Nick Morgan - Public Speaking Advice and Commentary

How to read other people's body language-2: Openness and its opposite

The first possibility to check about others’ intentions is the most basic one -- their degree of openness (or its opposite). It's the most basic, because if people are open to each other, communication can begin.  If they are not, nothing good can happen.   

With a little practice, you should be able to size people up very quickly along these lines on an almost automatic basis.  Don't look for an instant read, however -- what people call 'thin slicing' these days.  In practice, it takes some time to establish a baseline of behavior with each new person you meet. The point is not to be able to perform this task instantly, but to be able to size someone up within a few minutes, with high reliability, in terms of whether this person is open to you.

 Let’s begin with the face. First, notice the forehead. Is it wrinkled or smooth? For most of us, our habitual attitude is expressed in our foreheads, especially after about age 30. The more wrinkles and the deeper they are, the more habitually open a person is likely to be.

 That's because a characteristic gesture of the open person is to raise the eyebrows, wrinkling the forehead, when looking for a response. Over the years, if you spend a good deal of time openly inviting response, you’ll get forehead wrinkles.  There are fakers, but on the whole the forehead is a reliable sign of overall orientation.  That does not mean that a person will be open or closed in any particular instance, but it does give you a sense of his or her general receptivity.

 Beyond the forehead, notice the mobility of the eyebrows.  How often and far do they move? People tend to raise their eyebrows when they’re interacting with others: looking for a response, asking a question, taking you in, and so on. So the amount and distance of motion are indicators of a general level of openness, and in the specific instance, when the eyebrows are up, openness to your input in the moment. Again, the movement may be in response to a question that the person has asked you, but it’s openness nonetheless.

 Now go down to the eyes themselves. Are they narrowed or wide open? You need to establish a baseline of how the person behaves in fairly neutral situations. That will give you an idea of whether the particular case is one of openness. Generally people open their eyes wider when they are interested in something or someone and close them when they are not, or are actively suspicious or wary of events, people, or actions.

Because people are so active with their eyes, you need to be careful to rule out environmental reasons. Is a bright light shining in the person’s face? That may account for narrowed eyes. It may not be because you’ve just offered the person a used car at an unbeatable price.  If you can, look at the pupils. How open or shut are they? Openness indicates interest, attraction, and arousal; the opposite indicates the reverse. Of course, the general level of lighting in the environment also affects the pupils, so you need to establish a norm.

I'll continue with the rest of the face and body in the next blog.  I go into much more detail about this in my book, Trust Me:  Four Steps to Authenticity and Charisma. 

Bad presentations, good delivery? Or good presentations, bad delivery?

Which is worse, a well-written presentation badly delivered, or a badly written presentation delivered well?  The short answer is that they’re both bad.  But the longer answer is more complicated and worth considering.

A well-written presentation – badly delivered – is hard work for the audience, and an offense against Style.  A badly written presentation – well delivered – is a trick foisted upon the audience, and an offense against Truth.  So on that score, a good delivery of a bad message is worse than its opposite.  That’s because we believe that the bad deliverer could still be – in fact, probably is – authentic, whereas there’s often something deceitful about the glib deliverer of a bad message. 

There’s a further distinction to be made, since the content of a presentation can be bad in two senses:  badly written, but a brilliant idea -- another offense against Style; and badly conceived, a really bad idea, even an evil one. 

History is sprinkled with smooth deliverers of really bad, evil messages – Hitler, McCarthy, and Robert Mugabe, the President of Zimbabwe, come immediately to mind.  We study them with fascination and horror.  They con some portion of a population for a time, and then the allure wears off, and everyone reviles them.   

But what of all the great messages badly delivered?  History forgets them.  They sink into oblivion, if they’re not celebrated on YouTube.  They don’t get the airtime they deserve on the merits, increasingly, in this media-savvy, impatient age.  We are quick to see through slick ad copy, but slower to find the gems hidden in clumsy phrasing, awkward delivery, or poor production.  Our standards are so high, that we’re quick to shout “amateur!” and turn away.   

Unfortunately, what we get most often in the public speaking world is badly written messages, badly delivered – a double offense against Style and Truth.  For your edification and amusement, then, here are examples of these misfiring attempts at public speaking. 

First, a well-written presentation, badly delivered: Gordon Brown on wiring the world: http://tinyurl.com/lupzbs.  Destined to be forgotten immediately after the event. 

Second, a badly-written presentation, delivered well:  Tony Robbins on, well, himself mostly: http://tinyurl.com/6sbmkp.  My guess is that you'll forget this one, too. 

And finally, a badly-written presentation, badly delivered:  Bob Ballard, the deep-sea explorer, rambling on about the ocean (and himself): http://tinyurl.com/m287ge.  You probably won't even make it all the way through....

