Make Body Language Your Superpower

Matt Levy 0:00 [upbeat music]

Matt Levy 0:06 What makes one an exceptional presenter? Is it flashy visuals? Is it the tone of voice? Is it the actual message or content? Or does it have something to do with body language, our gestures, and our stance? Today, we wanna talk to you about this latter point. How do we use our body effectively to communicate our message? Because we have so many great ideas here, but if they remain in our head, don't actually link

Matt Levy 0:36 up with the audience, our message will not have arrived. It w- we, our re- message will not have resonated with the audience. So body language plays a powerful role in how we communicate. And unfortunately, body language can also distract. We've seen this clip before of Michael Bay, right? He speaks, the teleprompter, he loses sight of what's happening. The t- teleprompter doesn't sync up, and he struggles. And all you see is his body moving around, and he's nervous. He's exuding it. So I wanna give some color commentary as we re-watch as a class what is happening. So his stance at the beginning, it's okay, but his hands, he's meshing them. And now he's starting to turn from the audience. Again, his hands are clasped. He's looking a bit down, not at all at you, the audience, and he spins. He shows his back to the audience, and he can't regain composure. He's swaying back and forth. He's looking down. He's avoiding the audience. His nerves are coming out. Again, his hands-

Speaker 1:40 [laughs]

Matt Levy 1:40 He's wringing them. And now I think he's looking at the back of the stage. That's the exact opposite place from where you want to actually look. He's incredibly nervous, and now he exits stage. We all wanna avoid our own Michael Bay moments-

Speaker 1:55 [laughs]

Matt Levy 1:56 -when we communicate. The last thing we want at a startup pitch or a meeting is to have that happen, is to have the body language take over from the message. If we lose sight of what our body is doing, all people can pay attention to is the body itself, right? It'll take over. So that comes down to not only can it distract, but the body language can-- it is your superhero, right? That it can change. It's your superpower. Sorry, not a superhero. You're the superhero. But it's your superpower-

Speaker 2:28 [laughs]

Matt Levy 2:29 -in the sense that we can utilize it to enhance and communicate with every person in the audience. We wanna talk about that today from three vantage points. Colin is gonna get us started in talking about how posture breeds success. Jeong Joon is then gonna talk about how gestures to strengthen your message. Finally, Jennifer's gonna close us out with how we think about the body posture of you, the audience, and how to interact with that. Colin, take us away.

Colin Bailie 2:56 Communication begins before you even open your mouth to speak. Your audience's first impression of you is your posture and your position, and so it's important to know both how to stand as well as where to stand. And perhaps it's fairly obvious, but you should stand facing the people you're talking to. Don't stand facing your visuals and turning your back to the audience. That's not what we wanna do. We can't communicate that way. It's also important to know where

Colin Bailie 3:26 you're standing in the room. A position of strength in this room is somewhere in this center box. As long as you're moving around in the center, you're doing pretty well. Where you don't wanna be is off in the corner cowering, or especially in front of any distractions. And this, this room is pretty good. It doesn't have that many distractions, but there is a window. And outside this window, there are cars, there are buses, there are bikers. And when I was standing over there, probably

Colin Bailie 3:57 about half of you could see in your peripheral vision outside the window. And if a car were to drive by, your instinct, your reaction would be to look out the window, and that would break your concentration and our conversation, and we don't want that either. And now that you know where to stand, it's important to know how to stand. So we're gonna demonstrate a few positions, a few bad positions, that we've seen from us and some of you guys, and even from the presentations earlier today, that you shouldn't do.

Speaker 4:29 [laughs]

Colin Bailie 4:31 And the first one is hands in your pockets. This comes off as nonchalant. Your shoulders tend to roll forwards, and it's very difficult to convey a strong message from this position. The second one is hands on your hips. When your hands are on your hips, you tend to look overbearing and powerful. And the third one is the fig leaf. This is where you're protecting your family jewels with your hands.

Speaker 4:58 [laughs]

Colin Bailie 5:00 And while it also looks timid, it's especially bad when you decide to gesture from this position. I want to show you something.

Speaker 5:08 [laughs]

Colin Bailie 5:15 You look like you're flashing the audience, and that's not a good thing. So how should you stand? And if I could actually get all of you to stand, I'll lead you through a short demonstration on how to find your base posture. So once you've stood, be mindful of the people next to you and place your feet hip-width apart. Close your eyes and look up towards the ceiling and lift your hands above your head. Get a good stretch underneath your shoulders, and let your arms drop to the side. When you open your eyes, look down. This is your base posture. Thank you very much for participating. You guys can sit down now. Now that you've found your base posture, this is where you should gesture from, and it's where you should return to when you're finished gesturing.

Matt Levy 6:04 It may not feel the most comfortable, but it looks the most comfortable to your audience. Remember that your posture and position are the f- audience's first impression of you. But now that you know how to stand still, it's time to learn how to move.

