The Eyes

“Let every eye negotiate for itself and trust no agent” William Shakespeare

This is probably not the first article you've read on how to use your eyes effectively during a presentation. Yes, we all know it’s important. Yes, it's key for building a relationship with the audience, key for the speaker to assess audience feedback and key to keep the audience engaged with all non-verbal cues.

What I would like to share here though, is a proven technique to help a speaker to not only improve their eye contact while presenting but a technique you can use to help structure their rehearsing.

Before going into the technique let's widen the scope to remind ourselves on how important eye contact is. We use it to garner other people intentions, gage potential danger, read a room and determine other people’s intentions, whether they be friend, foe, or romantic interest. In situations outside of presenting, professional meetings, social gatherings, situations where building trust Is the objective such as when negotiating or forming a new partnership (and trying to gage someone’s intentions) how we use eye contact becomes a key thing.

In Anglo Saxon and European cultures, strong eye contact when meeting people is a necessity in business to establish trust. If we don’t receive it, we simply don’t feel included nor respected. In some cultures, however, in similar situations, this can differ. In African, Asian, and Latin American cultures, prolonged eye contact with superiors can be interpreted as a challenge to authority and is also frowned upon as out of place from subordinates. In the middle east, good eye contact between same genders is approved but should be moderated when connecting with people from the opposite gender along with shaking hands.

Presenting to a room is a slightly different scenario, even if we can take in to account the cultural aspects I’ve just previously discussed, the dynamic during a presentation in front of an audience is several eyes on one speaker. The speaker must find a way to juggle and maintain this attention constantly. Audience eye contact in return will greatly differ too. With some audiences being more confrontational with their eye contact and others more avoidant. Again, cultural factors can influence this.

Firstly, the most important thing to remember is that presenting to a room needs to be conducted as if you were having a conversation with every person in front of you. It's important to abandon this idea that's you are somehow reciting a speech to a crowd, like an actor or entertainer. It is an error to look at a speech as a ‘block to be delivered’ and see it as more a series of thoughts and ideas.

Storytelling is a powerful tool, but it takes years to hone. There may be situations in smaller groups where there is a conversation with one speaker, and they are telling a story to rest of the group. Like someone telling their friends a story in a bar. This is a great exercise by the way because presentations in this informal context are always the best. With simplified language and passionate speaker engagement. I often tell my speakers ‘Right, tell me the same thing but now imagine that you are in a bar surrounded by friends who are listening to your story’.

What can be problematic is when the speaker is not looking at everyone. If everyone in the group is not getting eye, contact it can be difficult to maintain engagement for those who are not receiving any eye engagement. Sometimes this can even lead to frustration and resentment.

I remember on one occasion being in the Groucho club in London many years ago as a young actor and finding myself in a conversation with an actor friend and a famous British journalist. At no moment did the journalist show any interest in me nor make any eye contact while speaking to my actor friend. In fact, I felt she was deliberately ignoring me. I became quite annoyed with this situation and lost all interest in their conversation instead turning my attention elsewhere in the room. I'm sure there are many reading this that have been in similar situations.

Every time we are speaking to a group of people engaging in a conversation with multiple people each one of them deserves our attention and our eye contact.

When a presenter doesn’t look at us it is too is difficult to follow, or perhaps the eye contact is distributed strangely with the speaker only watching one person, like when a student will only address the teacher during an oral exam for example, even if there are 30 other students present. Sometimes its rushed, not really landing anywhere. Once I saw a very interesting TED talk in Paris by a published sexologist, but her talk was compromised because she chose to only deliver it one fixed point in the audience. It was off putting and interfered with one’s ability to follow as at no point did, we feel her gaze. One on one conversations need a very specific type of eye contact. One that is repeatedly moving and breaking between the various individuals in the room. Therefore, I would like to introduce you to the connect loop.

The Connect loop.

For years now I have been inspired by a technique that I learned from grandmaster coach Jerry Weissman. Jerry who is still operating out of Silicon Valley, has been in the game for over 30 years. I had the absolute pleasure of interviewing him at during the Christmas peroid of 2021 for an Ideas on Stage podcast and we discussed his materials and techniques at great length. The technique that I wish to share with you here is based on his Eye Connect Method which I have renamed the Connect Loop because of its continuous movement when using it. It can be applied on top of everything that I have discussed up until now. We are in essence building from the ground up so let me remind you the work we’ve already covered.

-Adopt the GI stance (for the posture) and blow out a line of air starting from the diaphragm/solar plexus. Get a feel for the breath entering down into the belly pushing the solar plexus out. This is connecting the breath.

