When people begin working with me, I urge them to listen carefully to other speakers. Take mental notes of who does what well, and learn from the mistakes of others. A couple of clients have lately told me that their industry norm seems to be tedious speaking. Too many of their colleagues are monotonous in rhythm and pacing, and deliver their messages in a monotone. Was this a "thing," they wondered? Some kind of secret best practice that I wasn't sharing? I answered with questions of my own: how attentively do you listen to these speakers? Do you observe other colleagues drifting off, yawning, checking their phones? Was there a lot of follow-up to deliver information you should have heard in the speech?

Though industry standards vary, none that I know of recommend their speakers put people to sleep. "Then why do so many of my colleagues sound so boring?" clients ask. The simple answer is that many professions place little importance on the development on "soft skills." Head offices say effective communication is a "core competency," but the truth is they offer minimal training in it. They must be operating under the assumption that good speakers are born, not made.

Of course you can learn to be a better speaker! You can train your voice to have more vocal variety: expand your tonal speaking range, pick up your pace, vary your rhythm. Speaking is a physical activity, and those of us who coach speakers actually have exercises (physical and vocal, not just mental!) to help you do all these things. You won't become the next Pavarotti (or María Bayo, above), but you'll get more music in your message. And if you have some singing, speaking-on-pitch, or other exercises for vocal variety you haven't used in a while, dust them off. In a world full of flabby, boring speakers, you can be the change