get back to you. Then he didn't,[00:09:00]
Helen Wada: Oh, right.
Alan Robertson: and he hoped that most of these problems would go away which of course they didn't.
And eventually the trade unions passed a vote of no confidence. They actually wrote to our managing director and said, we have no confidence in the industrial relations manager. Well, there's no foundation for industrial relations there. If the two parties won't speak. Anyway I got the job. In that circumstance, I mean mostly 'cause I was the young Turk, you know, jumping up saying me, I wanna do that.
And nobody else wanted to do it. And so my intent when I went into the role was, right. I'm not going to do what my predecessor did. I'm going to listen to what people are gonna, are saying. I'm going to really make an effort to understand what the issue is. I'm gonna go away, I'm gonna think hard about it, and I will come back when I say I am gonna come back.
With some sort of answer, and the answer may or may not be palatable. But what they can absolutely rely on is they will be listened to. They will be heard, and there will be some sort of response. And my view was if I did that, [00:10:00] then I could develop a level of trust, which seemed to be the foundation for everything that we might or might not then be able to do.
Helen Wada: Yeah. And it's, that's sort of the fundamental foundations of, of the communication piece about that. Yeah. How you show up. We talk about the human framework that we work with at the Human Advantage, you know, how you show up is knowing who you are. What you can bring, but actually the you is about the understanding.
Others the question for me, and where this gets super powerful and it's questions that I'm asked quite a lot, is, well, how do I, the A and the thing, but how do I act with that? How do I adapt with my voice, with the conversations, depending on what I'm trying to do? So let's take for example, so I work with a number of technical experts. actually we need to build our businesses. Same for independent coaches. You know, you need to have a different type of skill to be out there. Having conversations with central customers and kinds, [00:11:00] how does your awareness of our voices help in those situations?
Practical Applications of Voiceprint
Alan Robertson: Well, if I, I unsurprisingly, if I go back to my Voiceprint model. It seems to me that whenever we're talking, we are doing something purposeful. You know, there's a reason for every utterance. And if you distill it as Voiceprint tries to do there's broadly three functions going on. We're, when we talk, we're either exploring.
Or we're adopting a position and expressing a position in some way, or we're seeking to control, influence, steer, facilitate what's going on. But at the end of the day it's one of those three things that we're, we're endeavoring to do. Now, if we're not clear about which one of those things it is. Other people are gonna struggle to understand us, and the interaction, the conversation we're trying to have is going to be disorganized.
I mean, literally, we're gonna find ourselves speaking at crossed purposes. And of [00:12:00] course, the, the prodigy of the cross purpose is the misunderstanding and the tension and the distrust and all the other unfortunate things. So, that's where I think even a very basic level of awareness. You know, what am I trying to do here?
Am I. Trying to find out, am I trying to sort things out and establish position or am I trying to steer what's going on? That level of awareness is very easy to obtain
Helen Wada: so how, just, just pausing a minute. So you say, you know, that easy is easy to obtain. How does, how do people do that? So listeners, I haven't done my voice print, although it. You want to, we'll, we'll tell you how you can get access to that at the end of the conversation. But how do I do that? What do I need to be thinking about?
Alan Robertson: Well, take your time. Is the key. Uh, when I first went into industrial relations, I was given one piece of advice, and it was, don't let yourself be stampeded. Uh, and I didn't, I didn't actually know what the advice meant until I was in my first meeting in the chair [00:13:00] and there was a shop steward who was particularly trying to niggle me because he wanted me to lose my cool, because at the moment you lose your cool in that situation, the trade union school point at you and say, oh, well we can't deal with him.
He doesn't behave rationally. Um. So that was the moment when, oh, okay, he's trying to wind me up. I get it. So this is where I just have to compose myself and take my time and don't answer straight away. Don't come up with a quick report and actually just pause and think, okay, what's happening here? What am I trying to do?
