Speak with Impact

by Allison Shapira

  Unfortunately, sometimes people forget to smile. They stand in front of an audience and say “I’m really happy to be here” with their eyes dead and their face slack. It’s usually their nerves holding them back, or perhaps they think in a business setting it’s inappropriate to smile. Conversely, some people smile inappropriately. You can’t propose painful budget cuts with a big grin on your face. Your facial expressions should match your words.

  When I was a teenager, I hated my smile. In pictures, it always looked stilted and false, like I was trying too hard. Having braces didn’t help either. But I had just started performing, and people were taking my picture. So one day I stood in front of a mirror and practiced my smile. Back then, we didn’t have smartphones (or any kind of cell phones) to help us, but these days you can easily take your own photos and determine what kind of smile works best.

  A smile is universal. A few years ago, I was leading workshops in the Palestinian Territories on behalf of the US State Department. One day, I gave a presentation for a large group of students at Al-Najah University in Nablus. The room was packed with students. I spoke in English, and my remarks were simultaneously interpreted into Arabic. In preparation, I had spent a great deal of time dividing my suggestions into what was universal and what was culturally specific in public speaking, and I decided to ask the students, what they thought.

  During the workshop, I asked the students, “What do you think is important when giving a speech?” A woman in the back of the room raised her hand so we could pass her a microphone. She was wearing a white niqab that covered her face and body so I could only see her eyes. She took the microphone and stood up. She faced me and said, calmly and confidently in English, “It’s very important to smile when you are speaking in public!” I paused, thrown off by the fact that we couldn’t see her face but still she wanted us to smile. Finally, I said, “Yes; even if we can’t see your face, we can hear your smile,” to which she responded enthusiastically: “Yes! I’m smiling! I’m smiling!” We all appreciate the power of a smile.

  Speaking over the phone, a smile is crucial. It warms your voice and makes you sound more confident. If you spend a lot of time on the phone with clients, colleagues, or volunteers, smile while you’re speaking. Don’t believe me? Ask someone to repeat the same two sentences (once without smiling, once smiling) while you listen with your eyes closed. You will hear the difference.

  There are other things you can do with your face besides smile. You can furrow your eyebrows and then relax your forehead; you can look cynical or sarcastic. The words and the tone of the speech will dictate your facial expressions. You have a naturally expressive face. Let yourself use it when you are in front of an audience.

  What do you do with your hands?

  One of the most frequently asked questions I get about delivery is what to do with your hands. Do you leave them at your sides? How much movement is too much? There is no one magical movement you should make with your hands. It all depends on the message and context of your speech. Your hand gestures should reinforce your words.

  Look through your speech and identify your main points. Are you talking about size, distance, or time? Let your hands show those concepts. Are there specific words that are crucial to your argument? Let your hands reinforce them with a sweeping gesture.

  There are two kinds of body language: nervous and intentional. Nervous body language comprises all those unintentional ticks: wringing our hands while we talk, playing with our rings, taking our glasses on and off when we don’t need to, or pacing around the room. These movements literally tell the audience that we are nervous, broadcasting our discomfort across the room.

  Intentional body language is different; it emphasizes your points and highlights your message. It should add to your words instead of distracting from them. When you move your hands, keep your fingers closed, as opposed to spreading them out. Instead of always using the same repetitive features, make sure each gesture matches your words. Every time you use your hands, use them with intention and purpose.

  I like to find a “home base,” a place I can keep my hands most of the time so I don’t have to think about it. I keep my arms comfortably bent at a 90-degree angle, with my hands apart, relaxed. Then I can gesture with my hands when needed, and return them to home base. I don’t have to think about it; it becomes automatic. I can also simply leave my hands at my sides; you can see a video I made on this subject at www.speakwithimpactbook.com.

  A few years back, I was teaching in a leadership development program with a group of other instructors. One of the instructors participated in my public speaking workshop. He came up to me a few days later and told me: “Remember when you said to practice body language in front of a mirror? Well, I saw a picture of us standing in front of the room on the first day of this program. You had your arms relaxed at your sides, and mine were stiff and folded in a fig-leaf position. You looked so comfortable and I looked so awkward! So I practiced different hand gestures, trying to find that ‘home base’ you talked about. I thought, ‘This is weird; it’s never going to look good.’ Then I walked over to the mirror and tried it out, and it looked so natural! Now I have a more comfortable place to keep my hands.” Practice it and it will become natural.

  Finally, let’s talk about your feet.

  Look through your speech to see where you talk about distance or time. Move around the room when you go from one point in time to the next. As a general rule, I like to walk around during transitions and then pause to make a point. Is your speech outline chronological? Start on one side of the room and then walk to the other as your argument progresses. If you want to refer back to something from an earlier time, walk back to that place on the stage.

  Walking around the room is a great way to engage the audience. If you see people on their phones or having side conversations, you can casually walk closer to them while speaking; your presence will make them pay attention. No one wants to get caught by the teacher for talking in class!

