In her article “6 rules for using gestures in presentations,” Leslie Belknap of “Ragan’s PR Daily” says “What you do with your hands during a presentation matters. Your gestures are a second language that communicates powerful messages to your audience.” And a wonderful TED talk by Allan Pease bears this out. (Read her article and dive into Mr. Pease’s talk from there.)
How should you use your hands when you’re making a presentation? Ms. Belknap cites six simple rules:
- Be natural. Practice your gestures at least seven (!) times before going public. You don’t want to distract your audience, so I’d add that you should practice at least once in front of someone you trust. They will tell you if your gestures look odd.
- Display numbers. Your hands are the ideal tool for this kind of visual, but stick to numbers less than 10—and five or less is even better.
- Open your palms. An open palm is unthreatening, but you want to keep your palms up, not down. Palms-up speakers have 40 percent more success. (Mr. Pease’s TED talk provides some beautiful examples, and he’s a funny guy, too.)
- Stay in the strike zone. Sounds ominous, doesn’t it? But what this really means is to confine your hand movements to the area between your hips and just below your shoulders. Outside this zone, your gestures will distract your audience.
- Don’t point. Your mom was right. As Ms. Belknap puts it, “Pointing communicates aggression and will make your audience uncomfortable.” Mr. Pease notes that pointing makes your audience feel as though you’re giving orders. (If you’re showing slides, use a pointer.)
- Remember to relax. That means you should take a break from gesturing. Save your gestures for your most important points. (Though Ms. Belknap doesn’t explicitly say so, practicing before your presentation will help you strike the balance between gesturing too much and too little.)
Why uses gestures at all? In my opinion, they help you emphasize your points. And, they also help you reduce your energy level. And if you ever decided to do a TED talk, they will earn it a higher ranking.
And now, for a bit of fun:
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