Is this working? Is this productive? If not, what might we do differently here? Slow down. Take your time. Notice. Literally notice what's happening both in the conversation and in your own. Thoughts and choose your words then with some care.
Helen Wada: And for me, I think, I think that's absolutely right, and it reminds me of some of the conversations I've had when we talk about negotiation.
Effective Communication Strategies
Helen Wada: You know, in there you are actually talking about trading use that so much a negotiation, you know, negotiation can [00:14:00] come in a variety of ways, whether it's influencing, you know, influencing your boss, influencing another team, trying to influence a client to, to work with you.
But there's something about how you take a step back and take a pause. To say what is going on here? And then I, I would draw further, and I think this is where the work that I do as a coach comes in because, you know, I go deeper and we tap into our senses as well. And you know that reading a room it's what's your gut telling you?
Where are you noticing the tension? Be that with yourself, be that with others in the room. And what can you do to diffuse the tension? Because number one, you can't do anything until you've, you've got the awareness. And so having an awareness is number one. Number two is then what do I do about it?
Alan Robertson: Yeah. Exactly. What I used to, um, insist on when I became industrial relations manager, because [00:15:00] when I was the oic, when I was the kind of junior keeping the minutes and so on, I wasn't encouraged to take any active part just to make the notes and write them up afterwards. Um, when I became the industrial relations manager I, I required my.
Co-pilot basically to pay a lot of attention to what is happening. Yes, keep the notes. Uh, although we introduced a much simpler way of recording what Hadn and hadn't been agreed. But hi, his, her role was watch what's happening and in the in the recesses. Let's swap notes. 'cause if I'm busy concentrating on what's being said and processing that and thinking about how I'm gonna respond, I am going to miss stuff.
That's going on in the room. So your, your eyes and ears to amplify my understanding of what is happening. And that, that I think works very well when you do, I mean, there's a technical phrase for it. It's called distributed cognition. You know, you, you pass some of the load onto somebody else to play an active block.
Helen Wada: but, but I love that, I love that phrase as well, Adam, because [00:16:00] it's, it can be for somebody that is still working on these muscles and I call them muscles, right? This is not. Soft skills by any stretch of this imagination. It's about really building our muscles and our emotional awareness about what's going on.
But I often encourage people, you know, let's talk about going out to client meetings and things like that. Um, actually, you don't have to be the expert in the room to have a conversation, quite frankly. You don't always have to have an expert in the room if you are following the conversation, setting the agenda clearly.
Inquiring deeply to understand what is going on, and using that emotional intelligence is a really valuable skill in the room because, you know, if you think about what we do as coaches, I never know what you know, I don't know the deep experts of the expertise of the person I'm working with, but you can [00:17:00] create insights, you can create action, you can create connection through the power of conversation. If you are, and I talk about playing up and down a conversation ladder, so you know, at one end, at the bottom end it's very open, it's very, you know, curious. It's all about inquiry. Those voices that you talk about where you're, you're getting under the skin things, but actually then at the top of it, you are using those more assertive voices that you talk about the ability to be direct. And both of those on the spectrum are needed through the course of the conversation. You just have to play with them. And so the fact of even noticing those and being aware of them helps you to think about how you can have a productive conversation if it's not going right. You read the room as David Kantor says, and and time out and say, hang on a minute.
What's going on for you here?
Alan Robertson: Yeah, absolutely agree. I mean, you make so many points there, Helen. Uh, let's just pick one or two of them up. Voice is an [00:18:00] embodied thing, you know, so we have to use the whole body. The, in the feeling you're getting in the gut about what's happening is just as useful as what's coming in through the ears and reaching the, you know, the cognitive processes.
So noticing is the kind of first I think requirement for productive interaction of any sort. Including communication. Um, and then we inhabit a busy world. The business world is busy. Surprise, surprise.
Helen Wada: I dunno. It's busy. It's FTIC at the moment, I think out there.
