The tone of voice

In the chapter "Give Your Best Voice" from her book La Bonne Voix, Adeline Toniutti starts from a clinical observation: how many people come to her because they have heard an unkind and hurtful remark about themselves, "for yes, the voice is something of a personification of our entire being." Excessive high or low pitch, articulation, lisping, a trembling voice: problems that are not solved by surgery but by work on vocal gesture.

It is hard to imagine the suffering someone can feel when their voice does not match their image or what they want to communicate about themselves. This power of the voice can be as magical as it is destructive: a voice can charm as easily as it can manipulate, and comments about another person's voice can strengthen them as much as wound them.

The definition of tone is always relative to something else: to the person hearing it, to their codes, to their origins. Every society, every community has its codes of expression, even implicit ones. We always assess someone's tone in relation to another person who hears it, like a singer and their audience.

If someone attacks us and we respond at the same pitch as them, we make just as much noise, but rarely does the tone come back down that way. If we respond in a calm tone, it does not mean we are weak; we are "lowering the tone" to bring the pressure down. What characterises a conversation between equals that has a chance of reaching a conclusion is when two people find the same tone, or a shared tone that builds something in the communication.

There are tonalities that steer conversation towards a positive exchange. Depending on what you are trying to produce, you can use tone and vocabulary to move the other person towards something constructive without ever encroaching on their integrity. Adeline maps these out precisely, with rate, tone, and timbre:

In general, "we always hear the other in their own feeling; it belongs to them." These tonalities can be enriched according to your experience: what matters is to approach the way of speaking through this prism, which opens up new awareness.

The art of negotiating is indeed the art of exchanging something: a negotiation will never succeed if one party loses everything for the benefit of the other. Always keep in mind that if someone enters into a negotiation, it is because you possess or represent something that matters to them.

The more you can still observe the situation, the more it means you are in control: appearances are deceptive. Occasionally, if you are able, you can raise your tone once to bring the other person back to reality, a difficult manipulation that requires composure and mastery. "A tone that rises will always come back down; it is for us to find the crack."

In negotiation, you have three allies: doubt, time, and repetitions. Sowing doubt allows you to suggest something without asserting it. The person who is able to wait and let the other speak is already winning. And when the fear of losing surfaces in the other, you will notice a change of pace, the voice accelerating, a shift in tone that immediately corrects itself, "like a flame that suddenly goes out after a flicker." That is the lever of negotiation.