by Peter Meyers
3. Hands behind back —makes you look like a soldier.
4. Arms crossed —you may feel more comfortable because you’re protected, but this posture is not congruent with the emotions of generosity or sharing.
5. One hand in pocket, jiggling change —people are going to wonder what you’re doing in there.
If you’re there to give a gift, make sure that your body shows that. When we give, our hands are open. Begin your talk in heroic neutral. Heroic neutral is a relaxed stance, sternum lifted, arms loosely down at your sides. This position may feel awkward to you at first, as you’re going to have to fight the impulse to cover your core. But from the audience, it looks terrific! If you start in heroic neutral, then your hands are free to move easily as you begin to speak, naturally accompanying your words the same way they’ve done your whole life. You don’t have to stay in this stance; just start there.
Use the open palm. Gestures are all about the direction your palm is facing. The back of the hand conveys very little meaning. When we give and receive, we almost always gesture with the palm turned up. To see the power of this gesture, look at Renaissance paintings—the open palm is frequently emphasized. A downturned palm signifies power, strength, dominance, and certainty. The open palm is generosity, sharing, openness. When you invite questions during Q&A, always use the inviting open palm instead of the accusatory pointing finger.
Standing at the Podium
The general principle is that the less stuff—and distance—between you and your listener, the better. Podiums have advantages and disadvantages: they do provide a secure base, which is tempting when you’re feeling nervous. But a podium also traps you in one position, and blocks most of your body from the audience, so that your expressive tools are limited to your upper body. If you’re standing at a podium, remember that it’s there to support your script, not your body. Don’t clutch or lean on the podium. It makes you look weak, as if you’re not able to support yourself. Your shoulders hunch, and your neck disappears—not a good look! If you’re gripping the sides of the podium, the audience can see your white knuckles, and the message it sends is one of fear. Instead, allow your hands to float freely. Then you can use them for emphasis.
As you will see in the Remembering Your Content section of the next chapter, we don’t recommend reading a speech from a prepared script. Sometimes, however, it’s necessary. If you have to walk to the podium and read a speech, here are the basic techniques: Glance down at the script, take in the words, and glance back up to deliver them. Connect with one person at a time, and strive for a sense of openness and transparency, as if you are opening the curtains in front of your face. The idea is to let people see your thoughts. Avoid the bobblehead dog effect; don’t look up and down in a predictable, bouncy way. Mentally divide the audience into quadrants: front, back, left, right. When you look up, randomly connect with one person on the left, then one person on the right, one person in the front, etc. Try to share your time equally between the quadrants, making sure that you don’t forget the people in the back.
If things are going well in the speech, after you’ve found your sea legs, consider leaving the podium and walking forward. Yes, scary, we know! But it’s an incredibly powerful act—a master move. The walk forward will be meaningful, all by itself. When you come closer to other human beings, it’s a demonstration of openness, and the audience will appreciate it. You generally want to cross on a diagonal line, down to the center of the stage. And remember to take your notes with you!
When do you move? Think of it this way: in your speech, there are what we call linking phrases and landing phrases. A linking phrase is like connective tissue; it links one point to another. Phrases like “So, how are we going to do this?” or “Why are we so confident?” or “Let’s take a look at the numbers in relation to last year” are linking phrases. They’re not terrifically important in and of themselves, and they’re not your main point. They’re there to connect one idea to the next. A linking phrase is a great place to move. You’re signaling with your body that you’re moving on to a new concept.
A landing phrase is a phrase that you want to land with special emphasis. You come to a point; the light bulb goes on. “We’re going to fight, using the facts!” To emphasize a landing phrase, you stand still. Never walk through a landing phrase; it diminishes the importance of what you’re saying.
So, how does this look onstage? Cross while you’re saying your linking phrase : “So how are we going to do this?” Then stop, for your landing phrase : “We’re going to fight, using the facts!”
Congratulations, you’ve been brave enough to leave the safety of the podium. Where do you go next? There are three basic positions onstage: stage left, stage right, and center stage. Think of these positions as three bases, and share your time between them in a random fashion. Spend roughly 60 percent of your time center stage, 20 percent stage right, and 20 percent stage left. Vary your movement pattern; don’t always go right-center-left. Break it up.
When you move, don’t float, and don’t wander. You need a reason to move. We call this a motivation. Your motivation for moving from place to place onstage should be a desire to get closer to the audience. You’ve been stage right for a while—what about the people onstage left? You move stage left with the intention of gently gathering those poor forgotten souls back into the circle of your regard, like a good shepherd. Note—make sure that the lighting designer knows that you’re going to be leaving the podium. You don’t want to disappear off into the shadows.
If you need to get back to the podium, give yourself some time to get there. Don’t stick yourself in the situation of delivering your key message with your back to the audience! When you make what we call an upstage cross (crossing away from the audience) you can either tack like a sailboat, slowly working your way back by alternately addressing stage right and stage left, or you can walk in one long line. If you walk on one long line, make sure it’s on a diagonal. This ensures that you are still available to the audience in profile, rather than just showing them your back. Never walk backward! It looks silly, and it’s dangerous—you might trip.