Alan Robertson: but that is the great enemy of thoughtfulness and consideration. So, you know, we rush from meeting to meeting.
We don't reset ourselves between one and another. And yet the payback for just. Pause, collect yourself Okay. Inhabit the moment. And what is happening in the moment is so vital. And under such pressure we have to actively fight back against that in order to have productive interactions.
Helen Wada: And we talk [00:19:00] about time there and, and how we, how we make the most of our, our time together. There's short time in in meetings to, to influence and so forth. If we take an example of I want to influence a leader, you know, so I'm a, I, I run a business unit and it's budget time and I'm up against everybody else to try and get some investment into my business.
To invest in resources or technology or whatever it might be. How can we think about the way in which we have that conversation using our voices to be more effective with our conversation?
Alan Robertson: Okay. Well the, I think in that sense, the, the key consideration is, okay, what is it your leader
About?
Helen Wada: Yeah.
Alan Robertson: And if you don't understand that whatever attempt you make to influence their thinking is gonna be wide of the mark, it's not gonna resonate. I'm gonna have relevance for I had the great good [00:20:00] fortune many years ago to work for a fabulous leader.
And what he used to do, you would, he would ring up, uh, Greg, and he'd say, Alan, I want you to start thinking about, and you give me an issue or a subject or something. You wouldn't say any more than that. So I want you to start thinking about this and down. I very quickly realized that was me being put on something like 24, 36, 48 hours notice that I was expected to have thought about that.
Such that when the next phone call came through saying, um, come down to my office now I got something to offer. But he had also taught that bigger lesson that, you know, our leaders or leadership roles by their nature, present the leader with an awful lot of competing demands on their attention.
And their role is to introduce some level of focus to that. And we need to respect that. I mean, we might disagree with it. And so, you know, challenging it is fair game. Uh, but at the end of the day you've gotta [00:21:00] meet them in that space. So my. Approach to if I had, you know, an idea that I wanted to introduce, it might be novel to them, but I'd have to find a way of connecting it to some concern that they had.
Helen Wada: And, and. Yeah. And that is really those exploring voices. Alan, isn't it? It's really starting off with understanding, inquiring what's important to them, you know, and I have the same as a, you know, a partner, a service provider. Now I'm working with same when I was in, in my previous role, but now particularly as the human voltage.
What are people actually trying to achieve? Because you could go away and do something transactional. Unless we are getting under the skin of inquiring, diagnosing what the problem is we're trying to solve. We may well go away and develop something. You know, talking back up to your [00:22:00] example, you would've gone off and done something, but if you didn't really understand what was inside his head, then you, you come back and you go, but yeah, but that's not what I was thinking about.
Well, okay. But so, so when we think about the voices, and I think there's something around. Different conversations. We need different voices.
Exploratory Conversations and Feedback
Helen Wada: So those early conversations are much more exploratory.
Alan Robertson: Yes.
Helen Wada: But actually then there's a move between the positioning of, you know, articulating your point of view, advising, moving through to, well, okay, let's then have a conversation about it.
Let's evaluate it together and maybe challenge some thinking.
Alan Robertson: I, I.
Helen Wada: I think it is being mindful of the different conversations you might be having.
Alan Robertson: I agree with that. But I also think there is a, there's a natural trajectory that makes sense for all conversations and, and it start, it, well, it starts with exploration.
Helen Wada: yeah.
Alan Robertson: Because if you don't start with exploration to [00:23:00] find out where the other person is and coming from, it's very difficult to make that connection.
If you start by adopting a position, you may be wide of the mark. So classic example would be giving feedback. Um, so you've got a piece of feedback to give somebody, and you're desperate to kind of make that point, but it's not at the front of their mind. So actually they don't recognize what you're talking about, far less why it matters and what they might do differently.
So you've gotta sort of start with, do you remember when, you know, explore. That's a fairly focused form of exploration.