  How much should you walk around? It depends on the size of the room or stage. The larger the stage, the larger the movements can be. In a small conference room, you will have a much smaller area to work with. What you don’t want to do is rock back and forth or pace back and forth—these are nervous body movements that distract the audience and broadcast your nervousness. Instead, stand tall with your weight on both feet and your shoulders back.

  How do you present while seated? You might be sitting across a conference table from clients, or on a videoconference with people on the other side of the world. In these cases, your body language is just as important. Your hand gestures can still reinforce your message; and on video, your smile is more important than ever because the camera is pulling your facial expression down. Keep a half-smile on your face, which makes you look interested and attentive. In Chapter 9, we’ll specifically address virtual presentations.

  While seated, sit tall in your chair instead of slumping. Lean in slightly, so you shorten the distance between you and your audience. Make eye contact with everyone around the table and make sure you don’t turn your back to anyone. Keep your feet flat on the floor so you can ground yourself.

  At this point, you might worry that you need to “act out” your speech. Remember that it doesn’t need to be perfect. My goal is to help you come up with natural gestures that add to your message and help you get rid of the nervous movements that are distracting from your authority and credibility.

  Record a practice video of your speech; watch it with the sound off. From your facial expressions and movements, can you tell the emotion of your speech? Now try giving the speech and acting it out as if you were in front of small children. Don’t worry—I don’t want you to actually do this in front of an audience; but it will warm up your body and remind you of what you are capable of doing. Then you can try out more natural body language in front of a mirror. Remember I talked about practicing your smile in front of a mirror? Now it’s time to practice your hand gestures
in front of the mirror. Try out different movements and make them purposeful and firm.

  3. VOICE

  As a former opera singer, the voice is my favorite subject in public speaking. During my musical training, I spent years learning the power of the human voice to connect with and move an audience. It’s one of the most important and least understood areas for public speakers, and it can make the difference between a powerful and a powerless speech.

  Take a minute and think of someone with a truly powerful voice. What is it that makes a strong voice? Maybe it’s the pitch—he has a deep voice that carries across the room. Maybe it’s the energy—she sounds like she cares about her subject.

  It’s easy to recognize when someone has a strong voice but harder to actually affect the sound of your own voice. People will receive feedback from their peers or bosses that their voice is too high or too low, without ever learning what they can do to change it. In fact, most people I work with hate the sound of their voice. When they hear their voice on a video during our workshops, they cringe. Our voice sounds different to others than it does to us. When you speak, you hear your voice in two concurrent ways: coming in through your ears and resonating inside your head. When you hear it played back to you, you’re only hearing it through your ears. Your voice will always sound different on a recording than when you speak live.

  However, there is a lot you can do to improve the sound of your voice. First, let me explain why it’s important.

  How many times have you doubted someone’s sincerity based on their tone of voice? Read the following sentence out loud seven times, each time emphasizing a different word: “I didn’t know he would be there.” With each word you emphasize, the meaning of the sentence completely changes. That’s how important voice and emphasis are to a speech. Repeat the word “Really?” over and over again, each time with a different emotion: excitement, curiosity, skepticism, and annoyance. It will have a different meaning each time.

  Most of us are not intentional about using our voice. Or worse: our nerves get the better of us and reduce our voice to a dry, monotonous tone. But that’s not how you normally speak. When you have a regular conversation, your voice naturally rises and falls, depending on your accent. You emphasize certain words to make a point. Your emotions color the tone and we can tell if you are happy or sad, nervous or confident.3 In fact, a study by Michael Kraus of Yale’s School of Management found that people were more accurately able to hear the emotion in people’s voices when simply listening to a recording of a conversation, as opposed to both watching and hearing the conversation.4

  Your voice is incredibly expressive when you vent to your spouse about something that happened at work or tell your friends about a recent vacation. And yet, when you stand up to give a presentation, all that color and richness falls away and you sound like a lifeless robot. Why? I’ve observed a few different factors that reduce the fullness of your voice:

  Your nerves do it. When you get nervous, your breathing becomes shallow and your throat constricts, taking all the energy out of your voice. As a singer, I could always hear the tremor in my voice when I was nervous. In the next chapter, I’ll show you how to calm your nerves so that your voice can ring loud and clear.

  You might think that’s how you’re supposed to speak. Many of us have the idea that it’s unprofessional to show emotion in a speech. The amount of emotion you show certainly depends on the context and on the audience, but there’s nothing unprofessional about making the words come alive through your voice.

  You may think, That’s just the way I sound! But you don’t have to. We pick up many things from others, from regional accents to filler words. We can change them if we want to. I’ll show you how.

  There are other factors in play, such as the microphone or the acoustics in the room. Through the techniques I teach you, you’ll be able to overcome those factors and enhance the sound of your voice.

  And as if those weren’t enough, there is fascinating research correlating the pitch of your voice to your business success. A Duke University study of male CEOs found that CEOs with a deeper voice, on average, made more money than those with higher voices.5 In another study that manipulated the pitch of male and female voices, both male and female participants preferred leaders with deeper voices.6

  I know what you’re thinking. So I need to consciously lower the sound of my voice to be more successful? No, it’s not about forcing your voice into a lower register. It’s about learning to harness the power of your voice to make it rich and resonant—which will in turn make it naturally a little lower.