If you need to cross upstage, it’s okay to take your eyes off the audience for about seven seconds—but no longer. Seven seconds should give you time to get upstage on nearly any stage or platform. Just keep the time that you are disconnected from the audience to a minimum. You are their guide; don’t abandon them in the darkness.
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SHANN
After college I trained as a massage therapist at Esalen Institute, the home of the human potential movement in Big Sur, California. Massages were done on an open-air redwood balcony overlooking the ocean, and the massage crew was one of the best in the world. One of the lessons they taught us was this: never take your hands off the client. You must remain in contact with the body you’re working on at all times. It’s your job to make the client feel safe and protected.
Engaging with the audience during a presentation is much the same. The important thing is the continuity of your contact. They’re relying on you to stay in relationship with them, and guide them through the experience. Think in terms of always keeping your hands on the body—it’s your job to keep the connection intact.
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If you’re giving a formal speech that must be read out loud, one of the most powerful things you can do is find a place where you can walk away from the podium, talk to the audience heart to heart, and then return to the podium for the finish. This gives you the chance to engage them in a very personal way, and the contrast with the scripted part of the speech makes the intimacy even stronger.
When you have to show slides, but still want to make a closer connection with the audience, here’s a technique that works to combine both elements: enter and walk directly downstage center. Have the house lights (that’s the lights that are shining on the audience) up, and the lights onstage up as well, so that you can see the audience and connect with them easily. Deliver your ramp
and road map from there. At the end of your road map, ask a question like, “How does that sound to everyone?” in order to get group agreement. Then you can cross back to the podium, have the house lights dim, and begin the slide portion of the presentation. After your three PoDs and summary, bring the house lights back up, and leave the podium for Q&A. This allows you to be approachable, and to walk toward the questioners in a way that invites conversation. Stay downstage to deliver your dessert—it’s the most powerful place for your big finish.
TABLE TECHNIQUE
Whether you are seated at a conference table, boardroom table, or dining room table, many of the same delivery principles apply, with a few variations. Before you begin to speak, stop, breathe, and see. (see p. 120) Leaning forward right before you speak will gather the room’s attention. Heroic neutral when seated means that your shoulders are squared to your hips, and your torso is supported by your spine in a way that allows hands to float freely. Just as at the podium, don’t lean on your elbows—for the same reasons. It makes you look weak, and it makes your neck disappear. Keep your hands visible. Avoid having them under the table. They should be available to you to gesture as needed. Don’t pound the table, wear jewelry that’s going to clash noisily on the tabletop, or fiddle with your hair. Minimize distractions, and cultivate stillness at strategic moments when you want to land a point. Low-status players twitch and fidget; high-status players use stillness to create a sense of presence. Which one are you? Lean in to create intimacy or emphasis. Pull back to create space for someone else to speak. At a table, the subtlest shift in your position sends a powerful but often unconscious set of messages. Be aware of the messages your body posture is sending. Use your eyes for connected conversations (for more on connected conversations, see p. 133). Speak to everyone in the room. Include all the listeners, even if the decision will ultimately be made by one single person. The decision maker doesn’t want you looking at her the whole time—it’s exhausting for her.
When a latecomer comes in, don’t look at him reprovingly; take a moment to acknowledge and welcome him warmly. Shake his hand if possible. Say something like, “Glad you could make it. There’s a chair for you right over here.” Then carry on. If it’s a large audience and you can’t reach him to shake his hand, make some welcoming comment. If you just glance over at him, or ignore him, he’s going to feel rebuked. The general rule is this: never humiliate anyone in front of an audience. It creates hostility in the person, and makes everyone in the room feel bad. Never forget that the audience identifies with the latecomer, not with you. If you’re welcoming to the latecomer, everyone relaxes and a warm feeling pervades the room. Pausing to do this is not a waste of time; it strengthens the bond not only between you and the latecomer, but between you and the entire audience.
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PETER
At Stand & Deliver we don’t do any advertising. We depend completely on word of mouth, so the response of our clients is of the utmost importance to us. To minutely track how we’re doing, we ask clients to fill out evaluation sheets at the end of every training. The scores are usually universally high. But every so often, there would be one outlying score that was noticeably low. This attracted my attention, and as I investigated, I began to realize that the low score seemed to always come from the one person who had arrived late. Why was this? After giving the matter some thought, it occurred to me that if a person comes in late, there are two possible reasons: One, there has been a genuine emergency. The car really did break down, or the child at home really is sick, in which case the person is going to be seriously stressed. The other reason for someone to be late is an internal one; he’s the rebellious type, who always shows up late as a matter of course. At the time, when latecomers arrived, I was just glancing over at them, and then carrying on with the training. My residual annoyance at being interrupted was no doubt showing up in my glance, and the latecomer was feeling rebuked. So, I reframed the way I was thinking about latecomers. A latecomer, whether he has had problems that morning or is just rebellious, is someone who needs some extra attention. I began to experiment with giving them that extra attention. I would walk over to the person, shake his hand, say, “Glad you could make it,” and find him a chair. There would be a collective sigh of relief in the room, as everyone relaxed. And the outlying low score vanished.
