Office Space: Diversity

We usually hear about diversity in the context of Equity and Inclusion, as we well should. But when we engage in embodied communication it takes on another important, perhaps related, meaning.

Diversity in communication is adapting your listening to hear different sounds and styles of communication. It is additionally how you learn to speak to those same people.

Those differences can include accents, neurological divergence, or even the lack of vocal speech. In every case, the burden of effective communication must be shared.

The offer this week is harder than most. It requires you to notice what you might dismiss. Is there someone you find hard to understand in your circle? If so, what efforts have you made to better hear them? Is there a “difficult” personality in your office with whom it is hard to speak? Is that person just a jerk or do they speak in alignment with their neurological-divergence? What have you tried in order to better understand them?

If this is a challenge for you, there will be some tips in the blog this week to help start to expand your ear.

Gina Razón is the Founder and CEO at GROW Voice LLC, a full-service verbal communication studio in Boston’s Back Bay.  She has over two decades of experience as a teacher of voice and speech, is a communication and change facilitator, and is a voraciously curious voice user.  Gina has worked professionally as a classical singer for over a decade and more recently as a professional public speaker.  For more information on the studio or to book Gina visit www.growvoice.com.