Tips for Presenting: Actions Speak Louder Than Words

This chapter is from the book

The Power Presenter: Techniques, Style, and Strategy to Be Suasive, 2nd Edition

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This chapter is from the book

This chapter is from the book 

The Power Presenter: Techniques, Style, and Strategy to Be Suasive, 2nd Edition

Learn More Buy

The Power of the Visual

Malcolm Gladwell spent 288 pages of his international bestseller Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking discussing what he calls “those first two seconds” ⁴ of how people make snap judgments based on first impressions. Frequently, that first impression is purely Visual. The deer-in-the-headlights presenter in the Introduction made a significant first impression without a word of the Verbal or a decibel of the Vocal.

The Visual impact is greater than the Vocal and the Verbal. Or, put another way, Actions (body language) Speak (voice) louder than Words (story).

The Power of the Visual Exercise

Ask a colleague or friend to be your audience for a very brief presentation. Then step up to the front of the room and start to speak, but do so silently, moving your lips without using your voice. As you do, slouch, put your weight on one leg, thrust your hands deep into your pockets, and dart your eyes around the room rapidly.

Then stop and step to the side of the room.

After a moment, step back to the front of the room, stand up straight, look directly at your colleague, and move your lips silently again. Address all your energies to your colleague and extend your hand toward that person, as if you were about to shake hands.

Stop again and ask your trial audience to react to both versions of your exercise. Undoubtedly, the person will respond negatively to the first and positively to the second. And they will have made that evaluation solely on what they saw, not what they heard.

Federico Fellini, one of the world’s greatest film directors, fully appreciated the power of the Visual. As a practice, he cast actors more for their appearance than for their voice. Often, he cast nonprofessionals to play the role on camera and later dubbed their dialogue with the voices of professional actors.

Given the time and effort that most presenters expend in preparation for their high-stakes presentations tapping away at their computers, shuffling slides, scribbling on whiteboards or yellow legal pads, or slapping Post-it notes all over the walls, they assume that content is paramount. But when they stand to present, the story takes third place, behind the body language and the voice.

The Power of the Visual in Action

The 40th President of the United States

Consider Ronald Reagan, known as the “Great Communicator,” and deservedly so for his peerless skills as a public speaker (Figure 1.1). No president in the history of the United States achieved the level of popularity ratings that Reagan did. During his eight years in office (1981–1989), he brought personality to the forefront of presidential qualities. In an office that previously had been occupied by career politicians, former generals, or professional bureaucrats, Reagan’s persona radiated a subtle but irresistible charisma that held the national news media, the electorate, and every audience he ever faced in his thrall.

Figure 1.1 Former President Ronald Reagan

The measure of Reagan’s impact was best expressed in a reaction to what was to be his presidential swan song: a pass-the-baton speech in support of his imminent replacement, then-Vice President George H.W. Bush. On August 15, 1988, at the Republican National Convention in New Orleans, the assembled delegates in the enormous Louisiana Superdome, and the even larger prime-time television audience, watched as Reagan poured on the charm:

• With George Bush, I’ll know as we approach the new millennium our children will have a future secure with a nation at peace and protected against aggression. We’ll have a prosperity that spreads the blessings of our abundance and opportunity across all America. We’ll have safe and active neighborhoods, drug-free schools that send our children soaring in the atmosphere of great ideas and deep values, and a nation confidently willing to take its leadership into the uncharted reaches of a new age.

• So, George, I’m in your corner. I’m ready to volunteer…

The partisan crowd in the Superdome interrupted, rising to their feet to roar their approval, waving their blue and white “Bush ’88” banners in a tidal wave of affection. Reagan smiled humbly and then continued:

• …a little advice now and then and offer a pointer or two on strategy, if asked. I’ll help keep the facts straight or just stand back and cheer. But, George, just one personal request:

Reagan paused for dramatic effect, his eyes crinkling. His lips parted into that classic sunny smile.

Then he resumed to deliver the climax with his trademark signature phrase:

• Go out there and win one for the Gipper.⁵

The Television Critic

Among the viewers of the nationwide telecast was Howard Rosenberg, the Pulitzer Prize–winning television critic of the Los Angeles Times, who summed up his reaction in his column the next day:

• There is a critical moment early in every Reagan speech when his physical presence begins to eclipse his words—when you begin watching more and hearing less—feeling more and thinking less. Look and mood completely take over. That presence on TV: just the sight of him cocking his head with his sincere grin and lopsided hair, is still worth a thousand words and millions of votes.⁶

The Scientists

An equally powerful but converse example of Howard Rosenberg’s reaction to Ronald Reagan comes from Oliver Sacks, who was a prominent physician (Professor of Clinical Neurology and Clinical Psychiatry at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons), as well as a successful author. In his bestselling book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales, Dr. Sacks described his work with aphasic (brain-damaged) patients. In one incident, Dr. Sacks entered a ward to find most of the patients watching a Reagan speech on television and laughing at him hysterically.

