There’s a lot of tosh talked about body-language in presentations. To be honest, it’s not often something I get to work on with clients because there are so many things that are more important for “normal people” but one of the big observations about body language is that it’s not something you can “add on” to your presentation’s creation.
The way you move and gesticulate is an integral part of the way you speak, not something you study independently. Let me give you an example of its impact and how integrated it is to speech…
I was sitting at Milan station the other day, waiting for a train, and noticed what I thought was a person acting suspiciously while supposedly on this phone. What triggered my defensive reaction was that his gesticulations were “out of sync” with my mental map of how someone should be speaking.
The cause of the “out of sync” issue was, of course, that he was speaking Italian and my mental map of his “expected” pattern of gesticulations is based on English.
That’s how embedded into the way we speak our body language is… out of the corner of my eye I’d noticed something “wrong” and started by put away my phone and protect my other valuables, such as my wallet and passport.
Don’t think of your body language as an add-on. Let it be created organically as you create your presentation.
Anything else will look artificial (unless you’re a trained actor of course! 😉 )
Does that mess up my presentation’s body language?
That’s different, of course, from working on your stagecraft. If you’re telling a story and want to talk about a significant journey you’ve made (are you a migrant, for example) then moving from one side of the stage to the other as you describe the boat you were on could be very powerful.
Don’t over-do the acting as you tell your stories of course, but adding just a little bit can give your stories more zap. As a rule of thumb, my advice is to tell your stories with the same level of “emotional energy” as you’d have if you were telling it to a five year old as a bedtime story – you do the voices and things, right? You don’t actually tiptoe around the haunted mansion, but you do hunch yourself over and move your lets to hint at it!
The best pictures are on the radio, don’t forget!
Presentation tips for body-language and stagecraft
A few simple tips that should help with your presentations in general – and your storytelling in general – are:
- if you’ve got different people to talk to in your story, turn to face these imaginary people so your audience sees you talking to someone…
- but if you’re narrating, talk to your audience.
- think about the proportion of your time presenting that’s given over to stories. At risk of over-simplifying, aim for about a third
- and remember that they shorter your story is, the fast people will learn from it. Adjectives and adverbs are generally not your friends – find a bitter alternative (so instead of “walking quickly and hurrying” try “scurry” 🙂 )
- don’t forget that left to right is reversed for your audience (which matters for the passage of time amongst other things
- don’t perform your stories as though you’re on a stage – think more like you’re in a pub telling your friends around a table – or at your child’s bed foot telling them a bedtime story.
