Presentation Myth 8: Body Language
Presentation Skills Myths and Realities #8
One of the greatest myths currently bandied around regarding advice on how to improve communication skills is the notion that only 7% is down to the words we use. The rest, a whopping 93%, is conveyed non-verbally, through body language and tone of voice.
I wish this was true. Imagine being able to attend a presentation delivered in any language and come away having understood 93% of the content. There’d be no need to learn any foreign languages.
As someone who was once caned at school for being bottom of the class in French (my plea that ‘someone had to be last’ was in vain), this would have been invaluable information. Sadly, it’s completely false.
For while there’s no denying that body language and tone of voice are important, to attach only 7% value to the words used is clearly absurd.
Even the originator of this ratio, Professor Albert Mehrabian, denies the universal application of these figures. His research, back in 1967, wasn’t about how we process language.
It had nothing to do with public speaking, because it was based simply on the information conveyed by a single word.
62 women (no men) were asked to listen to a woman’s voice saying the word ‘maybe’ in three different ways, conveying liking, neutrality, and disliking. They were then shown the static photograph of a woman’s face conveying these same three emotions. They were then asked to guess the emotions heard in the voice, seen in the photos, and both together. The result was that the subjects identified the emotions 50% more often from the photos than from the voice.
Mehrabian had no intention of relating his findings to normal conversations or to public speaking. In his book, ‘Silent Messages’ (2009), he writes: ‘unless a communicator is talking about their feelings or attitudes, these equations are not applicable’.
Perhaps Mehrabian was influenced by the work of Professor Ray Birdwhistell who claimed that ‘no more than 30-35% of the social meaning of a conversation or an interaction is caused by the words’ (Kinesics and Context 1950). But even Birdwhistell resisted the idea that body language could be deciphered in an absolute fashion.
In an interview with the New York Times in 1970, he said: ‘there are no universal gestures. As far as we know there is no single facial expression, stance, or body position, which conveys the same meaning in all societies’.
Birdwhistell’s colleague, Professor McQuown claimed that the chief insight from their research was that ‘no aspect of communication may be assumed to be a priori more important than any other’
Presenting is all about integrity, about relationship, about Trust, about authenticity. It’s not about acting. Ever since we started speaking, our bodies have been practising on a daily basis to be in tune with our voice. Given our differences in personality, culture, and biological make-up, we all have our own body language. There simply isn’t a single universal way of gesturing to add emphasis when speaking.
Anyone wanting to get their body language ‘right’ when presenting need only have one concern: attitude. Be totally focused on the moment. Put everything else – absolutely everything – to one side. Prepare relevant messages and stories in advance. Treat your audience with total respect.
Approach every presentation with that attitude and you can forget about your body language.
