From Text to Trust – Why the Voice Now Matters More
For generations, writing was the hallmark of authority. We wrote to document, to prove our thinking, and to signal seriousness. From education to leadership, writing structured the way we worked, argued, and organized knowledge. It was how we demonstrated credibility.
But something fundamental is shifting.
Not as a revolution, but as a quiet change – seeping into how we recruit, lead, educate, and connect. We are moving from a culture of writing toward a culture of talking. And while writing still matters, it’s no longer the default marker of authenticity. Increasingly, it’s the voice that carries trust.
You can hear the shift.
Headhunters care more about conversation than CVs. HR leaders value presence and relational ability more than grammatical perfection. Universities experiment with oral exams. Podcasts surpass articles in reach and relevance. People skim their way through content – but listen their way into meaning.
Credibility has moved. And it’s moved into the room.
Why Now?
Part of the answer lies in the exponential rise of generative AI. Text, once a product of human thought and effort, can now be produced endlessly in seconds. As writing becomes a commodity, it loses some of its authority. It's no longer proof of attention. No longer evidence of presence.
And that’s exactly what people are looking for: presence.
Voice, tone, eye contact, silence. All the things the machine cannot convincingly replicate. As writing becomes frictionless, speaking becomes valuable. As content floods our feeds, conversation becomes the scarce resource.
Authenticity follows scarcity. And right now, it’s moving toward the human voice.
What Writing Still Does Better
None of this means that writing is obsolete. Quite the opposite.
Real writing – writing that thinks, hesitates, and refines – is still one of our most powerful tools. It allows us to slow down, to revisit, to unfold complexity and store reflection. Where the voice is immediate, writing gives us depth.
But only one kind of writing deserves that role: the kind that is genuinely authored. Not streamlined, templated, or emptied of personality. Not AI-polished or SEO-optimized. But writing that carries weight, because it carries intent.
The Real Shift: From Document to Dialogue
The essential shift isn’t from writing to speaking. It’s from documentation to dialogue.
We’re moving from transmission to interaction. From presentation to resonance. Meetings become spaces for thinking together – not just reporting. Leadership becomes a question of clarity in conversation, not perfection on paper. And culture? It’s not defined by slides. It’s created in real-time, through the way people talk when no one is watching.
Sociologist Hartmut Rosa calls it resonance – the live, mutual attention that can’t be scripted, stored, or simulated. It can’t be split into bullet points or hidden in a PDF. And yet it is the foundation of trust.
Implications for Organisations
If we take this shift seriously, it has practical consequences. We need to build stronger oral presence – not as performance, but as the ability to show up with clarity and authenticity. We need to write less, and write better – using text not as filler, but as thinking. And we need to lead through conversation – creating direction not by declaring it, but by engaging people in it.
In an age of automated prose, the real work is to remain human.
Presence is the new scarcity.
Voice is the new authority.
And dialogue is the new document.
We’re not abandoning the written word. We’re restoring its meaning. And alongside it, we’re rediscovering the power of speaking – to connect, to convince, and to be believed.