nonverbal communications

The Science of Eye Contact
Eye contact with the audience is an essential part of any presentation. Without it the audience will feel remote from the presenter and are unlikely to relate to them or their message in a meaningful way. Not many presenters realize how important eye contact is, or how sensitive people are to it. Eye contact should be a positive form of body language communication, but if it is not used correctly it can easily become a negative form of nonverbal communications.

The face in the diagram has a shaded area which indicates the correct target zone for positive eye contact. That is looking anywhere within this shaded zone represents positive eye contact. Think about where else you might be tempted to look at someone’s face during a presentation; which area of the face do you think would cause the most discomfort to the person being looked at?

Looking at someone’s face anywhere outside of the triangular target zone is likely to cause some degree of embarrassment. However, the no-go zones shown are both associated with strong adverse reactions. Zone A represents the intimate zone and by moving just a fraction below the base of the target triangle you will enter it. When this happens people typically react by feeling that the other person is staring at them, or that the observer looks shifty. Zone B represents a dominant zone and by looking at the forehead of another person you are likely to invoke a reaction that you appear to be arrogant, that you are staring straight through them or more commonly that you are talking down at them.

As well as understanding nonverbal communications to make positive eye contact with an individual it is also important to ensure that your gaze encompasses your whole audience - including those at the back and the sides. Try to avoid holding eye contact only with audience members who appear enthusiastic and interested. Whilst you may find it more difficult to engage members of the audience who appear neutral, it is important to try to involve them.

Reading Your Audience’s Body Language
When you are making a presentation the best way of staying in control and keeping your audience with you is to keep them interested in what you are saying. The best strategy is to prepare and then deliver a presentation that your audience find spellbinding. Unfortunately, many business presentations will be based on subject matter that is just not that interesting. Another complication is that audiences are made up of individuals, who will not share the same interests, attention span or boredom threshold. People vary in the way they express disagreement, boredom and frustration and you should be able to read nonverbal communications as signs of this from the body language demonstrated by your audience. Members of an audience don’t usually think of themselves as being observed, and consequently their guards tend to be down - making their body language relatively easy to read.

There are a variety of body language signals that you might observe among members of an audience: Members of an audience can show signs of disapproval or hostility in a variety of ways. You may observe people pointedly discussing things with a neighbor, looking at the ceiling, out of a window or frowning whilst looking at you. A negative posture, with an impassive or slightly hostile expression, arms folded as if to form a barrier and legs crossed with the person leaning back - suggests resistance to the presenter. However, you should be careful to avoid making judgments based on observing one piece of body language in isolation. For example crossed legs or crossed arms on their own should not be automatically read as a negative reaction.

A neutral and open attitude is often accompanied by a neutral or slightly friendly facial expression and an upright or slightly forward leaning seating position. As these people have not yet decided whether or not they agree with your main message you may observe a mixture of gentle nods and shakes of their head as you make your key points. Neutrals should be viewed as a positive resource - it is after all the job of your presentation to win them over.

Someone interested in what you are saying may be smiling and nodding in agreement or frowning in thought, possibly leaning forward attentively. Hands clasped together may also indicate that a person is carefully considering what you are saying, as may leaning on their chin. In this illustration the position of the legs also indicates a positive and alert listener. If boredom is affecting any members of your audience this may manifest itself in reversion to common habits - such as fidgeting with personal belongings like glasses, watches, pens and earrings. Whilst looking at a watch or clicking a pen may demonstrate boredom don’t confuse these signs with such things as the chewing of the end of a pen, which may indicate thoughtfulness. Members of the audience who become bored may also whisper among themselves, rustle papers, scribble aimlessly on notepads, throw back their head between their cupped hands and even make audible sighs.

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