S5:E71🎙️ LIVE with Julian Treasure "The Communication Alchemist" (Multi Tracks Audio)

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If you've got a boring voice, you can do something about it. It's possible.

Julian Treasure, the author of How to Be Heard.

Your TED Talk is the 6th most listened to TED Talk of all time. I've assembled 7 deadly sins of speaking. Here they are. It's the most common mistake I see in business. In relationships. You're speaking to teams, you're trying to inspire people, you're trying to lead people, build relationships with people. This is part of your life and you've never paid any attention to it. We teach reading and writing in schools, we don't teach speaking, which is absolutely nuts. We're much keener to be heard than we are to listen to others. What's the biggest complaint in relationships? He or she never listens to me. Our happiness and our well-being are fundamentally affected by whether we master the skills of speaking and listening. How does one speak with authority in work, in life, in my relationships? What advice can you give me? People often say to me, I don't feel confident. How can I engage with people? And the answer is—

All right. Are you in for some answers today? I am really truly excited. We have a very special guest, really a legend right here on the Leadership Success Podcast. But before we do that, as is as is our custom, we always like to start with what we call moment of gratitude. Just take a moment every day, every time we meet to be grateful just for a moment. So for some of you, you may wanna close your eyes, put yourself in your happy place and think about one thing you are grateful for right now. And for me, it's really the pleasure, the privilege, and really the honor to speak to some of the world's most fascinating experts, people who are so famous and legendary, who are really making a dent into the universe and they are willing to take an hour out of their time and busy, busy schedule to come and talk to us and share their wisdom and their leadership principles that have helped them be successful. And I am so, so, so grateful for that. Okay. So let me see if I can properly introduce our guest today. We're gonna be talking to the one and only Julian Treasure. Really doesn't need to be introduced anywhere. He's one of the most influential communication experts in the world today. More than 160 million views across TED Talks, a trusted advisor to leaders, organizations, and global brands, author of bestselling books including How to Be Heard and his latest release, Sound Effect. Recipient of the Toastmasters Golden Gavel Award, he teaches leaders how to listen with intention, speak so people want to listen, and build trust in a distracted, noisy world. I think in the age of AI today, the one leadership skill we need is listening and speaking. All right, without any further ado, please help me welcome to the Leadership and Success Podcast, the one and only Julian Treasure. All right, good afternoon, Julian. How are you today?

I'm very well, thank you. Thank you for that marvelous introduction.

Well, thank you. We are so honored and privileged to have you on today. Uh, to get started, what is one thing you are grateful for?

Right now, I am honored, you know, you said you're honored to meet people in the work that you're doing and interviewing them. I am putting together a session at TED, the conference, which is in Vancouver in April. It's a week-long conference. Many people don't even know TED's a conference, but it is. There are 11 sessions of TED, each with about 8 or 9 speakers in them, and I'm moderating one of those sessions. It's called Reasons to Listen, and I am so grateful to be doing that. It's, it's a great honor, first of all, and secondly, I've been able to bring in some of my great heroes in the world to speak, which means I've got to know them. I've been working with them for 4 months, and I'm going to meet them in Vancouver in a couple of weeks' time. So I'm so grateful for that.

Okay, for the world exclusive, can we get some name drop, please? Name drops, name drops.

Well, yes, I've got Harville Hendrix, who wrote the book Getting the Love You Want, which has been featured year after year on Oprah's show, sold 10 million copies. He's the world's leading— with his wife Helen LaKelley Hunt, um, he's the world's leading couples therapist, and he's going to be talking about listening, the importance of listening in a couple relationship. Yes, I've got him. I've got David George Haskell, who wrote a wonderful book that I strongly recommend to anybody who's interested in sound. It's called Sounds Wild and Broken. He's written many books. His prose is lyrical, and he's going to be taking us on a tour of the sounds of the— a history of the sounds of Earth with beautiful sound recordings from Matt Mickelson, who's the CEO of a great thing called Quiet Parks International. Quietparks.org. It's a wonderful website if you're looking for quiet places to find in the world.

Wow, that is just fascinating. This is really, really great. And so that's going to be your 18th TEDx talk?

Well, I'm not giving a talk. I am simply corralling. I'm guest curating the session. So I introduce all the speakers.

Yes.

I'm not speaking myself.

But this is just fantastic. Fantastic. So is there something about you that most people may not know when they first meet you, sir?

Well, a lot of people don't know that I'm a drummer, and, uh, kind of that's how I got involved in sound in the first place, was playing, really. I played for a lot of years, I made records, and that was, you know, a big part of my life for quite a long time. And I haven't played for a while. My last 20 years was playing in a Blues Brothers tribute band, which was a lot of fun, playing some great songs. Happy and dance, which is a great feeling.

Yes, music definitely makes our life so much more enriching. That is just fantastic. Myself, I've been playing the piano since I was about 7 years old. That's just quite fascinating. So you've spent decades studying something most leaders really take for granted, right? Communication. Why is it still so misunderstood at the highest levels today?

Well, I think it's largely now because of the dominance of writing and reading. We've become very orientated around communicating with our fingers and our eyes, you know. We've all got a screen next to us tapping away, email, you know. You get people doing email in bed at midnight. The first thing when they wake up is check the email. Personally, I find email immensely antagonistic. I mean, it's just—

yes, sure, isn't it?

I mean, does anybody listen to this, listening to this, feel happy about email? It's constant pressure on us of this torrent of inbound stuff that we have to deal with every day. Many people's action list is not an action list, it's an email inbox. You could sum up the job titles of a huge number of people in the world with just two words: answer email. That's it. So, um, it's kind of dominated the way we think, and, and the, the tyranny of the eyes goes through so many aspects of society, from architecture and design. There are lots of design awards in the world. How many are for sound? Hmm, not many. Uh, builders and architects think about how things look, not how things sound. So we have many buildings that are actually dysfunctional. Schools offices, hospitals where people can't hear, can't think, can't work, can't heal. So this, this is all by way of saying that when we think about communication now, we don't think so much about what we're doing— synchronous, in-person, oral communication— something we've been doing for 3 million years of evolution. And in language for 150,000 years at least.

