Posture, Poise, & Gestures
Imagine you’re a judge at a venture capital pitch event. You have to listen to the presenters and decide who wins the $1 million prize. The only issue, there’s a problem with your audio and you can’t hear what the presenters are saying. You can only see their gestures, facial expressions, body position, and movement. Seems like an impossible task, right?
Chia-Jung Tay, an Associate Professor at University College of London School of Management, has demonstrated you might be a better judge than you think. Professor Tay asked over 1800 people to pick the winners of 12 venture capital pitch competitions. The catch was that a large majority of the participants had to watch the pitches without sound. She discovered that the people who had to pick the winners without hearing the participants speak, picked the same winners as the actual judges.
She said, “Across 12 studies I found that people could predict VC funding decisions based not on the actual content of entrepreneurs’ pitches but on how they were presented, especially body language and facial expressions.”
She pointed out that the winning entrepreneurs demonstrated passion, desire, and credibility through their body language. How they stood, gestured, and emoted brought a presence and performance that caught people’s attention, made a point, and was memorable.
Whether you are pitching, presenting a quarterly update on the metrics of your division, or doing a weekly sales huddle, you need to think about how you’re saying it just as much as what you’re saying. Your non-verbal communication skills are a differentiator in your business communications.
In order to hone those skills, we have four tips and reminders to elevate your non-verbal communication. They are a winning formula for your next communication opportunity.
1) GESTURES:
Gestures make you a better communicator. They engage your audience and help your message stick. Researchers have consistently found that gestures add weight to what you’re saying, improve the clarity of your information, and make what you say more memorable. In addition, gestures give you, the speaker, more energy and animation. Gestures help you display your passion for the content.
2) FACIAL EXPRESSIONS:
Not only do you need to speak with your hands, but also with your face. Your face is one of your greatest non-verbal tools. You need to show emotion and passion through your facial expressions. Smiling, questioning, surprise...using facial expressions to react to what you’re saying is essential to creating an effective non-verbal communication connection. If your facial expressions are flat, your audience will have a much tougher time connecting with you and they will perceive your content as unimportant and lifeless. Use your face just like you use your voice and hands in gestures. It’s an essential part of your non-verbal communication toolkit.
3) POSTURE:
How you stand or sit when you are presenting is crucial to your non-verbal communication. Your posture can convey your passion, comfort, knowledge, and confidence. Your posture also conveys your trustworthiness. Slouching, sitting back, leaning on one leg all convey a lack of interest and undermines your credibility. You need to have a strong posture whether you’re seated or standing--head high, shoulders square to the audience, and your weight evenly distributed so you’re not leaning. In fact, shifting your weight slightly forward to the audience or camera can illustrate your enthusiasm and desire for people to listen. A strong posture is the foundation for a strong presentation.
4) EYE CONTACT:
Connecting with your audience is essential. The best way to form that connection is through eye contact. When you’re presenting in-person, you need to make meaningful eye contact. Don’t just scan the room, but talk to people for more than just a few seconds. If it’s a smaller audience, try to make eye contact with everyone in the room, and if it’s bigger, make deliberate eye contact with someone in each section. If you are presenting virtually, make sure you are looking right into the camera. Talking to the camera and visualizing your audience will help you connect virtually. Meaningful eye contact will help you create that connection and credibility with your audience.
While you are never going to present without speaking, you do need to pay close attention to your non-verbal communication signals. Your gestures, posture, facial expressions, and eye contact all help you build a persuasive and memorable presence. If you put as much focus into your non-verbal communication skills as you do into your content, you’ll always be judged a winner.