THE EYES JUST MIGHT HAVE IT

Of all the body language tips that speaking coaches impart, there’s one MIA:  The eyes. 

Presenters are trained to rehearse-rehearse-rehearse.  Know your content.  Use appropriate hand gestures and emphases.  Forget the PowerPoint.  And train your eyes on a specific spot in the audience.

What’s forgotten today, for speakers and for anyone who communicates at any time, is the importance of the eyes.  In U.S. culture, looking down, staring, even a diffident gaze signals a non-listening stance, sometimes to the extent of inauthenticity.  That i-behavior can be seen in meetings, during one-on-one conversations, even in small groups.

Why? 

First, it’s hard to hold a confident and respectful gaze for a longer period of time.  [Try it.] 

Second, we’re very accustomed to looking here and there – at our laptops, on our smartphones, at the whiteboard … anywhere, but at the chairperson or speaker.  Some smart meeting organizers ban technology; it makes for a much more productive event. 

Third, because so many of us work virtually or remotely and don’t have to interface with folks every day, we forget.  The i-behavior is endemic and irritating, for sure, but how many of us notice it?  [Probably because we’re all guilty.]

Why eyes?  [We could list all the “eye” quotes, but we’ll spare you.]  It’s all about bonding, pure and simple, whether with an audience of 1,500 or during an intimate conversation.  To connect emotionally, experts recommend eye contact (without fussing or fidgeting) for 60 to 70 percent of the time an individual’s engaged.  Today’s standard – from 30 to 60 percent – is one good reason why communications doesn’t always resonate or persuade.

There is a caveat, of course:  Other cultures, other countries consider eye contact rude, unapproachable.  The Japanese, for instance, lower their eyes as a gesture of respect when speaking to a superior.  Direct  gazes are unacceptable in certain Muslim areas.

What eye-habit works everywhere on Earth?  Forget the eye rolls.

AT OUR BEST: PERFORMING 101

There are certain times of the year that we’re delighted to be consultant-entrepreneurs.

The holidays, for one.  No, not because we miss the seasonal party [though we do get together with friends and clients].  Nor for the year-end bonuses and celebrations.

The reason we’re glad to be an LLC?  The much-loved, much-discussed (and yes, much-detested) performance review.

Today, companies claim they’ve solved the issues:  Employees demotivated, work disrupted, and difficult conversations either not implemented or executed poorly.  An all-too-infrequent focus on personal results and chemistry.  Little ongoing feedback.  Work relationships that, simply, don’t work.  And so on.

The solutions range from new software-in-the-cloud packages to performance review re-positioning.  For the former, software provider salesforce.com (among others) touts its social networking foundation, its combination of virtual and real rewards, and its ongoing tied-to-project employee goal-setting.  In re-positioning efforts, businesses of all shapes and sizes, in a variety of industries, completely do away with formal reviews (about 1 percent of those reporting, says the Corporate Executive Board) and/or institute year-round processes, i.e., not limited to specific months in the year.

Great ideas, one and all.  Yet what these and other solutions fail to consider is the relationship between manager and staff.  If there’s a lack of trust for the manager, for one, we know of few employees who will risk a job to tell the diplomatic truth.  Or if there are few chances for open communication, again, only a few will raise their hands and request time to talk.  Even anonymous peer-to-peer evaluations and 360° feedback can falter when candor is not appreciated. 

Driving high performance is, at its core, a contract between manager and employee; that’s the level at which work is accomplished.  It’s a form of communication, beginning way before onboarding, at the time of interviewing and, then, hiring.  When that trust and fundamental honesty are cemented, performance reviews become a matter of record, documents that exist to confirm that work is either being done well, not so well, not at all.  It’s the conversations that make the difference.

We know this is radical.  At the same time, communicators (and their allies, from HR to design) can have a major impact on driving performance, all in coaching for open dialogue.  How are we doing?