Wow.

It's only invented 5,000 years ago. So up until that point, you're a tiny fraction of human history. All of our connection, all of our learning, all of our knowledge has been transferred by doing it, and you had to listen carefully. Now, not so much, you know. You miss it, I mean, you can check it on YouTube, there'll be a recording, there'll be something, you know. So the permanence of writing has kind of duped us into not paying attention to the moment. And you know, you talked about gratitude. I think a lot of this is a conversation about becoming a more conscious human being and more present in the moment.

Yes.

Because there's no such thing as a photograph in sound. Sound, mm-hmm, transitory, and you have to be there and pay attention to it, otherwise you've missed it. So I think with most leaders, the problem is that they focus on written communication and on outbound communication, which leaves a big quadrant open. You know, if you think we've got reading, writing, speaking, and listening.

Hmm.

Oh, we had a little outage. Reading, writing, speaking, and listening, the 4 ways we communicate. So there's 2 for the eyes, 2 for the ears, 2 that send, 2 that receive. Rather obsessed with sending writing. Receiving sound is very much the bottom of the list. We don't teach children how to listen. We don't teach them how to speak very much. More in America than in my country. But even so, it's public speaking a little bit. But not speaking as a skill, as an art, and not at all listening, which is great. You know, if we taught our children how to listen first, yes, much more of their education would they receive, and what a different world we would have if everybody had the skill of listening carefully to other people instead of shouting at them.

Hmm.

So powerful. Two things come to mind. When my kids were teenagers, I guess they are Gen Zs, I would see them across the table in the kitchen. Instead of speaking and talking, they would be messaging each other on their phone. I'm like, this is ridiculous. This doesn't make any sense. Wow.

Yeah, that's so common. There's a great book called Alone Together, which is by Sherry Turkle, another TED speaker and a professor at MIT. Whose thesis is exactly that. The, the rise of technology, uh, quite different from bringing us together as a global village, is actually fragmenting us. And we now see with Gen Z and below, the digital natives, we see skyrocketing rates of loneliness, depression, anxiety. So it is really getting to be a desperate situation where people are so disconnected from This, which is how we form relationships, you know, that's not best done through text. It is absolutely essential if you want to build a trust-based relationship with somebody, you do it with voice and ears, not fingers and eyes.

Wow, that reminds me of a quote by Steve Covey. I'm sure you know him. He says that most people do not listen, right? With the intent to understand, but with the intent to reply.

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So true. I call that speech writing. When, when, you know, this inconvenient noise is going on in front of me, that's you speaking, I'm composing my next brilliant bit of monologue. And it's rather arrogant. The thing about listening, Bob, is that it's inherently humble.

Yes.

Now that poses a challenge to leaders And it's another issue with leadership and listening. I think there's almost an inverse relationship between seniority and listening, because when I'm listening to you carefully, or you, as you are to me, you're effectively saying, I'm more important than you at this moment. That's humility in there. It's also important to be empty when you're listening and not be preparing your brilliant next remark. You have to trust your mouth will know what to do when it comes to your turn. It's almost meditation. You be empty, you receive, and ideally without too much. So there is an issue with listening and leadership there as well, because leaders are supposed to know stuff and tell people stuff.

Yes.

And it can be seen as weakness in a leader if they're asking and not knowing. But some of the greatest leaders in the world know exactly how to do that.

Well, let's talk about leadership because this is quite fascinating. There's a difference between talking and being heard. It's not the same thing. So what's the difference between those leaders who just talk and those who are truly heard?

I have a concept called speaking into. Are listening. Now, that's based on a very important understanding which many people don't have. In fact, most people don't have, and it's transformational. That understanding is that your listening and my listening are unique. In fact, everybody in the world has a unique listening. That's because it's based on our life, the culture we're born into, the language we learn to speak, the values, attitudes, and beliefs we pick up along the way. Our intentions, expectations, emotions, assumptions. It changes through the day and it changes, it's different from one person to the next. Now most people don't think like that. Most people have the assumption everybody listens like I do. They don't. So if you have that assumption, you're basically going around speaking to yourself and that's not very productive because it's not you. It's somebody else who has a different listening. So this is enormously powerful as an understanding because when you get this, you can start to ask the question, what's the listening I'm speaking into?

Wow.

And if you get that, that's how you can hit the bullseye and speak with power, authority, and be received well as opposed to missing the target altogether because you're speaking into the wrong listening.

What's the listening I am speaking into? That's so powerful.

Wow.

So what do you think then is the cost or could be the cost of poor listening, especially at the executive level?

We started to see some numbers now about this in business. I mean, I can't tell you in the military, it would be lives, I would think. And that's the highest cost of all. In business, There are some big surveys now which have come out in the last couple of years showing us that poor listening, largely by leaders— and by the way, that is the case. There was a large survey which showed that only 1 in 12 people rate their leader as a very good listener. Wow. 11 out of 12 don't. So a good, a really good listening leader is a rarity, unfortunately. And the cost of poor listening is worked through in two very important consequences. One is disengagement, where people don't feel listened to, they just stop trying, they stop suggesting, they stop making efforts, they go, you know, they become sick or they take days off. You lose so much of the productivity and inspiration. And the second cost is simple miscommunication. People not understanding, having to check, having— getting things wrong, making mistakes. Now, the second of those in America has been estimated to cost on average American businesses a day a week per person. A week, that's one-fifth of your workforce wiped out. The cost of that is in the region of $1.2 $1.2 trillion a year. Now let's move on to disengagement. You have people who aren't trying, people who are taking days off, people who've lost the spark, teams that aren't working very well. Disengagement globally— this is now not in, not just in America— the estimate is $8.8 trillion a year, the cost of disengagement. So this is a massive hidden problem. And do you know that one of the biggest challenges I face in my life, Bob, is everybody thinks they're a good listener. Almost nobody is.