Influencing the Boss: Key Questions
Alan Robertson: But if I go back to, if I may the example of influencing the boss, I have a question that I've acquired over the years, dunno where it came from, but I used to use it in my executive career with my bosses and I then used it relentlessly in my coaching career.
Uh, and the question is, what's on your mind? Because, uh, very often the other person doesn't have a well developed answer to that. They've got an inkling, they've got a [00:24:00] sense they've got something that they're kind of turning over. And the reason they've asked for a conversation with you is they want an input to help them get clearer and to write some sort of decision. Now the beauty about what's on your mind is it allows them it gets you into the exploring space very quickly. 'cause it allows 'em to say, well, I'm sort of, I couldn't quite how to put it here really, but it's something to do with, you know, so you get this kind of soggy mass of ill-formed. Papier macho that's going on in their head that they're trying to get a grip on.
And that's something 'cause you're then jointly in that space of exploring it and finding out about it and nobody's feeling under pressure to prematurely have an answer. Which is of course, as we know from stays on cognition and problem solving, uh, is the great enemy of successful problem solving.
So we haven't actually defined the problem correctly in the first place.
Helen Wada: Yeah, and there was a, there was a few episodes ago I heard Margaret Henan on the show, and we talked about, [00:25:00] you know, the, the danger for all of us is that speedy decision making or the speedy answers to a question. Because actually very often the thing that pops into your mind is not the optimal, but it's what's done, what's been done before necess, not necessarily what's right for us now, and, and we almost, you know, come up with an answer and put it to bed and go, tick tick.
You know, that's all done, but actually
Alan Robertson: easy to arrive correctly in the wrong place. Yes.
Helen Wada: yes. And therein lies, you know, you talk about the pressure on time. In organizations today, and for me, I think there's an awful lot of wasted time focusing on the wrong question and people running off and doing certain things without properly pausing to take a think about, is this the right question that we are even asking ourselves?
Alan Robertson: Yes and to the role of coach and consultant and so on as the outsider, you know, you, you have that opportunity to, [00:26:00] to bring that quality of conversation to the client. Which, you know, the, the hurly of day-today, organizational life may make it hard for.
The Role of Self-Awareness in Communication
Helen Wada: and I, and I think building on what we're talking about when, you know, the, the voice print work that, that you do, and I work with as a coach. I think what we see is there is no right or wrong here. You know, I think that's really important. There is no right or wrong. And you describe it really beautifully as it's a repertoire of voices that we all have within us and some we use more frequently, the others than you talked about.
You know, we all have our sort of questions that we go back to that are authentically ours, um, but it's working out. Observing yourself in different environments. So example, where are you comfortable? Where are you less comfortable? You know, a client that I was working with a couple of weeks ago, brilliant set of, you know, lots of, of [00:27:00] lots of these voices really confident using in some situations, but in other situations where we we're less comfortable, then actually they kind of go away.
And then you struggle while you connect or have the ability to influence. Others. And so therefore it's okay. So what do I do in that situation? And, and I think this is, you know, without even doing the voice print, look at the situations where you are comfortable, where you, you are getting that influence and decision making that you want and reflect on what do you do as an
Alan Robertson: Yes, yes.
Helen Wada: is it that you do that works well when you come out of a meeting and go, goodness, that was brilliant. 'cause we all have those points. We also have those times when we come out of meetings going, God, that was blooming awful.
Alan Robertson: Well, yes.
Helen Wada: And so what muscles can you use to take from what you know you can do really well to draw out voices [00:28:00] to influence where you are less comfortable?
And I think that's. Time and time again, we are looking for individuals, influencing people at different hierarchies within organizations, and how can you have conversations with more senior people, but get your boy fuck head across.
