Final Analysis: Timbre Managerment

How low can you go?

A study by the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University and the Rady School of Management at UC San Diego suggests that men with Darth Vader voices tend to be more successfuland more handsomely compensatedthan executives who sound like Frankie Valli in full falsetto.

OK, the study doesnt exactly mention Vader and Valli. But after examining the fundamental frequencies in the voices of 792 male CEOs who are running publicly held companies, the professors doing the study concluded that the deeper the voice, the healthier the company and the fatter the paycheck.

Now, this revelation is about as surprising as KING-TV running a story about Washington State Ferries, and totally consistent with other research that indicates women looking for a mate prefer a man with a deep voice and voters looking for a winner favor political candidatesmale and femalewhose voices register lower on the frequency scale. And should we be all that surprised that, in this TMZ world, we seem to cherish a deep voice over a deep intellect?

Broadcasting schools and acting schools have always emphasized using deeply resonant voices to engage and hold an audience. We even assume that all great leaders who lived before the age of recorded sound had deep voices because, well, were conditioned to consider the alternative as being less authoritative, less inspiring, less leaderly. When Daniel Day Lewiss portrayal of Abraham Lincoln in last years much acclaimed biopic by Steven Spielberg debuted, there was a lot of carping about the reedy tenor Lewis gave to Lincolns voice, even though historians generally agree that Lincoln probably never sang in the bass section.

The question now becomes a procedural one: Should business schools add voice coaches to their faculty rosters so students can get their vocal cords ready for the corner office? Might not be a bad idea: If the M.B.A. thing doesnt pan out, they can always try broadcasting. Jim Nantzs golden pipes cant do the Masters and March Madness forever.

Incidentally, the study did not look at females with deep voices because there arent enough women CEOs to constitute a statistically meaningful study. A mere 21 female CEOs populate the most recent Fortune 500.

What value is there in such a study, beyond the resume polishing that the authors accomplished in the publish-or-perish world of academia? Now that we are more fully aware of this preference for men with deep voices, will weor, more accurately, will the people in charge of hiring CEOsbe more inclined to give somebody who sounds like Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos a fighting chance?

Its doubtful. Our society is hard-wired to find a deep voice more virile and more assertive. The studys real value lies in the revelation that, for every 1 percent drop in the pitch of a CEOs voice, there is a corresponding increase of $30 million in the assets of the firm hes running (and a $19,000 increase in his salary). Firms whose CEOs had the deepest voices showed, on average, $440 million more in assets (and the CEOs earned $187,000 more).

I suppose its only a matter of time before corporations start recruiting for basses and baritones. Which means its only a matter of time before CEO candidates start looking for ways to deepen their voices. According to the Cleveland Clinic, one of the best ways is to become a chronic smoker.

Hey, no one said deep-voiced CEOs live forever.

JOHN LEVESQUE is the managing editor of Seattle Business magazine.