Wow.

And that is a really big problem because, you know, I am selling something that most people think, I don't need that, I'm a good listener. So, you know, I have to shout these numbers because most leaders won't recognize them. And won't see them in their own business. They won't know that that kind of lack of spark and passion and creativity and engagement is coming from poor communication downwards. It's not a root thing. It's coming from not engaging people. It's the leader's responsibility to fire the people up, to have them pointing in the same direction, being a team, wanting all the same things, being on the same path. And focused on the goal and so forth. If that doesn't happen, the cost is astronomical.

Wow.

Because I think you are right, in the military, miscommunication could really be a matter of life and death. Even worse than that, I think, instead of even bombing, right, enemies, combatant military base or whatever, you end up actually killing innocent, innocent young girls. It's really, really tragic. And of course, in cybersecurity and tech, as you said, it could cost millions, even billions of of the hours. So I guess it— we need to ask the question, what does elite communication look like?

Well, it's founded on listening. Um, my simple model of communication is a pyramid where the base is listening. I think all great leaders are great listeners because how can you lead people if you don't understand them, if you don't know what makes them tick? If you don't understand their fears, their aspirations and so forth. Then the middle layer is speaking, and I'm talking here about one-to-one, or you know, groups, that kind of informal speaking that goes on where so many people are careless. And you know, we can talk about all the things that go wrong with speaking, but there's a great number of them. And then the peak is presenting, if you like, it's one-to-many communication. Where you're on the stage, you're at the front of the room, you're, uh, you're in front of a large group of people, and it's much more deliberate and planned.

Yes.

So those are the three levels, and elite communication would be somebody who has taken on that these three things are skills and trained religiously in them. That's not generally the case. I did a talk last year to 2,000 CEOs in Copenhagen, and I did what I always do. I say, how many of you use your voice in your work in a powerful and important way? You know, you talk to the media, you talk on the stages, you're at the front of the room, you're selling. All of them put their hands up. Of course. Okay, how many of you have had formal vocal training? About 6. I mean, it is mind-blowing. Would you go on stage in the Carnegie Hall to give a piano recital having never had a lesson or done any practice?

I don't think—

that doesn't make any sense at all. And yet I've seen so many CEOs, industry leaders, you know, real impressive people in what they do.

Yes.

Go up and speak on stage and they've never had any training, they've never done anything about it, they've never worked on their voice. Their content even, you know, they'll put loads of slides up with bullet points and way too much on each slide. It's just confusing. They'll read a speech from paper notes, I suppose, never look at the audience. They haven't worked on their intonation, their prosody.

Wow.

You know, it is incredible that this is so neglected, and even more, of course, listening.

Powerful. So in ISTEK's leadership and listening, what does conscious listening look like in a crisis?

Well, conscious listening to me comes from 4 things, which are consciousness itself, that you're doing something. So being conscious that you need to receive, that you need to understand, that you need to communicate. That's what is— that opens the door to effective listening. The second C is commitment. You have to make time to listen to people. Now I know in a crisis time is very, very valuable and things can be happening at a very fast pace. Nevertheless, if you don't listen to anybody, you will miss key signals, you'll miss key information You need to be filtering it, yes, you need to be listening critically and carefully, but nevertheless you do need to be committed to listen and not dismiss people. I mean, many of the biggest disasters— I don't know if you ever saw that TV series about Chernobyl, you know, when people refuse to listen like that to people who are giving very valuable information, the results of Yes, so that's the second C. The third C is compassion. In a crisis, everybody is going to be worn thin, and tempers will be very, very near the surface, and stress and so forth. Everybody will be suffering. Lots of cortisol, noradrenaline will be flowing. And so having compassion for people, understanding, you know, what's going on. Yes, they've got to do a job, but perhaps, you know, shouting at them at that moment isn't going to move them in the right direction or help them to do it more effectively.

Yes.

The fourth C, the final C, is curiosity. So not being too tight onto an opinion or a theory, because things can happen very quickly in crisis, and perhaps we need to be agile and able to entertain different alternative explanations or solutions. You know, that one, maybe that's not gonna work, that didn't work, let's move on to this one quickly, because otherwise things can get out of hand. So being curious and open-minded, I think that's a great strength.

Well, during a crisis, when leaders communicate, many times they themselves do not have all the answers, things are fluid. What do they do?

Ask, ask, you know. I think it's absolutely critical in any organization to accept challenge. There was, um, one of my old friends, David Firth, wrote a book, a great book called The Corporate Fool, which was saying, you know, the role of the fool in, in the old courts was the fool was the one person who was allowed to be rude and challenge the king or queen and say, that's rubbish. You know, nobody else would dare to do that because they would be, you know, but the fool was a very important role. And David's thesis in that book was that every organization needs to have that role somewhere in it. Somebody needs to be able to challenge the boss, who may be tyrannical, maybe very confident. I mean, a lot of bosses are extremely strong, confident personalities. That's how they got there. They need to be able to listen to challenge. Because, well, if you, if you have a team which has got different perspectives in it, if you surround yourself with people who think exactly like you do, that's very weak. And that we have in several of the governments you can think of in the world right now, where you have no challenge and there's no deviation, it, it can go headlong off a cliff because everybody's just going, "Yep, that's the right way to go. You're absolutely right, sir." Yes, yes.