Navigating Discomfort and Frustration
Alan Robertson: Well, what I like to do is I like to get quickly to you make a great point about comfort quickly to the point of the individual's discomfort. I. Um, and the way I like to get at it is by asking the question. Okay. Tell me please about people or occasions that, uh, or issues that you find most frustrating. Um, and I like that as a question because everybody's allowed to be frustrated. We are not allowed to be angry. We're not allowed to be emotional, but we are allowed to be frustrated. So it's a, it's a sort of easy question for people to respond honestly, to. Um, and the, the beauty about finding a point of frustration is that's indicative of where that individual's.
Easy access to their [00:29:00] resourcefulness. It's kind of running up against, uh, you know, the wall and, and finding it difficult to resolve whatever challenge they're encountering at that point. So I like that as a way into that territory. And then exactly what you're suggesting. Okay. So how do you go about that?
You know, how do you think about that? What do you say? You know, and then you're getting a sense of, right, which voices are you using? Which parts of that universal repertoire of ways of interacting with other people? Are you drawing on which ones are you perhaps not yet thinking about as candidates to employ in that occasion?
And right suddenly found, okay, well you're going about it this way. What would happen if you tried this and we could, you know, 'cause the beauty of our voiceprint is a triangular model is there's always at least two other possibilities in other parts of the triangle. So there are different strategies open to us.
Helen Wada: Yeah. And it's it just comes back to that number one point of self-awareness. [00:30:00] And if, if we know we are. We are very strong on the articulation. We like to go in and, and advise. It's being aware of the dangers of that. We always say, you know, our strengths and those natural tendencies can also be those areas that we're blind to.
And again, that's something that Voiceprint does is it just raises that awareness of, well, actually if I'm overdoing the inquiry. For some people it could feel like I'm probing, like I'm going too often against in, in, you know, intruding really, isn't it? It's that am I probing too much and could it be seen as being intrusive? And that would depend on situations. But do you articulate things? Are you over verbose? And do people want to tell you to shut up basically?
Alan Robertson: This is back to the, your point about awareness being crucial. Sierra, you're, we're always, you know, when we use our voices, we're always [00:31:00] having to manage a boundary line between providing enough of that voice in a form. I. That is skillful and timely that it's contributing usefully. To the conversation, and we're not going to the point where suddenly we've overdone it and it's as you point out, it's become unhelpful.
So instead of the clarity of my articulation, suddenly I'm just being verbose. I'm being kind of over finicky about the precision with which I explained something and that ceases to be useful for the other person or whatever. Now take the voice of probe, which you mentioned. Probe is a massively.
Valuable voice, not least because it uncovers things and it kind of, engages with the boundary of our understandings to try and open it up a bit more and find out a bit more. And it stops us falling into the trap of accepting things at face value. But vitally, uh, the probe voice can allow the other person to think about things either [00:32:00] that they haven't thought about or haven't thought about very deeply. Prior to that. So it's a, it's a wonderful gift to give them. But you've gotta judge the moment when it's gonna come down like that rather than come across. Well, that's an offensive question. How dare you know, do you think you are asking that? So, you know, this is to your earlier point, this is why we have to be aware in the moment. And Voiceprint while it's got, you know, it's a framework and it suggests a number of ways of interacting. WhatsApp mostly is about, is about equipping us with things that we can be aware of as we are working with other people, um, such that we have some flexibility in the different ways in which we can do it.
So we don't get stuck in a way that's unproductive.
Helen Wada: Yeah. And that leads us into that sort of that whole act and adapt and in the human framework, but that we work with, right? Because it's that once you are in the room, once you are on stage, [00:33:00] are you. The audience engaged. Have you got them? That might be one people. That might be one people. One person.
It might be a hundred people. And so being able to tap into that is crucial. And sometimes, you know, we talk about planning for meetings. We talk about planning ahead, but planning only so far that you don't just railroad through your presentation. Because if you haven't brought people on the journey with you and you're not aware of what's going on, then it's all for nothing.
Alan Robertson: Well, e Exactly. And what worries me about a lot of communication training is it preps us for, if you like, highly structured situations like giving a presentation or being interviewed and some, um, but does less to prepare us for conversation, you know, interaction in the wild. Which is where most of it takes place at the end of the day.
