Voice, Presence, Posture: What's Singing got to do with an MBA?

By Christian Leos Acosta, Global MBA double-degree student (Mexico)

When I first heard that in my MBA programme we would be having singing lessons, I just thought, "How can this be useful for me?" At the beginning, I thought it wouldn’t be, but as time has gone by I am understanding how useful really is and how to get the most out of it.

With a really bad voice, singing in front of other people is something that makes my shy, but facing this issue has made me gain self-confidence, a skill that I believe is going to be really useful while talking in front many people, in conferences, expositions, business meetings,  where sometimes I can become nervous.

While learning how to sing, posture is really important, making it easier to initiate phonation, as proper alignment prevents unnecessary tension in the body.

While engaging international business with different cultures, I have realized that body language plays an important role that can be interpreted in many ways. For example, in Chinese culture, stature is generally really low, and in Latin cultures it is kind of high. Learning to be aware of and control our posture is a key part of our body language, and this can help me to avoid sending the wrong signals.

Also when singing is necessary to know how to breathe correctly until it becomes just a reflex. Having this skill, while having meetings, talking with other people, negotiating, will be useful in order to have a more natural “conversation” with our counterparts.

I have realized that all those qualities are skills that managers have, and we have been learning them in a fun way, through singing!

Read more about the goals and objectives of the Singing MBA Project here.

[gallery columns="2" ids="911,912,913,914,915"]