Enjoy!

TED.com -- 2 -- Jared Diamond

My second pick from the extensive TED.com archives is a talk by the noted scholar Jared Diamond on “Why Societies Collapse.”  It’s a classic instance of brilliant content married to a faulty delivery. (http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jared_diamond_on_why_societies_collapse.html)

Diamond describes five reasons why societies fail.  He uses as an example the European settlement on Greenland, that began in the 900s or so and died out roughly 500 years later.  First, Jared says, societies can have a destructive effect on their environment.  In this case, the Norse immigrants contributed to soil erosion through their destructive farming techniques, among other problems. 

Second, climates can change.  Unfortunately for the Norse, the world turned cold in the 1300 and 1400s.  Third, relations with friendly neighbors can weaken.  The ties to Europe faltered during the cold spells because of difficulty in traveling back east.  Fourth, relations with hostile neighbors can affect survival.  Here, the Inuits knew a good deal about survival during the colder era, but the Norse were unable to learn from them because of the two societies mutual incomprehension.  And finally, political, cultural and economic factors can prevent a society from seeing and responding to the impending collapse.  The Norse were heavily invested in their Christianity and in particular building cathedrals, and that effort was misguided to say the least in a land that was barely suited for hard-scrabble subsistence farming and raising sheep.

It’s quite cozy, in a slightly perverse way, to contemplate the unwise actions of a long-dead civilization.  But Jared smoothly makes the transition to our era, and we soon realize that we’re failing, too, on all five factors.  Just to make sure we don’t miss the point, Diamond lets us know that societies don’t decline gradually; rather, they collapse rapidly, within a few decades.  He notes that those in his audience who are under 50 will be witness to our collapse unless we manage to rise above history and change the ways things are going.  It's a scary message. 

And what about the scholar’s delivery?  Diamond has a commanding presence that he throws away because of his natural introversion.  He swallows his voice, bringing it out reluctantly from the back of his throat half-strangled.  He does move from his notes at the podium out to the audience, but he doesn’t clearly define that end point well enough, and he tends to wander in between the two points like a lost sheep. 

His gestures are defensive; he constantly crosses his arms and brings his hand to his face.  But the worst aspect of his body language in terms of connecting with people is his head posture.  Naturally enough, as a scholar with a lot on his mind, he leads with his head, looking down and rarely connecting with the audience.  As he warms up, he begins to direct fleeting glances at his audience as if he’s surprised that anyone is still there, but they don’t last long enough to help. 

All in all, an arresting and thought-provoking message marred by a hopelessly introverted delivery.  The classic absent-minded professor restricts the reach of his message because he doesn't know how to deliver it effectively. 

You should know TED.com

If you don’t know TED, you should get to know it.  TED.com is a repository of hundreds of fascinating short speeches, on every subject under the sun.  It’s a tremendous opportunity for speakers and students of public speaking to study the great and near-great on line in tidy little packages. 

What’s fascinating to me is how mediocre, on the whole, these brilliant people with wonderful ideas are.  They’re nervous, they pace randomly, they talk to mediocre slides, they are defensive – they are a catalogue of how not to do it.  That’s partly why they’re so inspiring – even the best have feet of clay.  their humanity makes them feel more approachable. 

And yet, the quality of the ideas does shine through, usually.  These people are opinionated, often a tad condescending, convinced of their righteousness, academic in the bad sense of the word – and yet fascinating. 

I’m going to spend the week talking about a few speakers from this treasure trove, but don’t take my word for it.  Go deep into TED.com and check them out for yourself. 

My first pick, because I’ve been a fan of space flight ever since Star Trek, is Carolyn Porco, a NASA person, and head of the unmanned flight to the moons of Saturn.  I’ve picked her talk to illustrate the right use of visual aids. (http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/carolyn_porco_flies_us_to_saturn.html)

Carolyn’s slides are, quite literally, out of this world, being pictures of Saturn and its moons.  She does manage to convey something of the magic of space flight that NASA’s spokespeople usually manage to kill.  And her story of what the team found on a moon of Saturn – the first time humans had landed anything on a planet in the outer solar system – is arresting.

That said, she commits the classic mistake of an inexperienced speaker.  In her nervousness, she starts out with her hands close to her side, nervously pacing hither and yon, and her gestures are circular, and repetitive, rising from the waist and spreading out, as if she’s trying to unload something, because she is:  her adrenaline.

Speakers instead should find ways of channeling their adrenaline that connect with the audience and build trust and credibility.

Once Porco gets into her topic, she settles down, and becomes quite effective.  It’s a good speech, and one to be studied for an effective use of visual aids.