Helen Wada: And you're absolutely right. I was having I was actually [00:34:00] on a podcast last week rather than hosting. And we, we were having that conversation. It was really around coaching and thing, but people said, they said to me, well, how what is it like for people to be coached by you? And we came back to the.
Embodied aspect of it, right? This is human centered capability, quality, and in my experience, you're absolutely right. Training is is generally, you know, here's a skill, go and do it. There is very little. When it comes to how are we experiencing it now? Now it is coming into some leadership development practices and training.
And certainly in coaching we, we really invade it at the higher end. Nonetheless, at the basic level of coaching, it still can be more transactional. And certainly if you looking at AI and robots and things like that, well, you know, I think there's some good stuff out there, but it [00:35:00] doesn't necessarily arrive if you go to the heart of humanity.
And what my passion is, which we've spoken about before, is this embodied awareness is not just for leadership. It's not just for managing teams, but it's absolutely crucial for all commercial interactions, whether that's trying to build new relationships with clients, whether it's trying to influence your boss to to get some more investment into your team.
Whether it's trying to work with your team around you, you know, we, we are missing a trick. And I, and that's really what the human advantage is about, is to, to bring us back to these human qualities that are quite frankly essential.
Alan Robertson: yeah, no, I would agree with that completely. The problem with a lot of training is it takes the view that life is, you know, can be reduced to algorithms but actually, um, life is more heuristic [00:36:00] than that in the sense that there aren't guaranteed outcomes from, from any behaviors. And so in a very real sense, we're, we're always muddling through, we're always improvising because we can't.
Pre-plan a conversation. We can't pre-plan an interaction because it involves more than ourselves. And therefore our necessity it's going to acquire a shape as it unfolds. You know, it's gonna have an emergent properties to which we either contribute usefully or unuse usefully, but we have to stay in, engaged in it in real time in order to, you know, to try and produce that outcome.
So, what am I saying? Um, I'm, I'm agreeing
Helen Wada: gonna say, so,
Alan Robertson: in a roundabout,
Helen Wada: I've got, I've got a question for you as we close it out. Okay. Given that you've said that, given that it's all about in the moment and we never know where conversations are gonna go, what is it that I, as a listener, listening to this going, what can I do in my preparation? To help me think [00:37:00] about how I am in the moment, what would you advise?
Alan Robertson: Okay. Um, think about what is this interaction about? So beforehand, uh, what's this interaction about? What's the purpose of us meeting and talking? And for a simple framework on that, is it exploratory? Is it about sorting stuff out? Is it about making a decision? Is it some combination of those things?
Um, and what's a sensible trajectory to try and go through when we meet? So that, that's one level of preparation one can do. It will only take you so far beyond that. Once you actually get into the encounter itself, it's okay, now what's happening? Are we moving, you know, are we clear about what we are trying to do?
Are we on the, in the same sort of territory or, or are we speaking across purposes? And we very quickly get a feel for that. We don't often do something about it, but we often notice if it's not going well, if it's not going well pause and say, hang on a minute. Can we just clarify what we're trying to [00:38:00] achieve here?
Literally get ourselves into the same sort of communicative territory. And then reset. Okay, so now I gotta choose. What do I do? Do I ask a question? Do I offer a view? Do I make a process suggestion? There's a limited number of possibilities always, but it's do some prep. Don't do too much. Be very aware in the moment of what is happening.
Don't be afraid to interrupt if it's not going well. This is another one of my hobby horses. I've, I spent an awful long time in my corporate life and my consulting life in conversations that weren't going well, but nobody said, so, you know,
Helen Wada: Oh my goodness. Yeah.
Alan Robertson: staggered outta the meeting at the end grumbling about how awful it was, but nobody done anything about it at the time.
