Pocket Hands

A friend of mine pointed me to this blog post by a woman named Shamelle, "12 Words and Phrases that Automatically Kill Your Self Image". On a side note, the author offers a class called "Title Writing: Save the Drama for Your Mama so You Don't Perish in Flames and Lose Your Family to Wild Dogs". It's pretty good.

Besides laughing out loud at one poster's comment about how his son says the F--- word more since working at a Chevy dealership, the article reminds me of a time when I had just finished an hour of coaching public speaking at a Wyoming school principals conference.

After my hour, I was approached by a professional speaker who told me that he had some advice for me. He said that I made the mistake of speaking in front of a group while having either of my hands in my pockets, and that I did so twice.

It was true. I did have my hands in my pockets a couple of times. In this case, I was aware that I was doing it, and it was purposeful to the extent that although it was not planned, it was a posture that matched the message I was conveying.

It is fine for a presenter to have their (own) hands in their pockets as long as:

1. the posture matches the occurring auditory 'track' (i.e. pocket-hands is sometimes an unconscious move when I am deeply listening to someone)
   
2. the presenter is in a more conversational, less formal moment
3. the presenter is in a personally vulnerable moment
   
4. the presenter is consciously matching a hostile audience's emotional state with his/her body
5. the presenter is playing a character

To me, effective public communication is not so much about being professional as being real. There are almost always norms and procedures we need to follow in every presentational dynamic, but in my world of public speaking, "genuine" almost always achieves more than "rules".

The challenge is learning how to be genuine in the midst of craft.

And finally, be wary of people promoting sound bites or 'easy fix' communication tips like "never put your hands in your pocket" or "always speak without 'um'". Audience style, speaker style, and event dynamics are all valid considerations that should influence our behaviors.

There are very few pervasive, simplistic communication keys. While there are a great number of easily understood strategies, most of them have unexplored room for the creative communicator to grow.

Speaking With Eyes

I was a theater major in college. I quickly learned that there is a stigma that accompanies this.

The biggest misconception about acting and its training is that it is about learning how to lie—that the craft is all about deception. I understand where this misconception comes from, but I have found that acting, at its heart, is about the opposite.

Realistic acting training is about heightening your awareness of self and others and learning how to express your most truthful and honest self. It is about freeing up your choices in language and movement so you can more effectively communicate anywhere along the continuum of controlled to emotive.

Basically, acting training cranks your communication ability up. It helps you to see and hear more things people do, including yourself, so that you both have more choices and can react to more input.

As an educator, this is my major appreciation for the craft and study of acting. It is not so much about acting as about performance, specifically, increasing communication performance.

The great actors are great because they can communicate so well. One thing they have is the awareness to make choices that the rest of us do not know exist. Actor Michael Caine digs into the art of communicating by focusing on two things we can do with our eyes.

To summarize a couple tips:

1. When communicating, blinking weakens you. "Increased blink frequency reflects negative mood states such as nervousness and stress." (John L. Andreassi) To avoid pinning your eyes open with clothes pins, train yourself to maintain open eyes in key moments. (I know a wonderful communication trainer, Michael Grinder, who has trained himself to keep his eyes open for more than 30 minutes at a time.) You can see the difference if you look in a mirror and speak without blinking for 20 seconds, versus the standard a half dozen blinks.
2. Only look in one eye—don't switch eyes as you make the eye contact with people. (For a large group, this could translate to make eye contact with individuals in the group for several seconds a piece as you speak, versus darting your eyes around the whole group every second or less). Maintaining steady eye contact in one spot conveys confidence to the entire group.

How valuable could it be if more education training was about communication training, and that it took cues from master communicators in all avenues?