Jeong Joon Ha 6:23 Gestures are important because it helps you communicate better. For example, if you use gestures, the audience remembers twice as much. It also helps you, the future speakers too, because it helps your memory when you speak. Also, beside the transition, your hand and arm movement is the biggest movement that the audience can see. You can either use it wisely or waste it on random and distracting gestures. I'm going to show you three types of gestures. The give, the show, and the chop. Here's an example. This quarter at the GSB, I went to this communications class. It was so great. I mean, you could feel that your skills are improving. I think this was the best class I've ever taken. Let's rewind and see what happened. The give. This quarter at the GSB, I went to this communications

Jeong Joon Ha 7:25 class. So this gesture is used to give the audience the facts or the options. Remember to have your palms up, not down. We'll get to that in a minute. The show. I mean, you could feel that your skills are improving. This kind of gesture has the largest variety, and your imagination is the limit. Just remember that the gesture and the message has to match. For example, you can't say, "Profits are rising," with a gesture like this.

Speaker 7:58 [laughs]

Jeong Joon Ha 7:59 So congruency and creativity. The chop. I think this was the best class I've ever taken. So this gesture is used to deliver strong opinion. You can either use it one hand, or you can use both hands. You can use both hands and do a larger chop, which will deliver a stronger message. So next time when you do gestures, think about these three types and plan ahead. Three types is the give, the show, and the chop. Huh!

Speaker 8:37 [laughs]

Jeong Joon Ha 8:40 I bet everyone in the room is gonna remember this.

Speaker 8:42 [laughs]

Jeong Joon Ha 8:45 Gestures work. That's the message. Uh, another subject is about having your palms up. So I'll give you an example. People on the right, please rise and move to the left. I'll do it slightly different this time. People on the left, right, please rise and move to the left. One more time. People on the right, please rise and move to the left. Do you see the difference? Which one do you think would make more people move? The first one, yes. According to study, if you have your palms up, 84% of the audience complies. If you have your palms down, 52%. If you have your fingers, 28%. Never use your fingers at your audience.

Speaker 9:37 [laughs]

Jeong Joon Ha 9:39 It looks just arrogant, and only politicians use that.

Speaker 9:43 [laughs]

Jeong Joon Ha 9:44 Clinton used it. "I did not have sexual relations with that woman."

Speaker 9:48 [laughs]

Jeong Joon Ha 9:50 It looks bad back then, looks bad now. So never use that.

Speaker 9:54 [laughs]

Jeong Joon Ha 9:57 And last but not least, avoid the T-Rex gestures. For example, people on the right, please rise and move to the left.

Speaker 10:07 [laughs]

Jeong Joon Ha 10:09 No matter what you do right, I mean, it looks silly, so.

Speaker 10:12 [laughs]

Jeong Joon Ha 10:13 Loosen up, everybody.

Speaker 10:14 [laughs]

Jeong Joon Ha 10:16 Always remember that gestures are there for you and the audience to make a deeper connection. So far, we've talked about the audience. Now it's time to focus on you, the audience.

Jennifer Rosenfeld 10:29 As Jeong Joon and Colin and Matt described, we've been focusing on the body language of the speaker. But let's not forget who's the real hero here. As we learned in our first week of class, it's not me, the speaker. It's you, the audience. But what happens when the audience doesn't realize that they are on this hero's journey? Have you ever seen an audience that looks like this? Have you ever been that audience? It's okay. We all have, whether we're playing on our phones, falling asleep and nodding off, looking at the clock and calculating, can we make an escape from this room? We've all done it, but the thing is, it's the speaker's responsibility to understand what's going on with their audience, and body language is a powerful way to assess that. As a speaker, we can be so focused on our own body language that we never even notice what the audience is doing, and it's important to change that. So I wanna share three strategies for how you can engage with your audience better by developing more observational skills. So first of all, absolutely be using the gestures and body language tools that we've talked about today and over the course of the quarter. But the second thing is to notice. Of course, you're going to be looking for eye contact, but look beyond it. Look at how your bo- how your audience members are sitting. Are they fidgeting? Are they moving? Are they leaning forward, looking engaged, and taking notes, or are they zoning out? If your body language, your eye contact, and your efforts at being compelling are not working, then you can go deeper. You can try to surprise the audience with a question or use some humor, or you can disrupt the audience. As students, we hate being cold called, but we know it's effective, right? Jason, what's your favorite color?

Matt Levy 12:24 Dammit.

Speaker 12:25 [laughs]

Matt Levy 12:27 It's blue.

Jennifer Rosenfeld 12:27 Okay. Very good.

Speaker 12:28 [laughs]

Jennifer Rosenfeld 12:30 You got that one.

Speaker 12:31 [laughs]

Jennifer Rosenfeld 12:33 As we all know, it's the fastest way to reengage with the conversation with the speaker, so don't be afraid to use it. It's so important to keep your audience on track because they're the hero, and it's their journey. Remember how Nancy Duarte told us that we are the Yoda to the Luke Skywalker, and our job as the speaker is to keep the hero on their journey.

Matt Levy 12:54 With that in mind, I think we've talked about three concepts that really remind each of us about how body language is your superpower. Use it. Become that superpower, become that superhero, and we welcome any questions you have on how to stand strong, gesture effectively, and engage the audience. Thank you. [outro music]