Having just moved to a new town, I suddenly appreciate anew Einstein’s most brilliant thinking.  It wasn’t the General Theory of Relativity.  Rather, it was his habit (at least, so the story goes) of owning identical black suits so that he didn’t have to spend any time thinking about the mundane chore of deciding what to wear.  Moving to a new place means that all those mundane chores and places of life – shopping for food at the grocery store, dropping off the dry cleaning, the bank, post office, FedEx drop box, café – are new adventures.  Where are the closest and best ones?  Where’s the parking?  Are any close enough to walk or ride a bike?  Your stress levels and confusion rise daily as you try to sort all these new tasks, destinations, and patterns out.

My new neighbors took pity on my obvious levels of stress and offered me a ticket to the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s performance of The Rite of Spring.  The timing was perfect, and I jumped at the chance to take a night off from work and the effort of learning all those new things.

But inevitably, perhaps, as brilliant as the evening was, it was also a busman’s holiday.  Just a few minutes into the concert and I was watching the guest conductor’s body language with rapt attention.  Gustavo Dudamel is an absolutely superb conductor, and his body language is a short course in stage presence that public speakers can learn from.  I picked up 5 lessons, scribbled on the back of my program, for those of us who speak in public.

1.He anticipates the orchestra. The conductor has to stay a split second ahead of the orchestra in order to be able to signal to them where they should be headed.  Similarly, it’s the speaker’s job to anticipate where the audience is headed so that you can be there a split second before them.

2.He gestures with his whole body.  Dudamel’s body language was an extraordinary show in stage presence, drama, self-awareness, and absolute clarity of gesture.  Think about it.  There can be nothing vague or half-hearted about his gestures, or else the orchestra won’t be able to respond with the full measure of music they are ready to play.  Dudamel knew exactly what every gesture conveyed.  Public speakers rarely come close to that level of awareness and control – but when they do, the effect is electrifying.  Watch a bit of Churchill speaking and you’ll see what I mean.

3.He listens.  When I tell people that speakers need to listen to their audiences, the reaction is usually puzzlement.  Isn’t the speaker supposed to be the one that does the talking?  But all communication is two-way, so unless the speaker is listening to the audience just as hard as the audience is listening to the speaker, communication isn’t really happening.

4.He leaves his gestures in the air.  One of the odd effects some speakers demonstrate because of adrenaline is to drop their arms, flapping them, sometimes with an audible slap against their legs, in an unconscious effort to get rid of some of the excess tension that speaker is feeling.  But if instead, when you sweep your hand out up and to the right to show the inclusion of part of the audience, let’s say, you leave your hand there in the air at the end of the gesture, you’ll find that the drama and elegance of your body language increases greatly.  Try it, to see what I mean.

5.He waits.  Dudamel waits at the beginning and end of each section of the piece he’s playing, to make sure he’s got the attention of the orchestra, and the audience, and to ensure that he’s focused on what he needs to do. Take the time, in the same way, and you’ll find that your presence is stronger.

Well, it turned out that my night at the symphony wasn’t a holiday after all, but the body language demonstration made it completely worthwhile.  Dudamel is a master, and well worth studying for lessons that can be applied to public speaking.