You can win over or lose your audience in the first 30 seconds of your appearance in front of them with your body language. Really.
How do you accomplish this feat — or avoid this disaster?
You’ve seen speakers who bound on the stage with lots of energy, and no doubt seen speakers also who creep onto the stage with the opposite — low energy and lots weighing them down. Which did you look forward to more?
So it’s important to smile, move quickly (but not so quickly as to fall or injure yourself) and look as eager as you can. But there’s more to it than that.
The real secret lies in your posture. There are 3 ways to stand (and a fourth that’s a combination of 1 and 2) and only one of them is effective.
Think of how you look from the side, as if a straight line were being drawn through your head down to your toes. If you’ve got good posture, like your mother used to tell you to have, then the balls of your feet, your pelvis, and your shoulders and head all will line up on that vertical slice.
Some people, however, project their head forward. In fact, most people who spend a lot of time at the computer do this; the computer work rounds their shoulders and pushes their head forward. We call this the ‘head posture’, sensibly enough. It signals subservience, humility, and deference to the audience. Great for the Dalai Lama, who has a terrific head posture, but not so good for the rest of us who don’t need (or want) to be as professionally humble.
Others project their pelvis forward. (Imagine yourself playing air guitar without the air guitar.) This posture, which is highly sexualized, is typical of teenagers and pop stars. Again, not so good for speakers. You don’t want the audience thinking of you primarily as a sex object. Really.
The third possible posture is the straight up, lead-with-the-heart posture. Imagine a soldier, seen from the side, but relaxed across the shoulders rather than rigid. That’s the heart posture, and it radiates trust, authority, and confidence — all the attributes you as a speaker want.
(The fourth is a combination of head and pelvis, a kind of question mark. Most typical, again, of teenagers, who are both self-conscious and sexualized. Or intellectual rockers. Not good for speakers.)
So bound on the stage, and look happy. But more importantly, watch your posture. It will signal to the audience who you are, whether you intend it to or not.
Nick,
Thanks for the insightful post: you are right on the mark about the importance of body language.
I always tell presenters that they need to use broader gestures since they draw the eye and project dynamism. Further, it is important to develop a vocabulary of gestures since they are both an effective and efficient way to communicate.
You are also right that a good presentation is perceived to be effective not necessarily by what it said but by how it was presented. This is why I tell presenters to always expand their vocal range for greater emphasis. Not only will it help to hold audience attention, but also helps to telegraph more clearly how they feel about what they are saying.
Here is a great article on the subject: “Albert Mehrabian, a Professor Emeritus of Psychology at UCLA, is well-known for his publications on the relative importance of verbal and nonverbal messages. His findings on inconsistent messages of feelings and attitudes have been quoted throughout communication seminars worldwide, and have also become known as the 7%-38%-55% Rule.
According to Mehrabian, these three elements account differently for our liking for the person who puts forward the message: words account for 7%, tone of voice accounts for 38%, and body language accounts for 55%.” More can be found at: wikipedia.
Thanks again
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