Sometimes you need somebody going, "Hang on." Because so it looks like you're really talking about one, leading with humility to ask, but also courage. But also, I guess, I guess that phrase I've heard over and over again, psychological safety, creating an environment where your people actually feel okay to challenge. Some of your assumptions if needed.

Absolutely critical. I've worked in organizations where the boss is so tyrannical that bad news is unacceptable, and that is disastrous. If people don't feel they can give bad news upwards, you lock everything down, and you don't know what's going on at all. And you will make the most catastrophic decisions based on completely incorrect information. You know, whether it's military or organizational, in a, you know, this was an advertising agency, and eventually people were making making up that they'd won business because they wanted to please the boss, and they were pretending they hadn't lost business that they had. And the agency had to restate its accounts eventually. They were absolute rubbish. The whole organization was frozen in terror, basically. And that's not effective. Yes, it's absolutely critical that you have the ability to take bad news or to take suggestions. By all means, reject them. But don't, don't shoot the messenger. You need to know that stuff.

And also, in my experience, especially since I was in the military, because, you know, hierarchy is very important, chain of command. But even as the most senior officer in your command, you need to be able to listen to the least junior sailor in your unit, because sometimes they may just have the answer of what you are looking for. But if you only look at rank, you may be in big, big trouble.

Absolutely. And that's true across the board, you know. For my book, How to Be Heard, I interviewed Hyrum Smith, who actually was the CEO of the Covey organization. And he told me a story that there was a guy on their binding line who was very lonely and had an idea. And he happened to have a manager who was listening and didn't say, "Don't be stupid, get back to your work." And this idea saved them $4 million a year. Now, that was from the lowest of the low on the binding line. So Hiram said to me in that interview, he said, "Listening is the most important skill of a leader." Wow.

One of my mentors taught me that, you know, rank is rented, but trust is earned. But sometimes it takes a while to build trust for But in an organization, how do you build trust when communication has already broken down?

Well, you have to rebuild it. And I think that is facing the problem, it's putting the problem out there. And it's easy to pretend everything's okay. You know, you have a lot of organizations which go through the motions and pretend all is well, when in fact, there's a great deal of conflict just below the surface. And I'm a great fan of what they call in movies, breaking the fourth wall. So guys, you know, it's the elephant in the room. Guys, we've got some problems. Can we face these problems now? Let's honestly share what is going on for each of us. Let's talk about what the issues are, who's got issues, what, and whether it's systems or people or what's going on. Because again, if you get things locked down and you have people sitting there seething with resentment, hatred, anger, it's not functional. You can't have an organization that runs like that because people was being political, stabbing each other in the back, doing each other down. I mean, the whole organization is going to suffer when that kind of stuff is going on.

Yes.

So I think the first thing is somebody needs to acknowledge that there is a problem and there needs to be some form of safe communication which allows people to express how they really feel, whether that's a counselor, whether that's somebody who's brought in from the outside who can talk to people and assess the situation so, you know, you're not having to talk to the people you're upset with. There are many ways of doing this, but it's essential to lance the boil. It's essential to get the poison out.

Yes. Well, I guess one of my mentors told me, you know, When you are a leader, a commanding officer, that's why you get paid the big bucks. You have to make those decisions. Don't just pass on the buck to somebody else. And you are correct. I guess the very first step is to really acknowledge the world the way it is now, not the way you wish it was. And then that will kind of lead you towards a resolution. Again, to me, it seems like it takes humility and it takes courage, but that's what leaders do, right? That's why we are here. Now, from some of your previous talks, what do you think would be the kind of like the 7 deadly sins of speaking you kind of see most often in leaders today?

Yes, okay, well, that was from my final TED Talk, which became the 6th most viewed of all time. And I want to emphasize that I don't mean these are really deadly sins. You're not going to be They can be guilty pleasures from time to time. The important thing is if they become habits, they get in the way of your communication. They're like holes in the bucket. You lose power. People don't want to listen to you if you do these things too much. Not many of them will apply— well, some of them will apply to military situations, but they all apply to leaders generally. So first we have gossip, speaking ill of people who are not there. That's not kind. It's often untrue, made up, false. And if you are known as somebody who does that, people won't tell you things and trust you because they know a lot of what you say is just rubbish. The second is judgmentalism, condemnation. I don't know if you've ever seen the film Whiplash, but as a drummer, you know, you'll remember the hideous figure of his teacher whose favorite was there are no two words in the English language more destructive than good job. He was not a man who gave praise lightly. Now I'm not saying, you know, nicey nice, you know, I'm not a big fan of school races where everybody gets a prize, you know. We need to learn that in life we can get knocked down and things cannot go the way we want, and if we make mistakes, we need to be cautioned. But there are people who are inherently negative the whole time. You know, the parent whose child comes home and says, "I got 95% in the test," and the answer is, "What happened to the other 5?" You know? So nothing's ever good enough. That's demotivating for people. The third is negativity. You can do a little audit on yourself on this one. How often do you use the words "no," and not.

Wow.

It's debilitating to be around somebody who's inherently negative the whole time. My mother became like this at the end of her life. As I said in that TED Talk, you know, I took a newspaper into her, I said, oh look, it's October the 1st, and she said, I know, isn't it dreadful? Well, you know, if October the 1st is dreadful, what hope is there really? Because everything was dreadful for her, unfortunately.

Sorry.

Um, So, you know, that's wearing to be around, and people will not respond well to somebody who's like that. Next door to that is complaining. We may know somebody who complains a lot. Is it nice being around somebody who moans and complains the whole time? Nothing's ever good enough or right. Or, I mean, it's fine if somebody brings you bad food in a restaurant, complain, of course, if you can do something about it. But not about the weather or you know, the government or whatever, because there's nothing you can do about that. Well, maybe with the government once every few years.

Yeah.