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What if people start whispering to one another during your presentation or meeting? Well, if you’re onstage in an auditorium and you can’t reach the person because she is in the eighteenth row, or you’re all seated at a table, there’s not much you can do. You just need to get more interesting.
If you’re in a situation where you can move around, gently take a few steps toward the people who are talking— but don’t look at them. Moving toward them will pull focus away from the whisperer and back to yourself, and they will generally stop.
If they continue to whisper, then do look at them. Try not to interrupt the flow of what you’re saying. Keep speaking as if you’re offering what you’re saying as a treat designed just for them—your intention is not to humiliate them but to give them special attention. If they carry on after that, find a place in the presentation where you can stop and say, “Let me stop here to take some of your questions.”
6
FACE AND EYES
Of all the things you wear, your expression is the most important.
—UNKNOWN
CHANGING YOUR EXPRESSION is cheaper and easier than buying an entire new wardrobe—and a lot more powerful!
Your mind functions like a supercomputer that picks up millions of pieces of subtle data from the faces of people around you. Your subconscious is constantly organizing and synthesizing this data. 1 A tightening of the muscles around the eyes, dilated pupils, a trickle of sweat coming down from the hairline—you’re perceiving and interpreting these cues all the time, and so is your listener.
This interpretation process is what provides you with the “sense” that someone is lying. Just as with your body, if your words are saying one thing and your expression is saying another, the listener will become confused or mistrustful. So—make sure that you connect to what you’re saying, in a way that shows up on your face. If you open with “It’s good to see you,” and they don’t see you registering some level of pleasure on your face, you’ve discredited yourself in the first seven seconds. If you tell a team that you’re proud of their accomplishments, they’re looking at your eyes. Whether or not you mean it, it’s going to show up there first, so you’d better pull back the curtains and let them see the light in your eyes. No special equipment needed—just authenticity.
FACIAL MUSCLES
Generally we spend a lot of energy repressing our natural expression, especially in business situations. You must reverse this process to communicate effectively. We’re not talking about grinning like you’re in a toothpaste commercial. But many people are grimacing while telling their team, “It’s a joy to work with you.”
In order to find out what message your face is sending, make a short video of yourself. Watch yourself as you speak for a minute or two. What do you notice? What is the habitual expression on your face? Is your face accurately reflecting your feelings? Sometimes it comes as a shock to realize how disapproving or grumpy your face can appear. If the muscles of the face are not energized, they tend to slump into a disagreeable expression. You may not feel this way at all, but this becomes your default. How many people are seeing this expression from you during meetings?
There are forty-three muscles in the human face. 2 Most of us use only three. Look in the mirror and try activating your facial muscles, just short of a smile. Lift the muscles slightly just above your eyebrows, and notice how it opens the eyes and pulls the other facial muscles up. What would your face look like if you were genuinely interested and concerned about another person?
Unless you’re talking about something sad or distressing, one of the best things you can do before you walk out onstage is to
think of something that brings a slight smile to your face. Not a smug smile, but a smile that shows your general state as being one of enjoyment. The smile should reflect your pleasure in being there. If you can find a private place to prepare, get a big, goofy grin on your face and hold it there for a few moments. Smiling has a powerful residual effect, and much of it will linger as you make your entrance.
Before you go onstage, wake your face up. Do yoga with it. Stretch it around. By the time we get to middle age, most of us have lost a lot of flexibility in our faces, because we only use a few stock expressions over and over. Like an athlete before a marathon, warm your face up. Make everything in your face—eyes, mouth, etc.—as big and wide as possible, while you make an “Ahhhhhh” sound. Now scrunch up everything in your face as small as possible, like a prune, while you say, “Ooooooh.” Grab your chin and massage it. Use both forefingers to massage the two muscles on either side of your face, just below your temples, that connect your upper and lower jaw. Practice moving your eyebrows all the way up toward your hairline and all the way down toward your nose. Put your palms flat on your cheeks and move your cheeks around in a circle. Concentrate on getting energy and circulation back into your face.
EYES AND CONNECTED CONVERSATIONS
Your eyes are your most crucial communication tools. We have a tendency to mistrust people if we can’t see their eyes. 3 We pick up a lot of information from the other person both through their eyes, and the micromovements that occur in the muscles around the eyes.
Communication manuals often advise that you “make eye contact” with your audience. This can result in you moving your eyes rapidly over the audience, or scanning. Scanning is one of those reactions provided courtesy of your time-honed survival brain. When you’re surrounded by people, just as if you were surrounded by animals in a jungle, you scan for danger. One of the reasons that people suffer an amygdala hijack is that their eyes do the same thing they would do under threat—scan. Rapid eye movements are associated with the feeling of being hunted, paranoia, anxiety, and panic. 4 On the other hand, when we truly connect with someone, our eyes land on them, and linger. We look at the other person with genuine curiosity. Watch a child. Their eyes open and they look deeply.