Episode #376: Getting Emotional When Presenting In Business In Japan

Does introducing emotion when presenting mean sharing a good weep with the audience? No, that is way over the top in a business context and would be the death knell of the speaker’s credibility. We are not turning up to your talk to see you burst into tears, carried away with your lack of emotional control.
We are there with you for one of four reasons. 1. Most typically, we aspire to be informed about some relevant aspect of our business. 2. We might be there to be motivated to take some action, which we have procrastinated on and have you convince us to swallow the frog and go do it. 3. It could be to gain inspiration about you, your brand, your organisation and we become fans. 4. Entertain us. This could be an after dinner speech, where over copious great food and grog, we desire your raconteur wit and repartee.

In all four cases, random or spontaneous tears, are not on the menu. When I talk about emotion, I am referring to stopping the Easter Island statue impersonations you have been pulling off. If you have ever seen photos of these statues carved out of stone, the faces depicted are hard, unrelenting, and never changing. This could be you, by the way, when you are presenting.

I was reminded of this phenomenon the other day when teaching a class on presenting. The difference it made when the speakers smiled rather than being stone faced while presenting was remarkable. Why were they stone faced, like their ancient kin on Easter Island?

This is our problem as speakers when we are concentrating on the content of what we are going to say. Because of this, we are not conscious about the delivery of how we say it. Professor Albert Mehrabian cleared this point up in the 1960s during his research. He is often misquoted. If you ever want to defrock the credentials of someone claiming to be an expert on public speaking and presenting, see if they get his facts confused.

You will see the following numbers thrown around with shallow abandon and they are wrong. Dubious presentation teachers will tell you how you dress is 55%, your voice quality 38% and your words 7% of the ratio of how you make an impression on an audience. So dress well and sound nice. I was watching some “expert” on LinkedIn Learning sprouting these numbers with firm conviction. Run far and fast when you encounter these fake people.

The good Profs research point was these numbers are only relevant when you lack congruency between what you are saying and how you are saying it. If you said the words “the gap was huge” but you were holding your hands only a few centimeters apart to show the gap, that action wouldn’t be congruent with your words. If you were relaying some good news, but your face was projecting a dark, unhappy scowl, that wouldn’t be congruent with the words.

As per Mehrabian’s research, when we are confused by your lack of congruency, we wander off and start noticing how you are dressed or how you sound and we are distracted 93% of the time from your message. That is a very bad result for a speaker.

Rather than having only one expression on our face when presenting, we should have a constant barrage of expressions unfurling, each perfectly matched to the message we are delivering. If it is good news we are purveying, then we should smile. If we proffer bad news, we should look concerned. If something is puzzling us, we should look puzzled. If it is a bit odd, we should look curious.

As speakers, we want to connect with our audience and there is no better guarantee of failing in that regard than having the wrong face for the message we are conveying. If we have one constant “serious” face throughout our talk, it will be unlikely we can connect with the listeners. We need to relax our face to be more approachable and to engage with the audience.

Sounds simple, except if you are nervous or deep in concentration on what you are going to say next, all thoughts of audience connection can sail out the window and we are left with your best Easter Island statue impersonation. Like any activity, repetition teaches us how to relax when we are doing it.

When we first learnt to ride a bicycle or to drive a car, we were tense and stressed. Our face can be as hard as stone and our body contorted with stiffness. After many repetitions, we are able to relax and ride the bicycle and drive the car while multi-tasking (certainly not recommended folks). The point is, we learn how to relax and this happens when we do a lot of speaking repetitions.

Our face is the most powerful tool we have, so vastly superior to any monitor and slide deck. We need to access this power and work on matching the congruency of our words with what is on our face when we present. The best way to check your face is to video yourself. It can be shocking at first to realise the distance you have to bridge, but now you have awareness, you are a long way closer to being able to engage your audience.