Two Instant Presentation Upgrades

by Heather Stubbs

Do you want to upgrade the effectiveness of your presentations? The two most powerful actions you can incorporate into your delivery are a smile and eye contact.

Everyone you talk to is sizing you up emotionally and instinctively before they focus consciously on the content of your presentation. They can’t help it. It’s the way the human brain is designed. Neuroscientist Antonio Damasio said, “We are not thinking machines that feel; rather, we are feeling machines that think.”

Even people who seem unemotional base their decisions on their feelings to a vastly greater degree than we might imagine.

The path of information

All information that reaches us through our eyes and ears travels along nerve paths that go first to the instinctive and emotional centres of our brain. When you speak, this part of your listener’s brain pays close attention to how you look and sound. Based on that, it develops a feel for whether it’s safe to open up and trust you, or whether it needs to be on guard against you.

It’s no secret that when someone trusts us, they are more likely to be receptive to our ideas, but someone who is on the defensive doesn’t really hear what we are saying. If a person feels even slightly uncomfortable with you, to that degree they are on the defensive against you, and will not be responsive to your message.

Why so powerful?

Why are eye contact and a smile so powerful? Because they link to our deepest and most primitive desire – to survive. Scientists believe that the process of screening information through the instinctive and emotional parts of our brain appeared very early in human evolution. The perceptions we develop are sometimes buried so deeply in our unconscious that we’re not even aware of them. We think it just feels better when someone smiles.

But why? Because it makes us feel safer.

As far as our unconscious brain is concerned, a person who smiles is more likely to be friendly and safe than an unsmiling person, who might be hostile and a threat to our survival. Instinctively, we all know that the quickest way to make someone relax is to smile at them. Even if you must be the bearer of bad news, your message will be more effective if you can find a way to ensure that your listeners don’t feel you are personally hostile toward them. Focusing on solutions and wearing even a slight smile will increase your listeners’ receptivity.

The need to be acknowledged

Everyone, from the most introverted to the most extroverted, has a need to be acknowledged as someone who matters. When you look someone in the eye, you fulfill that need. You show them that you see them and care about them. This harks back to our need to feel safe, doesn’t it?

Someone who cares about you is less likely to be a threat. When your direct eye contact shows you care about your listeners, the instinctive and emotional parts of their brain feel it’s safe to relax and respond.
We think we’re so modern, don’t we? Yet we all still function from a part of ourselves that is deep and primal. When you look your listeners in the eye and smile at them, you get that deep, primal part of them working with you, instead of against you.

Links

• image courtesy of Arkady Chubykin

Heather Stubbs helps her clients discover their own potential as exciting speakers at Skilltime. She has been performing onstage since early childhood as a musician, singer and actress. Heather compiled the lessons learned and mastered over a lifetime into a training program called, “SPEAK UP! How to Talk So People Listen”. She offers workshops, keynote speeches and private coaching. You’ll find more on the Experion website,  LinkedIn and Twitter.