  I also want to make a point about gender and voice. When Margaret Thatcher became prime minister of the United Kingdom, she consciously worked on the sound of her voice.7 The effect was that her soft-spoken, singsong voice became lower and deeper. You can hear this for yourself by going to www.speakwithimpactbook.com. When I showed Margaret Thatcher’s before/after video to my class of graduate students at the Harvard Kennedy School, there was a mixed reaction. A man commented that he liked Thatcher’s original voice because “it sounded softer and more feminine.” A woman shot back: “Well, the second voice is how I want my prime minister to sound.” Cultural expectations can shape our perceptions of tone and power.

  So how do you harness the power of your voice when you speak? The next chapter will go into this process in depth because the breathing technique you use is key to projecting your voice.

  In addition, your tone of voice reflects how you feel about your subject—and about yourself. Do you care about your subject? Are you proud of the work you do? Do you feel confident in your ability to speak about this issue? Whether you answer “yes” or “no” to those questions will have an effect on the way your voice sounds.

  When my team and I work with people on their voice, we start with breathing and confidence-building techniques. We focus on the third of the Three Questions—Why you?—because the answer to that question builds your confidence in yourself and your subject. The last section of Chapter 7 includes additional tools such as the Core Value Statement that will build your confidence. Working from the inside out, internal confidence affects your external voice.

  Your voice should match the words you use. Do you use numbers to illustrate a daunting challenge your company faces? Let your voice slow down to emphasize the scale of the problem. Do you talk about an injustice in your country? Let your voice show your outrage. Do you include a personal story to demonstrate your connection to the audience? Let your voice show vulnerability. Your voice is incredibly expressive; use it to add meaning to your words. Otherwise, it will undermine your message and undermine your impact.

  You know how to do this naturally, but in professional life you may have learned to withhold it for the reasons I mentioned above. Here are a few exercises to let it out:

  Radio voice. Imagine giving your speech on the radio where no one can see your facial expressions. You have to reach your audience solely through the sound of your voice. Read your speech out loud, recording yourself with the memo recorder of your phone. Play it back, and you will hear yourself speak more slowly and intentionally.

  Speaking to children. When you speak to young children, your voice is naturally more expressive than when you speak to adults. With children, you don’t have to act like a professional, and you can make your voice silly and emotional. Read your speech out loud as if you were reading a story to young children while using the exact language of the speech. You’ll notice your voice becomes much slower and more expressive.

  Practice different emotions. Make a list of different feelings: anger, joy, boredom, excitement. Read sections of your speech out loud and try out different emotions. Record them all on your phone and listen back. Which voice best matches the emotion of your speech? Keep that emotion in mind as you give the speech.

  Emphasize every word. Especially if you tend to rush or mumble, concentrate on pronouncing every single word. Speak slowly and clearly and build a new natural rhythm for
yourself. One woman I worked with was not a native English speaker but needed to pitch to her clients in English. After working on her pacing and enunciation, she was able to create a new rhythm when she spoke. At the very next meeting with a client, she was able to close the deal. She later told me that she believed her slower pace helped her listen more to the client and address his questions, leading to greater understanding and trust.

  Everyone responds to these exercises in different ways, so choose one that works best for you. And don’t worry, I don’t want you to get in front of an audience and actually sound like you are reading to children. These exercises unlock your full voice and remind you what you are capable of producing.

  OVERCOMING COMMON TRAPS: FILLERS, MINIMIZERS, UPTALK, AND VOCAL FRY

  Filler Words

  Vocal disfluencies, commonly described as filler words, are a common pet peeve in public speaking. Some people disparage them as weak and hesitant, and others defend them as authentic and genuine. I like to follow the philosophy of Robert L. Finder, Jr., author of The Financial Professional’s Guide to Communication, who likens filler words to ants at a picnic. He writes, “A single ant won’t ruin your picnic, but then again, when did you see just a single ant at a picnic?”8

  Used sparingly, there’s nothing wrong with filler words. The problem is when you use them excessively and they detract from your confidence and credibility. If you make a strong argument but use ah, ah, repeatedly, it sounds like you’re making up the message as you go along. If every speech or presentation is an opportunity to exercise leadership, it won’t sound inspiring if every other word is a filler.

  What are the most common filler words? We all know about um, ah, and like. Some others I hear are: so (to start sentences), right? (to end sentences), kind of and sort of (in the middle of sentences). People in the same organization tend to use the same filler words. In one company, everyone used the words “basically” or “at the end of the day.” Professor Tim Murphey of Kanda University of International Studies says that picking up language from those around us—what he calls linguistic contagion—is a normal form of language acquisition and learning.9 We can pick up positive, powerful speaking habits by observing and speaking with others. The flip side is that we can also pick up negative habits like filler words that reduce our impact and credibility.