Then we have excuses. If it's never your fault, you know, you're going to learn nothing. And sometimes mistakes are very important, as long as you don't make the same mistake again.

Yes.

Now, obviously in the military, people are heavily trained, and that's where the mistakes are made. Largely, and that's the intention anyway, that if you're gonna screw up, you screw up on a training ground where you're not at risk, so that next time you're in the real situation, you know what to do.

Mm-hmm.

Mistakes are critical. If you blame somebody else for everything, then you're not going to learn much, and you're not going to grow as a human being, because you need to apologize, put something in place to make sure that doesn't happen again, make amends and move on. So, you know, there's a clean way to deal with mistakes. Yes. Then next door to excuses we have exaggeration, which is Greek word for throwing beyond. It happens in language a great deal. Once upon a time it was okay for us to be excited. Now we have to be super excited, unfortunately, and the language gets inflated We lose a lot that way. You know, once upon a time, words like amazing, phenomenal, extraordinary, brilliant, fantastic, they all had meanings. Now they just mean good. That's it. So yeah, with, with exaggeration. And the final one, dogmatism. My way or the highway. Now I'm clear that in military, again, chain of command, you, you can't be wishy-washy and, you know, change your mind every 5 seconds. You have to have a clear chain of command, you have to have clarity in, in orders and so forth. Nevertheless, it's important not to hold on to opinions too tightly, because opinions and facts are two different things. Collapsing those two can create a great deal of damage in any organization, and indeed in families. You know, it creates a lot of argument when people are not clear that This is an opinion. Yes, that's a fact, and they're not the same thing. So I think those can be very helpful. I think it's one of the great benefits of becoming a more conscious person, to become clear about what are your opinions.

Wow.

Maybe them a bit more lightly, like scientists do with theories. You know, they have a— the theory is just the, the current best explanation for a phenomenon. Yes, if they find that that's incorrect, they get excited because they now have to look for another explanation, and that's the way science works. But if they all held on to this one really tightly and refused to bring in new ones, science would be stuck. So those are the 7 deadly sins for you.

That is really fascinating. We are, by the way, already running out of time, which is, which is fine. I have about 20 minutes before the end, but, uh, I think this is quite important. Actually, when you were talking, I thought about William Shakespeare, right? So in my opinion, I was born in Africa, French by culture and American by choice. I think English language comes from England. It's your country, right? And in America, we speak English pretty badly. Everybody has an accent. We tend to think I am the only one with an accent, but we all do in America. And we barely speak that one language too, which is pretty fascinating. But I was just thinking, what would William Shakespeare think of the English language, especially the way it is spoken today? In the US in 2026. That would be quite a shocker, wouldn't it?

Yes, I think he would feel like I do about the word awesome and how it's ruined. Yes, I'm sure you're right.

And I know at the same time in French, they have Voltaire, something with French. They don't speak French today the way they used to. And those are languages I find so fascinating, so specific, so accurate. You can say so many things with so many specific words and have nuances. It's very, very difficult to sometimes translate into other languages, but it looks like in time we are losing a lot of that, like you said, with exaggeration and so on and so forth. But yeah, well, okay, if I may, I'd like to put you in the hot seat. I have to do this before the show is over. I'd like for you to pretend to be a tech executive. Can I give you a scenario, please?

Okay.

All right. So you are a chief information security officer. So there is a major, major cyber breach. So again, my military and tech audience would definitely relate to this. Executives are panicking, engineers are completely overwhelmed, and communication is chaotic. How do you lead communication in that moment?

Well, first of all, I think I would've done training beforehand to cater for these things. So, you know, don't just walk into these things with leading with your chin. There, there's a, a system of communication I'm very fond of called the Minto Pyramid. Most people tell you all the background, and then they get to the specifics, and then finally, probably in paragraph 8 of an email or, you know, minute 4 of a conversation, they get to, "So what I'd like to ask you to do is this." Turn it upside down. Especially in crisis, if it's a big crisis like the one you've just outlined, you need people who start with the point. And I would train people to do that. So, uh, Bob, I need you to do this. The reason is that, and if you want the background, here it is in the document. Let's move, you know, because that cuts out so much time. And the other thing I think is very important is, is to remove the noise from the system. So you want signal, not noise. You want, um, systems that will give you that in place for fast communication of important information. You way of grading information, of being able to extract the nuggets from the background noise. So that may be, you know, Teams, it may be important information put into Synthesis, or, you know, the quick summaries from meetings which get posted where people can see them and interrelate. I don't know, there are lots of systems for doing this. With the whole system though, there needs to be no fear in it. Yes, there needs to be clear, rapid, fearless communication in all directions so that you don't miss an absolutely essential piece of information that could have solved the problem hours ago.

Wow.

Open channels, um, and, you know, sharing this, the, the issue, so that everybody understands exactly what is going on. It's not kept secret. You know, it's not like, oh, we've got this big thing, we can't tell anybody about it. Well, that's not going to be an effective way of dealing with it. So you need to have clearance for people so that they can all understand what's happening and work on it. Just off the top of my head.

No, that's really, really powerful, insightful. Two things you said, for those listening, is what we call in cybersecurity incident response plan, right? So we have a playbook, and for many organizations, unfortunately, they don't even practice it once a year. And that's the bare, bare minimum, at least at least once a year, if not as many times as needed, if there are material changes to your organization. But it's kind of like you said in the military, right? We fight like we train. And in times of great stress, we always fall back to our training. And that is so, so powerful. And I think the industry can definitely learn from that. Wow. Now, we only have about 10 minutes left. I absolutely have to talk about at least your latest book, right? It's this one here. Sound Affect: How Sound Shapes Our Lives, Our Well-Being, and Our Planet. So Julian, why did this book have to be written?