So I, I, I feel very strongly that. We all have to take a personal responsibility for co-facilitating any interaction that we're in. And that [00:39:00] means calling out, you know, interactions that aren't going well. And then suggesting either inviting or suggesting, uh, a variation of approach that might make it go better.
And by better, I don't always mean, you know, resolving things fully, but take things forward. In a way that feels useful for the people concerned. Doesn't have to be the ultimate answer, but it just has to feel like that was a good use of time.
Helen Wada: It's as if you knew what the final element of the human framework is, which is next steps, Alan. Because it's all about, you think about coaching conversation, it's all about what is useful, what are we going to do next? And unless you have an outcome that has a clear move things forward in whichever way big or small, then you've almost lost all that time.
That was worth having the conversation. And that's why we always, you know, conclude on that. So, okay, so, so what are we gonna do about it? Who's gonna do what? Quarter of time how we can talk about talking. It's [00:40:00] incredible. My husband was like, whatcha doing for your job? You're just talking about talking and you do too much of it at home already.
So, that, that's something for me to learn and ponder on as I work with family and, and things. But, um, before we close out it's been great to have you on the show. I always like to leave the listeners with a top tip. Stand a question for them to reflect on having listened to our conversation.
So what might you offer?
Alan Robertson: I think my top tip would be this. To think back, I mean, life is so full of unexpected experiences that it's, it's a rich learning territory, isn't it? Reflect back on conversations that you've had that are really stuck in your mind. So I, I did a. Podcast on the Talk Wise podcast some time ago. An episode called Formative Conversations.
And in preparing for that, I thought, well, okay, what, what were some of the conversations that really made an impact on [00:41:00] me in the course of my career? And it was a profoundly useful thing to do. So what was it? Who was it with? What was it about and what did I learn from it? So, so that would be a top tip, you know, 'cause too often we have experience, but we, we don't actually extract as much insight and usefulness outta the experience as we could do.
So that's a nice way of extracting it. My question, I, I loved it when you forewarned me about this but it was very, it was very easy to find the question. And I'm gonna give you an example of a really bad question and I'm gonna give you my really good question. Both of which were asked of me in my corporate life many years ago when I was much younger than I'm today.
So much younger than
Helen Wada: 29, right? 29.
Alan Robertson: Yeah. I wish somebody said to me once, so Alan, what's your management style? Um, and I think that's a dreadful question. Because it puts the focus entirely on you as a [00:42:00] person and detaches you completely from the, you know, the environment that you're working in, the people you're working with.
It seems to me it's deeply disrespectful of other people
Helen Wada: Uh, yeah. Yeah.
Alan Robertson: I, I hate that question. The question that I was asked by somebody else, which I think is an exceptionally good question and has stayed with me ever since, Alan. What distinct and additive contribution are you making? And it's a fabulous question. Well, I'm gonna let it speak for itself. I have tried to, ever since I was asked it, I have tried to use that question in every role I'm in and every kind of phase of my life that I find myself in.
Helen Wada: Well, I love that question, and you're clearly making a distinct and additive contribution to the world of work through the work that you do with talk wise and voice print.
Final Thoughts and Resources
Helen Wada: Um, [00:43:00] if people like the sound of this. And want to find out a little bit more. Where can we find you?
Alan Robertson: Well the best way is probably either through the Talk Wise websites www toque wise.com or the Voiceprint website, which is www voiceprint.global. Or drop a note straight to me, alan1@talkwarriors.com and, I'd be very happy to talk to anybody about this as you gather.
Helen Wada: Brilliant. Well, it's been lovely to. The, uh, talk wise on human wise. And I hope everybody's learned just a little bit, as much as I have since I've been working with you and continue to work with my clients and the wonderful tools that you've created to help us think about human-centered leadership and making a difference.
So thank you. Great to have you on the show.
Alan Robertson: Thanks, Helen. Nice to talk with you.
Helen Wada: Take care. Bye-bye.