Eye contact Gestures Movement Posture, and Written communication

Let's examine each nonverbal element in turn to see how we can maximise your potential to communicate effectively...

Eye contact ~~~~~~~~~~~ Good eye contact helps your audience develop trust in you, thereby helping you and your message appear credible. Poor eye contact does exactly opposite.

So what IS 'good' eye contact?

People rely on visual clues to help them decide on whether to attend to a message or not. If they find that someone isn't 'looking' at them when they are being spoken to, they feel uneasy.

So it is a wise business communicator that makes a point of attempting to engage every member of audience by looking at them.

Now, this is of course easy if audience is just a handful of people, but in an auditorium it can be a much harder task. So balance your time between these three areas:

slowly scanning entire audience,

focusing on particular areas of your audience (perhaps looking at wall between two heads if you are still intimidated by public speaking), and

looking at individual members of audience for about five seconds per person.

Looking at individual members of a large group can be 'tricky' to get right at first.

Equally, it can be a fine balancing act if your audience comprises of just one or two members -- spend too much time looking them in eyes and they will feel intimidated, stared at, 'hunted down'.

So here's a useful tip: break your eye-to-eye contact down to four or five second chunks.

That is, look at other person in blocks that last four to five seconds, then look away. That way they won't feel intimidated.

Practice this timing yourself, away from others. Just look at a spot on wall, count to five, then look away. With practice you will be able to develop a 'feel' for how long you have been looking into your audience member's eyes and intuitively know when to look away and focus on another person or object.

Gestures ~~~~~~~~ Most of us, when talking with our friends, use our hands and face to help us describe an event or object - powerful nonverbal aids.

We wave our arms about, turn our hands this way and that, roll our eyes, raise our eyebrows, and smile or frown.

Yet many of us also, when presenting to others in a more formal setting, 'clam up'.

Our audience of friends is no different from our business audience — they all rely on our face and hands (and sometimes legs, feet and other parts of us!) to 'see' bigger, fuller picture.

It is totally understandable that our nervousness can cause us to 'freeze up', but is is in our and our communication's best interests if we manage that nervousness, manage our fear of public speaking, and use our body to help emphasise our point.

I found that by joining a local Toastmasters International club I was rapidly able to learn how to 'free up my body' when presenting to others.

Movement ~~~~~~~~ Ever watch great presenters in action — men and women who are alone on stage yet make us laugh, cry and be swept along by their words and enthusiasm?

Watch them carefully and you'll note that they don't stand rigidly in one spot. No, they bounce and run and stroll and glide all around stage.

Why do they do that?

Because they know that we human beings, men in particular, are drawn to movement.

As part of man's genetic heritage we are programmed to pay attention to movement. We instantly notice it, whether we want to or not, assessing movement for any hint of a threat to us.

This, of course, helps explain why many men are drawn to TV and seem transfixed by it. It also helps explain why men in particular are almost 'glued' to TV when there is any sport on. All that movement!

But to get back to stage and you on it... ensure that any movement you make is meaningful and not just nervous fidgetting, like rocking back and forth on your heels or moving two steps forward and back, or side to side.

This is 'nervous movement' and your nervousness will transmit itself to your audience, significantly diluting potency of your communication and message.

So move about stage when you can — not just to keep men in audience happy, but to help emphasise your message!

Posture ~~~~~~~ There are two kinds of 'posture' and it is wise communicator that manages and utilizes both.

Word count: 1949

Summary: Most leaders are sabotaging their careers because they are giving presentations and speeches rather than leadership talks. In terms of being a results-generator, leadership talk far surpasses presentation or speech. Here are three questions you must ask and answer before you can give a leadership talk. If you answer "no" to any one of questions, you can't give one. ===================================================== ARE YOU SABOTAGING YOUR CAREER? by Brent Filson

My experience working with thousands of leaders world wide for past two decades teaches me that most leaders are screwing up their careers.

On a daily basis, these leaders are getting wrong results or right results in wrong ways.