Dr. Sacks explained:

• Why all this? Because speech—natural speech—does not consist of words alone.…It consists of utterance—an uttering-forth of one’s whole meaning with one’s whole being—the understanding of which involves infinitely more than mere word recognition. And this was the clue to aphasics’ understanding, even when they might be wholly uncomprehending of words as such.⁷

Further scientific validation of the power of body language comes from David McNeill, professor emeritus, Departments of Psychology and Linguistics at the University of Chicago, who conducted studies in a subject he called “communicative effects of speech-mismatched gestures.”⁸ The subjects in the study were shown a video in which speakers told a story, but with gestures that differed oddly from the content. After the story, the subjects were asked to retell the story from memory. The subjects described what they saw rather than what they heard. They described the gestures, not the words. The Visual dominated the Vocal and the Verbal.

The Soviet Premier

On September 23, 1960, a day at the height of the Cold War, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, the contentious leader of the Communist Bloc, came to New York to attend a session of the United Nations General Assembly. When he stepped up to the Swedish green marble dais to deliver his own speech, Khrushchev unleashed a vehement attack against the West, the United Nations, and, in particular, the United States (Figure 1.2).

Figure 1.2 Former Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev

The delegates in that international audience, listening to a simultaneous interpreter’s voice translate his Russian words, did not hear Khrushchev’s voice. So it was his vehement gestures that dominated, vividly conveying his aggressive message. Body language told the story.

The First Televised Presidential Debate

Three days after Khrushchev’s speech in New York, a landmark rhetorical event took place at the CBS television studios in Chicago: Vice President Richard M. Nixon and Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy, respectively the Republican and Democratic candidates for president, met in the first-ever televised presidential debate. Nixon, the favorite, appeared nervous and rigid, while Kennedy, the underdog, appeared confident and poised. The day after the debate, their positions in the public opinion polls reversed—further proof of the power of the body language.

You’ll see a detailed analysis of the historic encounter in Chapter Seven: Speak with Your Body Language.

The Political Journalist

James Fallows, after having served as a speechwriter for President Jimmy Carter, became a respected national correspondent for The Atlantic, specializing in presidential debates. In one of his articles, Fallows summed up the power of the Visual dynamic:

• …the easiest way to judge “victory” in many debates is to watch with the sound turned off, so you can assess the candidates’ ease, tenseness, humor, and other traits signaled by their body language.⁹

The Mime

The purest example of the power of the Visual is pantomime, the silent art, which had its origins in classical Greek and Roman drama and later evolution in sixteenth-century Italian commedia dell’arte.

France’s Marcel Marceau (Figure 1.3), one of the world’s most famous mimes, for decades captivated audiences around the globe with his wordless performances. Of special note is his portrayal of the stages of life in a piece called “Youth, Maturity, Old Age, and Death.”

Figure 1.3 Marcel Marceau

Marceau begins the sequence curled up in the fetal position and then, slowly, in one unbroken sequence, opens up and becomes a toddling infant. Continuing fluidly, he stretches his limbs, and the infant transforms into a strapping young man, striding vigorously forward in place. But soon his strides slow down, his shoulders hunch over, and he becomes an old man, doddering forward until he concludes in a shriveled ball, a mirror image of the fetal position at the start.

Another mime tells a less profound and more whimsical tale—of a person getting ready to go to work—with a complete beginning, middle, and end, all in 60 seconds. The Visual tells the entire story without the Verbal or Vocal.

For our culminating example, we return to the business world and, in particular, the high stakes of IPO roadshows. A fascinating academic study examined “how investor perceptions of management influence firm valuation.”¹⁰ To assess those perceptions, researchers showed 30-second video clips from the NetRoadshows of 224 companies to random audiences—but they filtered the soundtrack so that the CEOs’ voices were distorted, and their words were unintelligible.

The Wall Street Journal reported on the study and, in their article, went right to the bottom line:

• They found that perceptions of the CEO are a strong predictor of an IPO’s price. The study found that for the average CEO, a 5% higher rating on perceptions correlated to an IPO price roughly 11% higher than the price that would be expected based on fundamentals alone. ...The more a chief executive’s gestures and manners exude competence during investor pitch sessions, the more likely he or she is to have a higher-priced IPO.¹¹

“Gestures and manners” are the Visual dynamic. The irony is that most presenters spend most of their time and effort on the Verbal content. So, am I suggesting that you should forget about telling your story and focus all of your energy on your delivery skills? Not at all. Put equal effort on both sides of the equation, as much on your body language and your voice as on your story, as much on the messenger as the message.

Of course, as always, focus on how your audience perceives you, the messenger, and the message. Build a bridge between you and your audience. That bridge is empathy.