Let Your Hands Do The Talking

During the first two months of 2019, I have had the pleasure and privilege of visiting twelve countries for work in Europe, the Middle East and South America, and part of the joy of what I do is the chance to be immersed in the culture and traditions of different worlds, and explore the challenges and opportunities in supporting professional men and women who work there. A focus this month has been how we use our hands when communicating, and my fascination in this area has been heightened by understanding how regional and cultural differences manifest themselves around the world. In addition, irrespective of where we come from, the reality that for all of us, it is in our hands that we experience stress. It is after all our hands that sweat and shake, rather than say - our elbows. Our hands reveal our inner emotional state and we can fall into the trap of multiple, small distraction movements in our hands (fiddling, twiddling, pen clicking etc.) that detracts and deflects from the power of our message.

I have also come across some fascinating research conducted by anthropologist Markus Koppensteiner which has explored the impact of hand movements on an audience, and their perception of a speaker’s message. Quite simply, when we use our hands to support our message we convey more energy, more enthusiasm and more conviction. So what? So the audience likes it - a lot. Our ability to be expressive using our hands supports a more positive response from those listening, and a fun fact is that the most popular TED talk speakers use twice as many hand gestures as those speakers who are less popular. It is the signalling of our enthusiasm and communicating of our passion for the topic which reaches our audience, is engaging and persuasive to them.

Leaders who are powerful communicators already know and do all this. The rest of us have to learn the skills, which means that when I say ‘let your hands do the talking’, what I mean is:

• Keep hands on show, because ‘visible hands’ convey confidence and authority.
• Be deliberate, relevant and emphatic with hands to reinforce key points.
• Avoid fiddling, twiddling, pen clicking and the like with hands. These ‘micro gestures’ are massively distracting, diminish our impact and dissuade our audience.
• Imagine a rectangular space in front of us going from our shoulders to our midriff. This ‘box’ is the area in which should use our hands and show movement.
• Beware of defensive gestures (especially when standing) which include hands folded, placed in front of us covering the groin area, hands behind our backs and hands in pockets. All of this says “I am really uncomfortable”. Naturally this is not a message that inspires.

Always remember that when it comes to executive presence, exquisite communication or whatever term you wish to use; the theory is easy but the execution is much harder.

Have fun whilst you practice.