Well, because we're losing our listening, Bob, and that's a critical thing. You know, our democracies rely on listening, our families rely on listening, our organizations rely on listening, and yet it's a skill that we've just lost contact with. We don't teach it in school, as I said. We don't think about it. It's confused with hearing, which is a capability, and they're different, you know. If you're not conscious that you're doing something, you're probably just hearing, and hearing is not the same. Listening is a skill. It's a skill that you can master, and it's a huge advantage to become a master of listening. So, you know, you just talked about training, And I think, you know, this is a big area where people don't recognize the need at the moment. We need to train all leaders, well, everybody in organizations really, and especially, for example, salespeople need to be trained on listening skills. I mean, that's a good example. Salespeople get trained on what to say. That's the most, the biggest element of their training. A little tiny bit perhaps on how to say it, but not a great deal, not at all on the listening. And yet we know from research that the most successful salespeople listen twice as much as they speak.

Yes.

The least successful salespeople speak twice as much as they listen.

Yeah, the most I've met, my mother who told me I have two ears and one mouth to use those proportions.

Well, that's a very old saying, started with Epictetus many, many hundreds or thousands of years ago.

Yes.

And I think it's a good thing to remember because, you know, if you want to sell or persuade to somebody, you need to listen to them first. And it's just what I said earlier about leadership. So yes, of course, that skill is the key thing, and understanding that it's a skill is so rare.

Wow.

Because in your book, one focus is sound shapes everything.

Yeah, it does.

But most people think that sound is just background. So what are we missing?

Well, we're missing that sound has a profound effect on us. So it's one of the most important reasons to listen, actually, quite apart from connecting with people, which we've talked about a great deal. And then secondly, we have connecting with nature, with the world around us, which we've lost contact with. We spend our lives in hermetically sealed buildings. I think Americans spend 93% of their lives indoors now. So those are important, but sound still affects us. It changes our body. You know, sudden noise will put you into fight-flight mode. Sound changes your heart rate, breathing, hormone secretions, brain waves. It changes— secondly, it changes our feelings. Our emotions. Just think of music, obvious example. Third, sound changes our cognition, how well we can think. So in a noisy office where you've got people talking around you, it's very difficult to be productive. And actually, the research shows that people in those situations can be as little as one-third as productive—

wow—

people in quiet offices. So we need a lot more quiet working space And that's a whole different topic. I mean, I give talks to architects about this and berate them for not listening ever. They think about how things look, not how things sound. And the fourth way sound affects us is it changes what we do, right from what we choose to buy in supermarkets or shops to how fast we eat or walk and where we go. All these things are affected by the sound around us. So it's quite a good idea to become more conscious in your listening, to become conscious of how sound is affecting you.

Wow, that is really simple but quite insightful. Sound affects us physically, psychologically, cognitively, behaviorally.

It's, it's, it's what the book is all about. And it's a, it's also a grand tour of some of the wonders of sound, which is another great reason to listen.

Yeah.

It's, it's, sound is amazing.

Wow.

Now we've already delivered this point about hearing and listening, but I think this is so critical. Now earlier you just said listening is a skill, but hearing is just a capability. I think people really need to, I think if they don't get anything else out of this hour-long conversation, this might be life-changing really. So you really do make a powerful distinction between hearing and listening. Why does that matter so much for leaders today?

Well, because listening is how we connect with other people, and it is the critical skill in developing trust-based relationships. And whether you're in an organization, a family, or the military, if people don't trust you, if you don't have that depth of trust-based relationship, then the whole thing starts to fall apart, which is why I say listening is the glue that holds human beings together. It holds our societies, families, organizations together. And we, we really, if we disregard it, that's at our peril. It really is.

Even our democracy, especially in 2026, everything that's going on in America and around the world right now, that much.

There's not a lot of listening in that.

Yeah, if people could just listen, maybe we could avoid a conflict and another war and on and on and on and on. Yeah.

Wow. Wow.

That is, that is, uh, something because the, the other thing I have noticed, no, leadership development, many times these are pretty simple principles where we're talking about. It's not rocket science. And people sometimes they would hear, not listen, but hear what you're saying. We say, I already know that. I already know that. Therefore they stop listening and they're like, okay, I already know it, but they don't do it though. They, I guess they know it intellectually, but they don't they don't know how to do it in practice, therefore they don't know that. What would you say about that? Because I see that happen over and over and over again.

Well, first of all, it's very often the case when I give keynotes, which I do around the world, that people come up to me afterwards and said, you know, it was obvious, but I hadn't thought of it like that before. It's in perspective, you know. We all know we've got ears and that we need to listen and so forth, but then You know, I see people riding around cities on bikes with headphones on and I think, do we really value listening anymore? So that's one thing and definitely it needs work. You know, I give workshops, full-day workshops with lots and lots of exercises in listening. It's not enough to know it. It's like anything you want to make in your life, you know, you know you want to lose weight, you do nothing about it, that's not going to work very well. Knowing is not enough. You need actually the practice, and the practice involves lots of exercises which I teach in improving listening skills, in moving towards being a master listener, which is not trivial at all.

Wow.

Well, we only have 4 minutes left. I had a lot of questions for you, as you know, about AI technology and all that. We're not going to get to this. I think this book is so essential, maybe The last couple of questions I want to stick with this because I think for people who listen to us right now, your life could literally change, not just by listening, but also applying this simple, simple principle could literally change your life. Maybe even your marriage, if I am frank with you. So it is so important, isn't it?

Yes.

What do you think, sir? What are maybe 2 to 3 simple things leaders can do tomorrow to improve the sound environment for their teams? Those listening right now.

