Voice Lessons: Reflections on the Art of Being Professional and Authentic
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Voice Lessons: Reflections on the Art of Being Professional and Authentic The artist is someone who is unable to do things as others do them. Robert Bresson Author’s Note I was teaching a group of college professors a class entitled "Finding and Exploring Your Teacher Voice." The class considered what this book considered --- consciously asserting one's humanity in a professional role --- to the benefit of oneself and others. I'm an actor (among many other things as you will see) and I made an illustrative example involving me, a white man, playing an elderly African-American woman. Many in the class were shocked. "How could you ever do such a thing!" "Why not? The theater has had non-traditional casting for years. Cate Blanchett played Bob Dylan in a film a few years ago. Denzel Washington and Judy Dench have played the young Danish prince Hamlet when neither were young or Danish...there are countless examples here... many, too many to mention." We all have our professional roles too. I have life experience which might give a little more insight on than many other people. I am or have been an actor, a comedian, an improviser, a teacher (of several subjects) a marketing executive, a writer, a college professor and a trial lawyer. At first I took on different roles because I was searching. Now I realize they are all the same things. The common denominator in all of the careers is that I showed up for work as a human being and so did all of my peers. The pillars of professionalism are the same for everyone in every job; be competent at your task and in your field; be diligent and complete promised work; communicate; don't lie; don't steal and be civil. There is an enormous diversity of types of people and work. There is also a common humanity to every type of person and job. Please read this book from the perspective of that common humanity. I write many of the sections of this book from the perspective of one of the professions I've worked in. Please read the book from your perspective as a human being and apply any insights you like to yourself and what you do. What is true for the lawyer is true for the actor is true for the teacher is true for what you do. 1 Copyright 2016 Richard Thomas Introduction Many professionals (defined as teachers and other academics, lawyers and other legal professionals, doctors and other medical professionals, creative and other arts professionals, and business, government and non-profit professionals of all stripes) are unaware of the relative ineffectiveness of their presentation, leadership, and group and one-on-one communication skills. Many other professionals are aware of their deficiencies but lack confidence and are intimidated by the prospect of improving these skills. This book asserts that being authentic in the working flow of your vocation can be approached as an art form. It can be learned and developed experientially through the process of personally creating your unique method of presentational and interactive communication. Creating professional authenticity is a democratic artistic process. It is not only a realistic process for those who are perceived as “talented.” No two professionals communicate in the same way. This book aspires to share some of my thoughts, methods, attitudes and values in an effort to help professionals discover and explore their personal confidence, conscious authenticity and creativity in their own way. Work on one’s voice requires a commitment to hard work and deep and considered reflection. If one approaches this work “for fun” or as a hobby, they will get the equivalent results to the lack of demand that they put on themselves. A major interest of mine is the experiential interrelationship between logic, critical thinking, substantive knowledge AND creativity, self-assurance, awareness and communication. My background as an attorney and in the improvisational theater has taught me how rationality and structure, and spontaneity and emotion, are complimentary and equally necessary to the development of a strong professional presence. Artists learn and then (or contemporaneously) feel compelled to share what they learn with others. The artists are then affected by the others’ response to what the artists have offered and transform (learn) again. The process repeats itself ad infinitum with greater depth and in some cases, breadth. By this definition this book is very much a work of art. Artists such as myself have much to teach professionals when the professionals reflect on the artists’ work through the lens of their own experience as professional artists (whether or not that they acknowledge their own artistic status.) Many professionals explore art classes (improvisational acting, creative writing etc.) in an effort to improve their authenticity and presence. Taking such classes is a positive step. This initiative would be more effective because it links the art education to actual work experience and development. It connects personal enrichment with pragmatic professional development. Many workplaces have de facto apprenticeship programs and activities where more experienced professional expose those junior to teaching strategies and plans that have been successful for the more established leaders of the firms. These approaches are useful, but they are more content- driven than the process-driven method that I am proposing here. A professional has to have a mastery of content AND EQUALLY be personally engaged with that content AND, of course, 2 Copyright 2016 Richard Thomas the other stakeholders themselves. There are professional authenticity concerns beyond the obvious necessity of “knowing the material.” The “apprentice” approach doesn’t address these concerns. It might give structures for delivering information. It doesn’t help an individual discover how they personally can “reach” others. This book is a broader and deeper consideration of what it is to be professionally authentic and effective. It bears repeating that substantial artistry and professional development can only be achieved with dedicated, committed and sustained work. It is not enough to understand this topic conceptually. It is not only about approaches that you adopt. It is about something that you yourself become, maintain and expand. The book aspires to stimulate its audiences to discussion, thought and new creations of professional art. Introduction to Process Before you can be a consciously authentic professional you have to be a consciously authentic human being. (We are all at least unconsciously authentic since authenticity is a matter of existential being, not something we matriculate to.) Authenticity is not a matter of self-invention. It is who we are, whether we know it or not. In other words before you have a professional voice you have to have a personal voice that you apply to your professional tasks. You find that voice, and the skills to call upon it in action through play --- in the making of art. All art begins as a spontaneous improvisation and is shaped and structured later. Art connects you to your own personal voice. You become a more effective professional when you speak (and act) in that voice. And learned in your ways of making art you will turn your professional work into art itself. Teachers, actors and trial lawyers are sometimes frustrated when students, audiences and juries aren’t engaged with the material being presented to them. These “others” are not engaged in every case because there is no expressed humanity infused into the dry substance placed before them. I was flipping through cable channels late one night and found a documentary where the rock star and humanitarian Bono was standing in the middle of a West African village saying that “no amount of statistics expresses the truth of this situation as the joy on these villagers’ faces.” I then turned to C-Span where a scientist was telling a Congressional committee that “only image and narrative has been offered today; we have no hard data which gives a full picture of the reality we are facing here.” The truth is that as professionals we need hard data and/or other evidence that we view rationally in order to make competent and informed judgments AND we need to connect warmly with other people in order to share what we know. We need to be able to reason like the C-Span scientists and create image, narrative and feeling like Bono. A professional should be exhausted after a day’s work because she is personally involved with all of the stakeholders that she interacts with. Sharing your voice is a revolutionary activity. It is a commitment to not perform, pretend or persuade or dominate or hide; but rather BE there for better or worse standing with integrity for all that you believe and all that you are. Our roles limit how much we reveal of ourselves. An authentic accountant, for example, wouldn’t show aspects 3 Copyright 2016 Richard Thomas of his voice to a client as he would to his spouse; but he would show all the depths of his voice that are applicable to his relationship with the client. Having a voice is a skill. It is not an abstraction. You can’t develop one by learning and discussing theory. You have to do things. This book suggests that you do improvisational exercises to find and explore your voice in pure action. It says you should state opinions, and keep journals and be very aware of your thoughts and feelings. It says that you should work on your practical reasoning, critical thinking and argumentation skills and apply them to your fields of endeavor. It says you should study examples of public leadership in all fields, particularly ones disparate from your own and make discerning judgements as to how those public leaders do things that could be applied or avoided in your sphere.