Interestingly, they themselves are choosing to fail. They're actively sabotaging their own careers.

Leaders commit this sabotage for a simple reason: They make fatal mistake of choosing to communicate with presentations and speeches -- not leadership talks.

In terms of boosting one's career, difference between two methods of leadership communication is difference between lightning and lightning bug.

Speeches/presentations primarily communicate information. Leadership talks, on other hand, not only communicate information, they do more: They establish a deep, human emotional connection with audience.

Why is later connection necessary in leadership?

Look at it this way: Leaders do nothing more important than get results. There are generally two ways that leaders get results: They can order people to go from point A to point B; or they can have people WANT TO go from A to B.

Clearly, leaders who can instill "want to" in people, who motivate those people, are much more effective than leaders who can't or won't.

And best way to instill "want to" is not simply to relate to people as if they are information receptacles but to relate to them on a deep, human, emotional way.

And you do it with leadership talks.

Here are a few examples of leadership talks.

When Churchill said, "We will fight on beaches ... " That was a leadership talk.

When Kennedy said, "Ask not what your country can do for you ... " that was a leadership talk.

When Reagan said, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" That was a leadership talk.

You can come up with a lot of examples too. Go back to those moments when words of a leader inspired people to take ardent action, and you've probably put your finger on an authentic leadership talk.

Mind you, I'm not just talking about great leaders of history. I'm also talking about leaders in your organizations. After all, leaders speak 15 to 20 times a day: everything from formal speeches to informal chats. When those interactions are leadership talks, not just speeches or presentations, effectiveness of those leaders is dramatically increased. How do we put together leadership talks? It's not easy. Mastering leadership talks takes a rigorous application of many specific processes. As Clement Atlee said of that great master of leadership talks, Winston Churchill, "Winston spent best years of his life preparing his impromptu talks." Churchill, Kennedy, Reagan and others who were masters at giving leadership talks didn't actually call their communications "leadership talks", but they must have been conscious to some degree of processes one must employ in putting a leadership talk together.

Here's how to start. If you plan to give a leadership talk, there are three questions you should ask. If you answer "no" to any one of those questions, you can't give one. You may be able to give a speech or presentation, but certainly not a leadership talk.

(1) DO YOU KNOW WHAT THE AUDIENCE NEEDS? Winston Churchill said, "We must face facts or they'll stab us in back."

When you are trying to motivate people, real facts are THEIR facts, their reality.

Their reality is composed of their needs. In many cases, their needs have nothing to do with your needs.

Most leaders don't get this. They think that their own needs, their organization's needs, are reality. That's okay if you're into ordering. As an order leader, you only need work with your reality. You simply have to tell people to get job done. You don't have to know where they're coming from. But if you want to motivate them, you must work within their reality, not yours.

I call it "playing game in people's home park". There is no other way to motivate them consistently. If you insist on playing game in your park, you'll be disappointed in motivational outcome. (2) CAN YOU BRING DEEP BELIEF TO WHAT YOU'RE SAYING? Nobody wants to follow a leader who doesn't believe job can get done. If you can't feel it, they won't do it.

But though you yourself must "want to" when it comes to challenge you face, your motivation isn't point. It's simply a given. If you're not motivated, you shouldn't be leading.

Here's point: Can you TRANSFER your motivation to people so they become as motivated as you are?

I call it THE MOTIVATIONAL TRANSFER, and it is one of least understood and most important leadership determinants of all.

There are three ways you can make transfer happen.

* CONVEY INFORMATION. Often, this is enough to get people motivated. For instance, many people have quit smoking because of information on harmful effects of habit

* MAKE SENSE. To be motivated, people must understand rationality behind your challenge. Re: smoking: People have been motivated to quit because information makes sense.

* TRANSMIT EXPERIENCE. This entails having leader's experience become people's experience. This can be most effective method of all, for when speaker's experience becomes audience's experience, a deep sharing of emotions and ideas, a communing, can take place.