The Importance of Nonverbal Messages

Speaker needs to take the nonverbal messages into consideration to ensure that your message is well received by the audience.  Nonverbal communication is an unwritten and unspoken message which may be intentional or unintentional. It includes facial expression, eye contact, tone and pitch of the voice, body movement, space, distance and appearance.

Nonverbal messages allow the speaker to reinforce the words spoken, deliver additional information, and gain feedback from the audience. If your audience is looking like the picture on the right, they are sending you a nonverbal message that your presentation is not going well. 

Since the nonverbal messages have considerable amount of effect on the presentation, speaker needs to be conscious about their nonverbal cues and how it’s influencing the audience.

In one of the episode of The Office, Michael Scott (Steve Carell) is giving a presentation about PowerPoint.  What kind of nonverbal message is he sending? I would say he already sent a negative nonverbal message about himself even before he started his presentation.  Here are few tips on nonverbal messages:

• Move your body to emphasize ideas. For example one can draw a big circle in the air to enhance the point about how big the object was 
• Vary your tone and pitch of the voice. It is hard for an audience to concentrate when audience is speaking in monotone
• Use your face expression to reinforce the verbal messages
• Move around. It shows the audience that you are confident and comfortable as supposed to standing at one spot
• Use the note as a guide. Do not read the note word-for-word. It is essential to have an eye contact with the audience
• Dress professionally