Whenever you make a presentation it is a good idea to use gestures freely. You do that in normal conversation, yet many presenters appear to try and restrict their hand movements. Indeed, some presentation skills trainers tell you to keep your hands still. They have no idea why they are saying this, other than some theory that hand movements can be distracting. Nonsense. All the research suggests that lack of hand movements and gestures are much more distracting.

So, use gestures as you would normally. However, there is a way of using hand gestures that can make your presentation have more impact and make you more believable. This is called the "iconic gesture".

Rather than just randomly waving your hands about, an iconic gesture provides an image. For instance, let's imagine you had to talk about "chopping the budget". If your hands made a chopping motion at the same time, your audience gets the message more clearly. Similarly, if you had to talk about the biggest opportunity your company has had in years, holding your hands wide apart would make this have more impact. In other words, if your hand gestures draw a picture in the audience's mind. you are much more effective as a presenter.

Labels: body language

DIGG THIS STORY

Email this story to your friends: