April 2013
Volume 12, No. 4

In this issue:

• Turning Off, Turning On
• Changing Bodies, Changing Minds

Well it's about time. Three weeks into the baseball season and spring is finally making its way up to Chicagoland and beyond. We can handle a little April snow and rain, as long as we know we'll be able to BBQ and sit through a ball game without winter hats and gloves soon!

Have you ever tried to "act as if", like those moments when you sit at your desk with a pencil in each hand imagining that you're playing drums for Springsteen? Imagination aside, there's solid evidence suggesting that making adjustments to your body language will enhance your performance. We'll share more about that in this month's Digest, and we'll address the challenges of reaching audiences, particularly in the digital age.

Turning Off, Turning On

This is a real story, as told to our correspondent up in Minnesota:

A software firm was hosting a Users' Conference for clients that regularly use the company's programs. They are a subsidiary of a Japanese company, and one of the executives decided that he wanted to open the conference by addressing the participants.

One problem--he didn't speak English.

Now think of your typical audience of computer experts who work with a high-end software system. Imagine their demographics--age-wise, personality-wise, job-wise. What do they wear? What kind of gear do they carry with them? What kind of attention span would you expect from them?

The outcome of the executive's decision to speak was entirely predictable. He began speaking in Japanese, and his interpreter translated for the audience. As he spoke, the room LIT UP, literally. This doesn't mean everyone sat on the edge of their seats, fully engaged with the speaker; rather, the room lit up as these valuable clients tuned out the speaker and tuned into their email messages, Twitter, Facebook, or whatever else people do on their smartphones, tablets or laptops.

Imagine that. The company flew hundreds of people from across the country into the same city, promised them several days of fascinating training and learning...and turned them all off within the first 20 minutes.

Sounds expensive.

This story demonstrates what we are hearing more and more--that ineffective speakers and presenters literally cost money. One perspective, from the huge industry of event planners: they lose valuable revenue because of poor skills among their presenters. Attendees fail to connect, their needs aren't met, and not only won't they return next year, but they'll pass that same message on to colleagues. As a result, company execs will lose money, and they'll lose their jobs, and they'll starve, and they'll die. (Worst case scenario, of course.)

Get how this works? Conference speakers MUST do a better job presenting. It's a bottom-line issue! Here's one article outlining the basic idea, but there are pieces like this all over the web. Try Google-ing some combination of "bad presentations lose money" and see what you find.

Audiences these days, particularly younger ones, know that they don't need to sit still and listen to whatever is being presented at them. They lose interest faster because they have plenty of other things to do. They are also much more comfortable getting up and going out into the hall to make some phone calls. So if we presenters don't do a better job of engaging them, we won't reach them at all. And that's a big problem in terms of training, selling, marketing and staying in the black.

At EMS, we know that the opposite is also true: great presentations are extremely valuable, both economically and otherwise. That's why we’re committed to the elimination of boring presentations, and to helping our clients develop the skills they need to "light up" a room...in the RIGHT way.

Click here to learn more about the various ways our client's engage EMS. Please read on for a related thought on becoming a more effective presenter...

Changing Bodies, Changing Minds

Here's an interesting statistic from a study that we learned about by watching a TED lecture featuring Harvard Professor and social psychologist Amy Cuddy:

People were able to predict the eventual election winners 70% of the time in U.S Senate and state gubernatorial races simply by looking at photos of both candidates for ONE SECOND.

Wow. Talk about the importance of appearance and body language. She had our attention!

Cuddy, an engaging speaker despite using a few too many non-words and some quirky gestures, has studied body language for years, and concludes that not only do our minds change our bodies, but that our bodies also change our minds.

Perhaps you recall that--in our January Digest--EMS wrote about how much a smile attracts people’s attention, as well as building the "smiler's" own self confidence, even if the smile isn't exactly genuine. Cuddy builds on this idea, and shows that people who practiced a "power posture" for just two minutes were able to change outcomes in their lives.

Cuddy discussed the results of her research and then demonstrated her idea. First, she showed photos of what these power poses look like among members of the animal kingdom as well as in people. Once such pose, called "Wonder Woman" (or Superman if you'd rather,) involves standing up straight, legs spread slightly apart, hand firmly on hips, head held up high, just like the super hero. In an academic study, those who tried this exercise, using that pose or similar ones, participated more effectively in class (where grades are impacted by class participation) and performed better in job interviews. (A panel of observers watched the interviews on video and, without knowing, consistently chose the candidates who had tried the posture over those in the control group who had not.)

You can read a copy of her research report in Psychological Science Online. According to her study, power posing raised testosterone levels in participants' brains by approximately 20%, while reducing levels of cortisol, a stress hormone in the body, by an average of 10%.

For 16+ years, EMS Communications has shown clients how big gestures, purposeful movement, and other positive and energetic body language make presenters more effective. In our workshops, we encourage participants to try these movements and practice them, even if they feel forced or uncomfortable, because, as Cuddy says, you can "change people's perceptions...simply by changing body language." (Follow these links to learn what participants experience in our Customized Corporate Workshops and our Public Workshops.)

From Ms. Cuddy, we now know that the impact goes even further: body language affects our own body chemistry, and improves our chances for success. In her TED talk, she concluded: "Our bodies change our minds, and our minds can change our behavior, and our behavior can change our outcomes." Two minutes of power posing (the Wonder Woman or others) makes you feel more passionate and confident, and helps project that to others.

In a world where people make judgments about you in just a few seconds, why wouldn't you try it?

Watch the video for yourself, and let us know how power posing works for you. Enjoy your spring, and we'll see you at the ballpark one of these days!

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