Well, I think the first is an exercise I call savoring, which is a very simple exercise. You go into any space that you occupy or you run or manage and close your eyes, listen carefully, and ask 3 questions. Is this sound healthy? Is it making people healthy or doing the opposite? Is this sound making people happy? I mean, the people, me in these cases. And the third question is, is this sound helpful? Is it helping me to do what I want to do in this space? Is it making me more or less productive? So healthy, happy, and helpful. If you get a no to any of those three questions, change it. And you know, you'd be amazed by how many incredibly unhealthy, counterproductive, and miserable sonic environments we put people in. And we just all take it for granted, you know, that banging door which has been doing that for years and pissing people off, you know, nobody fixes it because it's just the way it is.

Yes.

Close your eyes, listen carefully, and actually make contact with the sound around you. Savor it, and then you can start to change it.

Wow, so powerful. All right, I do need to ask one AI question, otherwise my audience isn't going to be happy with me. As artificial intelligence taking over the entire world, uh, is becoming more and more powerful, uh, what human communication skills do you think should become more valuable, not less, in the age of artificial intelligence?

I honestly believe that it's going to be a very long time before if ever AI can actually connect on a heart level with a human being, because an AI isn't born. It doesn't have the experience of growing up and being a helpless baby and being parented. Now, we can emulate a lot of that, and obviously the AI can pretend a great deal and pretend it very well. Even now, have a reasonable conversation with AI, but it's not human, you know, it's not human. And yeah, even when we talk about AGI and perhaps, you know, self-awareness and so forth, it's a different thing. It's not human. So I don't believe that AI will ever be able to recreate the heart experience, the soul experience of connecting with another human being the way we're doing right now, Bob. We both had shared experience. We've had very different lives, but we were both born, we were both children, We were both parented, we grew, we learned, we went through all the struggles of that. You know, we banged our knee, we broke whatever it may be. And all of that is part of being a human being. And we have that empathy for each other in that way. And I don't think AI will ever be able to replicate that. So I would say the most important skill in an AI age is the ability to forge those trust-based relationships which are based on empathy, love, if you like, kindness, loving kindness.

Yes.

And to be able to keep nourish those, you know, to create them and to nourish them, whatever the noise of AI is. I mean, AI is going to be enormously useful, but it can't do that one thing. And if you're sales or persuasion or leadership, that one thing is a dime.

Wow, powerful. Okay, I think we are pretty much almost out of time, if I may Just one question from the audience. Daniel says, should leaders treat sound design as part of workplace safety and performance? Not just background. We talk a lot about time management, but almost never talk about noise management. I think that's a great idea.

The answer is unequivocally, unequivocally yes. I give talks. I gave a talk last year to the American Institute of Architects. 1,000 of them turned up. And this is exactly what I was saying. There's a thing called indoor environmental quality. And sound is a big part of that, just like light, fresh air, ergonomics. It's— sound is critical.

I'm gonna be more aware of sound going forward because of you, Julian. Okay, all good things do come to an end. We've run out of time. The question I have for you is, how can we add value back to you? You've given so much to my audience today. How can we add value back to you, Julian?

Well, by all means, follow me on LinkedIn and post comments saying you've enjoyed this or whatever. It all helps me to find work in the future, which is lovely. I mean, if you ever want to work with me— coaching, training, workshops, keynotes— then the email at the bottom is the one to use: jt@julientreasure.com. Do my listening test by all means, and, you know, stay connected with me. I have a Substack, so, you know, let's, let's stay in contact. If you're interested in all this stuff, I'd be delighted to develop a relationship with you and help you in any way I can.

Well, thank you so much, John. You are so generous. I guess before we end, is there a question I should have asked you I didn't get a chance to ask?

Well, you know, I think you've asked most of the important questions, so I can't think of one that I wish you would ask me, Bob. You've done very well and covered the ground very fully.

Well, I guess one of the last questions I ask is, I like to end on a positive note if possible. What is something you are feeling optimistic about in 2026? And I know you are going to Canada, right? That's going to be for the TEDx you're going to be curating. I know it's probably too late now for people to be there in person, but is there a way for TEDx conference? Can you attend that online, virtual?

This is TED, not TEDx.

Oh, sorry, TED. TED, yes.

A very different thing. Yeah. I mean, you pay $12,500 to attend TED, so it's not— there are 5,000 TEDx around the world. Which are fantastic events. I spoke at one last week. Um, you can, I think, buy an online pass for TED. It's worth checking on the TED website. It's a lot less than $12,500 where you can see the whole thing live. Uh, so live streaming, it's good. And that's the thing I'm most optimistic about at the moment, is getting out there and getting this session of Reasons to Listen out to these— I mean, it's an immensely influential audience, the TED audience. You look at, oh, there's just, you know, it's not a trivial audience at all. And if I can persuade them to start listening, it's a big pebble in the pond and the ripples will be significant.

I think I started paying attention to TED when my former vice president, Al Gore, started talking about the climate and all of that. That was quite moving.

He'll be there in 2 weeks. Yeah.

That's outstanding. I will find the link and I will put it on the post for those who want to attend live virtually. I know in person right now, all of the tickets have been sold out. I am sure of it. But thank you so much, Julian, for your time, for your wisdom, and for really being one of our master teachers today. The very last question I like to end with, and this is it, what is one word that represents our shared experience on this podcast today? One word.

Connection.

Connection. So right. And I am so grateful. So, so thankful. Thank you again, Julian. Really appreciate that.

My pleasure. Thanks for having me, Bob.

All right, everyone. I had a lot more questions. We did run out of time. So I want to respect that Julian is a very, very busy person, but please follow him on juliantreasure.com. He also has juliantreasure.flute.app where you can get assessment about both listening and speaking for free. His Substack, gillentreasure.substack.com. And also follow him on Better Listening Today. You can join for free. Man, this is just amazing. And of course, I highly recommend that you get a copy of all of his books, especially the one we talked about today, Sound Effect: How Sound Shapes Our Lives, Our Well-Being, and Our Planet. And we also talked a little bit about How to Be Heard: Secrets for Powerful Speaking and Listening. And of course, his first book, which is Sound Business. So this is so important. It's not that complicated, but I think if you put this principle into practice, your life will change. Alright, that's all I have for today. Tomorrow I am going to be back on the podcast. I won't interview anyone, but we're gonna go back to studying the book of Proverbs, right? Ancient wisdom, mentoring from the book of Proverbs. Not about religion, but it's about ancient wisdom and leadership lessons from the book of Proverbs. I think we're gonna be doing Proverbs chapter 21. And we did the initial podcast on January 21st. We went through the entire chapter, about an an hour, but tomorrow will be about 15, 20 minutes recap with artificial intelligence of what we learned then. Okay. And then to end the show, as you guys know, every day of this year now going forward, we are celebrating Black History Year because I felt like Black History Month was just too short. So two quick things about that. Number one, I like to talk about time, right? Today is March 27th, 2026. So if I go back to time, March 27th, 1908, an elected official from Alabama shot a Black man. He was a congressman from Alabama and was celebrated for it. So you can go to my LinkedIn post and read more about it, but zero consequence for killing a Black man, which if he fought, had cursed, had used the curse word in front of a white man. So that's what America was in 1908. What a long way we've come from. And then I also want to celebrate one more thing. This is the very first African American, and so far the only one, right, who was a secretary of a military branch. And we are talking about the one and a— Clifford Alexander Jr., first Black Secretary of the U.S. Army. Service is the highest calling. I'm gonna play a video on our way, our way out today about his life and his contribution, and I hope to see you tomorrow. Thanks again for watching today. Bye for now.

Clifford Alexander, the first Black Secretary of the Army and an advisor to several Democratic presidents, Alexander, a leading voice of the civil rights movement, helped craft the landmark Voting Rights Act. Back in 2018, I had the chance to sit down with Mr. Alexander, who is a Harlem native, to reflect on his many accomplishments.

The pen that I have on the very top is a pen that was given to me by President Johnson on the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

1964. Ink from the pens on Clifford Alexander's wall helped write American history.

Underneath it is a pen for the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Those laws, both crowning achievements of the civil rights movement, ending segregation, banning discrimination in the workplace, and helping African Americans overcome legal barriers to vote.

I use the term inclusiveness, not diversity. That's That's for sociologists.

The 84-year-old's life a testament to the fight for racial equality. Alexander graduated from Harvard in the 1950s, becoming the first African-American student body president. He did it at a time when the Ivy League school capped Black enrollment at about a dozen students per year. Later, he'd also earn a law degree from Yale, all before becoming a top advisor to President Lyndon Johnson in the 1960s.

I hope that I made a contribution during that time.

The only African American on LBJ's team while the White House, civil rights leaders, and legislators engaged in tense debates about forming that landmark legislation.

I did the contacts with the civil rights leadership of the time— Martin Luther King, Whitney Young, John Lewis, the young John Lewis at that point. Dorothy Height, head of the Council of Negro Women, Roy Wilkins, the head of the NAACP.

Can you take me inside the Oval Office for some of those meetings between LBJ and these great civil rights leaders?

Yeah, they were quite something. The chemistry between the people, how they interacted on a practical level. Mr. President, you have to get the votes for us. Well, you know, in order to get the votes for I'll do it for you, you gotta help me, you gotta talk to the people who are their constituents. So there were practical exchanges about under the political system that we have, how do you get a result? Not just a grandiose talk about, oh, we should all have a Voting Rights Act, oh, we should all have a Housing Act. No, it went well beyond that into the nitty-gritty of getting something done.

Let us close the springs of racial poison.

And finally, they got it done. A counsel to the Commander-in-Chief at many pivotal moments during the civil rights movement.

I was there with President Johnson in his office for half hour before the appointment became final.

The appointment of Thurgood Marshall, the first Black Supreme Court Justice.

He was looking at a man who said to him, that is Johnson saying to Marshall, "I didn't appoint you because it was good politically. I appointed you because you were like me. You were of the people. You could do for the people. You could understand the people in your rulings." And indeed, with Thurgood Marshall, that's what you saw.

From the historic Civil Rights Act, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was created. As its first Black chairman, Alexander made a policy of leaning on Hollywood TV networks and ad agencies to rethink their approach.

It was my theory that you want to talk about the inclusion of women and minorities in the places that set a tone for the society, where the society is displayed.

During his time at the EEOC, the agency urged many industries to change, including the New York City subway system.

They had done an ad with a subway, and in that subway They were all white faces and very few female faces. So at the end of the testimony of that witness, I said, "You know, it's only in your ad, or only in your ad, that you will ever see a subway car in New York City without minorities and women in it." So in fact, that raised some of the awareness on their part, and they're doing a little better today.

Leaving government during the Nixon administration, Alexander became the first Black partner at a major D.C. law firm. He ran unsuccessfully in the District of Columbia's first mayoral race in over a century and hosted a syndicated news commentary show. Then Jimmy Carter called with a job, offering the former National Guardsman the post of Secretary of the Army, also a first for an African American.

Inclusiveness is something that says that if you see out here somebody and they can do the job, bring them on in.

By the time he left that position, 30 Black generals were serving in the Army, more than 5 times as when he started, including Colin Powell, who would go on to serve as the first African American to serve on the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Thank you for tuning in to the Leadership and Success Podcast with your host, Coach BZ. If today's episode added value to your leadership journey, be sure to subscribe, share, and join us again for more wisdom nuggets on how to lead better and achieve greater success. Remember, leadership is the most critical skill of our time. The world will always need leaders to inspire others, drive innovation, and execute meaningful strategy. So why not count yourself among the bold leaders shaping the 21st century? Until next time, stay inspired, stay committed, and keep leading with excellence.