|
Is it true? Is it not
so much what you say, as how you say it? Is Gail Godwin claiming that
content is less important than putting on a good show? Yes, I think she
is. Sound unorthodox?
ANYONE FOR A BURGER?
Ask any successful restaurateur or marketer.
While careful attention to that “one-fourth preparation” is vital,
they’ll attest from their own experience that any product, service,
speech or document stands or falls on presentation. I've tasted delicious
hamburgers for as little as one dollar … or as much as fifteen dollars.
Was one burger really worth $14 more? Probably not. But you can bet it
wasn't paper-wrapped, served on a plastic cafeteria tray and handed to me
at the cash register.
Likewise, any business manager, leader or sales
professional will find much greater communication success by giving
enough attention to presentation. A powerful message squelched by poor
delivery will not be remembered, much less
devoured hungrily, by your audience. While bizarre theatrics could
certainly detract from communication, a little drama goes a long way to
set you and your message apart from the rest. Any professional who speaks
to inform and influence can benefit from mastering a few theater basics.
Let’s look at some of these.
A BODY OF EVIDENCE
The first skill all actors develop is body
control. While an actor’s goal is to communicate a character, a speaker’s
goal is to communicate a message. Both types of communicators can support
or hinder their goals by what they do or don’t do with their bodies. How?
1.
The first
step is to neutralize – expel
those repetitive gestures, that slouch, those
idiosyncrasies and nervous ticks. Beginning actors and untrained speakers
often have a habit of fingering the stage furniture or the edge of the
lectern. A small gesture such as this says to anyone watching, “I’m
nervous. I’m not confident. I need reassurance.” Most of us
subconsciously express confidence or nervousness in these small body
language giveaways.
2.
The second
step to improved body control is awareness.
If you are a fitness fan, then you’re already on the road to body
control, as the key is awareness – thinking about what your body is doing
at a given moment.
To improve your body control, try these
exercises to increase awareness and to neutralize extraneous, detracting
body language.
·
Speak in
front of a mirror or a video camera.
·
Get a
“director” to observe you and take notes.
·
Try your
presentation as a character (anyone – Mickey Mouse, Robert DeNiro) just to discover what it feels like to be
“out of yourself.” After doing this, just being yourself
will feel much less awkward than it did before the exercise.
WHAT’S THAT YOU SAY?
If the body is the actor’s “instrument,” then
the voice is the music it makes. I attended a retreat a few weeks ago.
The main speaker had a nasally voice, spoke too fast, used vocal pauses
and poor grammar. These verbal obstacles caused me to lose her content
almost entirely, and yet she could have eliminated these impediments with
a little attention. Here are some basics to make sure your voice quality
supports your message:
§
Speak with Good Projection
This is an absolute for any communicator. Actors
know that if an audience can’t hear or understand them, nothing else they
do matters at all. Don’t rely on a microphone to carry your voice. They
fail too often.
§
Employ Proper Diction
This is just as important as good projection. To
improve your diction -- the clarity of your speech -- try speaking with a
pencil sideways between your teeth, perform challenging tongue twisters,
force yourself to speak excruciatingly slow, or take on different
accents.
§
Experiment with Your Vocal Registers
Sing. Make a habit of rolling your head and shoulders around before you
speak. Do breathing exercises (remember hissing in high school choir?).
Speak while lying flat on the floor with a book on your stomach, or from
the other end of a long hallway. These will all help improve your vocal
quality and give you better projection.
THE “EYES” HAVE IT
The eyes are the windows of the soul, and
therefore an actor’s or business communicator’s greatest tool. To use the
power of your eyes:
§
Look at the Person to Whom You Are Talking!
This is a director’s constant refrain when
working with beginners. One would think this rule would be obvious but
there is something magnetic about those lights, that ceiling and that
floor. Harness eye power by rejecting that magnetic force and focus
instead on the other actor or, for a speech, on your audience Especially when you’re nervous or have forgotten a
line.
§
Communicate Honesty with Eye-to-Eye Contact
An actor learns to avoid eye contact only when his
character is lying or cheating, nervous, or distracted -- not the things
a public speaker wants to communicate!
§
Initiate and Sustain
We all love those climactic moments in the story when
two characters lock eyes, exchanging some explosive message without
saying a word. Initiating and sustaining strong eye contact communicates
power and control, as well as sincerity.
DON’T FORGET THE FINAL TOUCHES:
I love theater costumes and make-up. You don’t
need to go to your next business meeting as Robin Hood, but analyze what
image your personal grooming conveys. Remember that:
·
Blue says
“I’m open”
·
Black says,
“Don’t mess with me,”
·
Red draws
the eye and says, “I’m in control.”
The stage and the lights are like a double
espresso to me. Every time you have the floor in a meeting it’s opening
night. You can’t always choose your “stage” as a speaker but you can
determine how you use the space you have. Fill it. Move about. Focus your
energy and eliminate nervous fidgeting by using “props” (a pointer, a
chart, a metaphorical object, etc.)
And, lastly, a word about content. On a recent
field trip to the Performing Arts Center in Denver, one of my students asked an actor, “What
happens if you forget your lines?” He replied without hesitation, “We
don’t. We’re professionals. It’s our job to own every syllable of our
material.”
Exactly. Which brings us back
to preparation.
================
Kristi Hemingway, one of WriteWorks
Agency’s stellar freelance writers, lives and works in the Denver, Colorado area. Her background includes teaching and performing as an
actor, dancer and director for the stage. Her writing specialties include
business-to-consumer, arts and entertainment and nonprofit organizations
|