Self-enhancing Gestures

Since the days of the Roman gladiators when “thumbs up” meant life and “thumbs down” meant death, gestures have been important. While there are some universal hand gestures which communicate quickly and precisely, here we are talking about much more than that.

A full 55 percent of feelings and attitudes are communicated nonverbally. *Hands and arms serve a primary function in proper communication. For a positive example of how to use gestures effectively watch the arms and hands of people during a social conversation. For a negative example, watch your boss at your next staff meeting. Chances are he will fold his arms at least twice, to his pockets half-a-dozen times, and fold his hands in front of his waist and behind his back even more often.

Since the majority of executives in today’s business world have had no training in nonverbal communication skills, they must not be held responsible. **You will no longer need this excuse if you read on.

To be understood, you don’t have to gesture like Lawrence Olivier playing Macbeth. One of the keys to proper gesturing is to expand your own movement outside the comfort zone. Most movement is contained in an area between the shoulders and the hips. Most effective movement occurs outside this area, or begins outside this area and moves back in. Get your hands outside this area, and you’ll immediately feel and see a difference in communication.

If you have access to a video recorder, tape yourself in what feels like a abnormal gesture (the widest river – arms spread at maximum breadth; the tallest mountain – arms as high over head as possible; the longest rifle – one hand at shoulder, the other stretched straight ahead as far as possible). Nine times out of 10, you will think the gesture feels abnormal. However, the gesture will not look abnormal or unnatural to the viewer. This tells you that expanding your gestures is OK, and that you will not be perceived as a clown or a Shakespearean actor.

The second key to effective gestures is to look for the opportunity to use more dramatic movement. Effective business communicators seize the opportunity to make their points more vivid. While preparing a presentation, these effective communicators look for action words that lend themselves to gestures. Words like growth, small, large, quiet, high, low, and typewriter are practiced with the accompanying gestures until the gestures feel comfortable. This practice will make the gestures feel comfortable, while allowing you to drive the point home to your audience.

Practice is important because simply expanding the gesture is not enough. In an effort to make his point more vivid and to really drive home the idea, the pastor called out, “When the roll is called up yonder (index finger emerges from pounding fist and is thrust dramatically upward)…I’ll be there!” (extravagant sweeping downward motion so that on the word ‘there’ the pastor pointed dramatically downward). From this illustration, you can see the necessity of appropriate gestures when communicating to a group.