Understanding How We Communicate is Key

During the U.S. election, Barack Obama’s “presence” was universally praised. The techniques he used are skills that can propel anyone’s career forward.  Presence, which creates buy-in and influence, is an intangible confidence that makes people pay attention.

Understanding how we communicate is key to understanding presence because most of what we communicate isn’t in words. It is our bodies and our vocal intonation that do most of the talking.

Paralinguistics, the features that accompany speech , such as vocal quality, loudness, and tempo; and body language, including gestures, postures, and facial expressions matter more than the actual words a person speaks. Some studies say words account for just seven per cent of meaning.  The remaining 93% comes from paralinguistics (38%) and body language (55%).

It’s difficult to fool your audience. They know very quickly if you have presence.  Our tendency to assess others quickly comes from thousands of years of evolutionary psychology that encouraged snap judgements in deciding if a creature was a friend or foe.

The good news is that presence can be learned.  Most of us aren’t born with great presence, but acquire it through practice.    Here are five steps to rehearse that will help you exude presence.

Eye contact.
Audiences like speakers who make the right kind of eye contact. Many business presenters merely scan their audiences, fearing to make the more intimate contact that acknowledges each member of the audience as special.

Good presenters focus on one set of eyes at a time, often holding the eyes for four to six seconds, making that person feel as if she were the most important person in the room.  Speak an entire sentence to the person, being sure not to break eye contact before the thought is finished.

But be aware of the point at which tension develops – the point where eye contact has become uncomfortable for the other person – and move on before that contact causes tension.

Hand gestures.
Hand gestures increase presence by animating the speaker’s body, showing through the hands. Gestures also give visual impact to a speaker’s words. Used well, the hands flow along the current of speech, helping shape the speaker’s meaning. Speakers who stand with their hands in their pockets, clasped rigidly in front of them, or awkwardly behind them are chaining in one of our most powerful means of persuasion.

A study I am currently conducting shows that many of the world’s greatest CEOs use a wide and constant range of gestures to enhance their message.  Carly Fiorina, former Chairman & CEO of Hewlett-Packard, will often use twelve different gestures in a four-minute period of speech.  Jack Welch, former Chairman & CEO, General Electric uses even more—up to nineteen in four minutes.

Show your body.
Great speakers look poised and natural.  They hold their head up, square their shoulders, and, when they’re not using them, let their hands hang comfortably by their sides.

They move with energy.  They even stand with energy.  Some speech coaches teach presenters to stand with their weight on the balls of their feet, rather than on their heels, so they show athletic grace.

Vary your voice.
An important way to increase your presence is to work on your voice and delivery. Rich, full tones are generated by breathing from the abdomen, like an opera singer. The voices of good speakers sound natural rather than artificial, and their intonation is congruent with the message and mood they’re trying to convey.

Perhaps most importantly, good speakers are comfortable with silence:  they embrace pauses as a means of conveying meaning, emotion, and confidence.  Too often, speakers rush through their speech when they should slow down and use pauses to allow their audience time to digest what they’re saying.

Be natural: lead with your feelings.
Part of being a good communicator means having a powerful or persuasive personality that invites others to share the speaker’s passions.  Great speakers have the ability to draw others into their rhythms and dictate the terms of the interaction.

The key to effective presentations is making it all seem natural – even though your presentation skills are the result of a lot of practice.

Michael Sider is an Assistant Professor of Management Communications at the Richard Ivey School of Business.  He teaches at the HBA and the MBA level, and his research interests include conflict management, difficult conversations, and presentation skills.