Finding My Voice

I never liked my voice. 

Photo by Brad Neathery on Unsplash

As a late-developing teenager, I was the last lad in my year group at school whose voice ‘broke’. I can still hear the calls and laughter echoing down the corridor as the other lads would call out “Niall… Niall…” in high-pitched, squeaky voices. Even as I write this, my ears and cheeks burn at the memory. 

Ironic then that I went into school drama productions, sang in the school choir, joined a local Am Dram group and, when my voice eventually broke to a light tenor, went on to study and qualify with a diploma in Drama and the Spoken Word at college in Edinburgh. 

But I still didn’t like my voice. 

It did change tho’. At drama college, we were advised to lose our regional (Scottish) accents if we ever hoped to work professionally South of the border. Which is why those of you I have met or spoken with in any social or professional capacity over the last forty years will have detected a cadence, a rhythm, a quality to my voice which betrays my Paisley upbringing. 

Fast forward through twelve years as a professional actor, ten years as an IT Trainer, a further eighteen years managing IT and L&D Teams and another nearly ten years in freelance and employed L&D consultancy, oft times speaking and chairing at LPI, CIPD and Learning Technologies conferences and events. 

In short, I’ve earned my entire living and built my professional network, using the voice that I had grown up so disliking. 

But I also developed another voice; that of a contributor to professional debate and discussion about L&D, OD and HR on social media. I posted on Twitter, facebook, LinkedIn and I started writing and posting blogs (niallgavinuk.blogspot.com). I found I could express myself a little better, maybe even a little more impactfully, in writing and live streaming tweetchats. 

But recently, I lost that part of my voice again. Covid, and how it was being handled nationally, ultimately silenced me in that space. I had started posting politically and angrily. I had gone ‘off piste’. And it wasn’t serving me or those with whom I had built up a following on SoMe. 

So I stopped blogging. I stepped back from Twitter. I rarely showed up on LinkedIn. I felt I had nothing new to add to the professional conversation that wasn’t already being said - and said better - by others.  And I got out of the habit. 

By this time, I was working at the CIPD (the UK Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development), as a part-time Commercial Learning Consultant, starting during the first week of the first UK lockdown. I’d never worked for a membership organisation - indeed, any organisation - with such a large professional reach, and with such a loud and confident voice of its own. As the professional body for ‘the people profession’, it punches above its weight and has many internal, external, international - and vocal - champions. I’ve been a member for years.

So I didn’t feel the need to add to their stakeholder messaging - certainly not as an independent voice -  and certainly not when there were so many other influencers and leaders already amplifying their voice so effectively. 

So why this blog now? “Does this need to be said? Does it need to be said by me? Does it need to be said by me right now?” (Attrib: Craig Ferguson) 

Well, as of the end of April, and after four years of late-career flexible working, CIPD and I amicably parted company and I've been taking the time to settle and reflect on things. Several themes have emerged for me, the first being how to find my voice again after a three year period of virtual social media silence. I’ve done a couple of update posts on LinkedIn and on facebook and this blog is my first since 21st May 2021! Others are in the pipeline, depending on how this one lands. 

Early days, but I think I’m starting to find my voice again.

Deep Thought?

I do a lot of thinking.

Image: Pixabay

I do a lot of worrying. I worry that I don't think deeply enough. I think that if I did, I would post more blogs. I worry that, when I do post blogs, they're not deeply thought-through enough. I worry that my peers think I don't think deeply enough. I think about that a lot. 

I worry that I don't spend enough time thinking about improving my practice, but just getting on with it. I worry that I might have lost my edge since I was ill and elected to follow a different professional path. I think that sometimes, I don't give a sh*t about that. Then I worry about how unprofessional others might think that is. 

Sometimes, I think that I over-think things.

Why I didn't attend 'The Modern Learner' Fishbowl

Inspired by @ lightbulbJo's earlier blog (here), summarising this morning's #PSKevents #fishbowl session on 'the modern learner', here are my very quick reflections, starting with why I wasn't in the room in the first place.

I had booked and paid for this session several weeks ago, on the basis of the quality of the 'panel', each one being an L&D/OD/HR thinker and practitioner who I respect and with whom I often interact. Having only participated in conversations using the fishbowl format a couple of times before, I was keen to see how the 'big beasts' would use the format to engage and interact with an audience who had made the effort to be there for 08:00 on a work day in London.

So, why didn't I attend in person?

Regular readers will be aware of my heart surgery, recovery & redundancy a couple of years ago. Until that point, I was a London commuter from the Sussex coast, something I had been doing for ten years. One of the legacies of those times and my surgery/recovery is that I have become anxious when I have to travel during rush hour. I won't go into the symptoms but suffice to say it's not something I enjoy, and when I do have to to be in London or non-local environments nowadays, I try to structure my time such that I can avoid 'peak time'.

Last night, I started planning my travel to the West End of London for an 08:00 start, and my heart (literally) sank! I'd have needed to get up at 04:45  change trains twice and arrive at Victoria earlier than I needed to, to then get the tube (two more changes) to get me to the venue. In the old days, I would not have given this a second thought. Indeed, I might even have relished the challenge and been looking forward to a well-earned survivor's coffee before the event.

But I've learned to listen to my body and my feelings now in a way I never used to. I started to get anxious and uncomfortable about the travelling  and that began to outweigh the benefits of being present in the room. So I decided not to attend.

But I did! After a good night's sleep, untroubled by commuter worry, I was up at 07:30 and online on Twitter at 08:00, tea in hand,  following the #hashtag for the event. Jo's summary neatly encapsulates the richness of the conversation, both within the venue and from the speakers, but also on the backchannel with those who, like me, weren't able to attend but who wanted to listen, comment, engage and generally be part of the discussion. We had a grand time, and I avoided the stress of getting there in the first place - almost like 'a modern learner', you might say...!

So, with some sterling tweet work and a couple of #Pericopes from Ger Driesen (@GerDriesen), Kim Edwards (@ KimSEdwards_) and Christine Locher (@ ChristineLocher) and indeed, Jo herself, stuck on a train and unable to get to the event as a result (@ LightbulbJob), I was fully engaged and able to participate in what proved to be a rich conversational and learning seam. Thanks to all.

A final point. The organisers and participants seemed to forget about the backchannel after a while and as the event came to a conclusion, which I assume it did, with (hopefully) some wise words summarising the conversation in the room, some takeaways and some thanks, it was left to us 'onliners' to draw our own conclusions.

 

This was a missed opportunity by the organisers, I'd suggest, and maybe something to think about when arranging future such events. For an event which was tackling 'the modern learner', better backchannel facilitation and inclusion would have been really 'walking the talk'.