A new theory, just published in the journal Behaviour and Brain Sciences (Morsella et al., 2015), reaffirms what I argued in Power Cues: our conscious minds have less control over our lives than our unconscious minds – much less control than most people think. That misunderstanding is, of course, natural enough, since the thinking in question is the over-confident sense of control coming from our conscious minds.

This new realization has important implications for public speaking, and indeed communications of all kinds.

Let’s look at the new theory in a little more detail. Dr Ezequiel Morsella, the theory’s lead author, puts it this way: “The information we perceive in our consciousness is not created by conscious processes, nor is it reacted to by conscious processes. Consciousness is the middle-man, and it doesn’t do as much work as you think.”

Of course, we may feel like we’re in charge of our minds, having without much effort those conscious feelings, thoughts, and ideas that seem to lead naturally to our actions. But as Dr Morsella says, “We have long thought consciousness solved problems and had many moving parts, but it’s much more basic and static. This theory is very counterintuitive. It goes against our everyday way of thinking.”

Instead, what’s going on is that our conscious minds are simply acting, watching, and reporting to ourselves on our repetitive movements over and over again – walking, eating, chasing after sabre-tooth tigers – just another day at the cave-person office. The important decisions driving those actions are taken by the unconscious mind and sent up to the conscious mind to become aware of and move on. As Dr Morsella puts it, “For the vast majority of human history, we were hunting and gathering and had more pressing concerns that required rapidly executed voluntary actions. Consciousness seems to have evolved for these types of actions rather than to understand itself.”

This evolutionary result makes sense, because unconscious thought is more efficient than conscious thought. So as a species, we’re always trying to articulate our feelings and telling people to get in touch with them, and so on, but in fact those feelings are doing quite well unconsciously. Unconscious thought is simply faster, and may have saved your life on more than one occasion. It’s just that it isn’t conscious.

Here’s the next implication. Two people—or a leader and her audience—can have an unconscious conversation, one that is entirely composed of gestures of various kinds, and only realize it consciously later on or not at all. They can also have a conscious conversation, the usual kind that we’re all familiar with. The two conversations don’t even have to be connected.

The important one is the unconscious, non-verbal one. That one always trumps the conscious conversation.

Public speakers need to become aware of their gestural conversation and begin to master it, or always remain at the amateur level, betrayed by the inadvertent gesture in a variety of ways.

Let’s go a little deeper. When I say every communication is two conversations, both verbal and nonverbal, I mean that precisely. They don’t have to have an immediate, obvious connection. They often do, but they don’t have to. Think about the exchange between two people where one is bearing very bad news to the other. The bearer may gesture strong signals of comfort, love, and solidarity while quietly stating the shattering news in a simple, unadorned way.

There, the two conversations, though of course connected, are proceeding along two parallel tracks, and it is easier to see how the gesture is not merely an afterthought to the words. That kind of communication usually begins with the reassuring gesture or the look, which is what alerts the recipient that bad news is coming.

If you’re conveying emotion, consistent gesture is essential, or else you risk looking completely insincere.  Speakers beware!

Now we understand that unconscious thought and gestures actually precede conscious thought. In fact, so important is gesture that we find it hard to communicate if we are unable to gesture. Try speaking for any length of time with your hands tied behind your back, either literally or figuratively. You’ll find it surprisingly difficult.

Speakers beware, again: don’t try (because of some old-fashioned rule you learned) to limit your gestures. You’ll limit your ability to think. You’ll make yourself dumber and less creative.

In sum, gestures are an essential part of the communications process, because they signal directly from your unconscious to everyone’s else unconscious mind what you’re thinking, how you’re feeling, and what you’re intending toward those other people.

Here’s a simple example. The first thing we want to know when we see people coming toward us is, are they friend or foe? We unconsciously evaluate their stance, their posture, where they’re putting their hands, and what they’re doing with them, in order to ascertain with astonishing speed whether we’re about to get a punch or a kiss.

There are two essential points for speakers (and communicators) here. The first is that you’re always signaling, and so is everyone else, about your intentions and feelings. The second point is that most of the time you don’t pay conscious attention to all those signals—either the ones you’re putting out or the ones others are sending to you. Your unconscious mind handles all that.

Finally, and most alarmingly, conscious self-control is pretty much an illusion. Unless you can become aware of – and learn to control – your unconscious mind. It takes work, but for speakers, I believe it’s essential.