The Connect Loop Exercise:

-Keep the GI-stance (grounded and interested) and continue to fill the solar plexus and breathe out firstly on a hiss, then on to a hum. This time, on a wall in front of you, stick 4 or 5 post-its (or project an image of an audience facing you on to a screen or a wall works very nicely too). With every breath move from one post-it to another in any order. This is what we do when we present, simply by exhaling breath at different people in a random order. The only difference is each breath contains a message which is delivered as a beautifully crafted phrase.

-Repeat the same exercise; this time instead of humming count to 10 on each breath. 1-10, then change focus point. 1-10 then change focus point, 1-10 then change focus point.

This process is the unique pattern which is the Connect Loop.

Let’s try again on a presentation. With actual sentences instead of counting. For each sentence, or rather phrase, direct it at a different post-it or audience member in the photo.

Don’t worry too much at this stage about the cadence, just be mindful to use one breath per sentence. Let’s use the example from Steve Job’s IPhone launch presentation from 2007.

‘This is a day; I’ve been looking forward to for 2 and half years’ (to one person)

‘Every once in a while, a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything’

(To one person)

‘Well first of all, one’s very fortunate if you get to work on one of these in your career.’

(To one person)

“Apples been very fortunate, it’s been able to introduce a few of these into the world.’

(To one person)

"In 1984 we introduced the Macintosh"

(to one person)

"It didn't just change Apple; it changed the whole computer industry"

(to one person"

The first thing that you will observe is that as you shift focus point, from yourself, to the audience, and deliver one phrase per person is that a pause happens all by itself between the participants. It arrives automatically at the end of every phrase. What this does is it gives the audience a chance to absorb every sentence and think about what is being said. Most people are nervously babbling their way through their presentations, and nobody is getting a chance to capture anything or reflect. Speed truly kills communication for the human brain.

This technique is valuable for so many reasons. Firstly, it forces you to slow down and break down your speech into bite-sized chunks inserting a pause in between, and secondly it forces you to relate to every person in the audience through the eyes as you connect with one person after the other allowing you to make a real connection in real time with presence.

There is a downside to this though. It means that you will start to gauge the reactions, you will see how people are reacting and some people can give negative vibes. This can be destabilizing during presenting but because you see the reactions you need now to train yourself to deal with them and adapt accordingly. If there are too many disgruntled or confused faces in the audience, you will need to stop and invite questions from them. This adjustment in the moment will garner more respect from them as you choose to deal with the problem instead of avoiding.

Now I have worked this technique with hundreds of clients and students over the years. I have taught it at the Sorbonne, HEC, to many successful entrepreneurs and executives and to senior leaders within the World Bank and the European Central Bank. It really works. It will transform the effectiveness of your delivery tenfold. But I stress, it lends itself better as a rehearsal exercise. On D-day just drop it and keep it simple. Over time and practice it will be present in your work in a consistent way.

One of the strongest results I’ve seen from rehearsing with this technique was with a young underwriter at the World Bank in 2018.

He was invited to give an 8-minute keynote for a key event marking the 30-year anniversary of MIGA (Multilateral Insurance and Guarantees Agency) which is the risk and guarantees arm of the World Bank. I had flown over from Paris to accompany him especially for this event and I was tasked to not only coach him but help him develop his content and produce his slides for him.

Our rehearsal process was very diligent, and he applied himself brilliantly putting in more hours than he needed, particularly in the rehearsal stages where he worked this technique with me over and over until he totally nailed it.

On the day, despite a few technical challenges on my Mac 10 minutes before (which were solved by a very quick-thinking technician), he gave an astounding presentation in front of over 1500 people in the live audience and many more joining remotely. His delivery was measured, robust, present and had everyone in the room in the palm of his hand. He left the stage to rapturous applause. That night we celebrated in DC. The experience raised his profile and visibility within the group and people are still talking about his talk 5 years later.

So, make time for it and practice. As said, it is primarily a rehearsal technique however and I advise that you drop thinking about it on the day because on the day we need to occupy a space of simplicity and trust. Of all the times I’ve tried it with people maybe I’ve seen a handful who couldn’t get it. It is singularly one of the most powerful presentation techniques out there and I have Jerry Weissman to thank for that.

So, to recap:

-GI-Stance

-Breathe out from the solar plexus in lines of air towards a fixed target

-Bring the airflow out to a voiced vowel sound such aa vowel still aiming for the fixed target: ah; ay, ee. Then do the same thing but count to 10, then 12, 14, 16.

-Now moving from a fixed point to either a series of post-it’s on a wall or an i-Stock photo of an audience now repeating everything that's been done in the recap deliver one phrase per person always finishing on a downward inflection.