Should you make direct eye contact with the audience before
you begin speaking? The answer, you might be surprised to learn, is no.
Making eye contact (which means having a nonverbal eye to
eye conversation) distracts you at a time when you need your concentration to
focus on your first words, your adjustment to this high visibility, the
strangeness of the distance between yourself and the audience, your rapid heartbeat,
and the general shock of the performance situation. You need time, about 30
seconds or even more, to get used to all of this.
ADJUSTING TO THE AUDIENCE:
The next phase involves your awareness of the audience, so
that you can slip into an easy and comfortable relationship with them. This
will happen automatically if you stand still when you first face your audience.
You don’t have to do a thing except squeeze your toes three times slowly before
you speak your first words. This phase is enormously important. If you do it
correctly you will feel very much in control.
WHERE TO LOOK:
Look straight ahead at the faces in your audience, perhaps
at their foreheads or even their hair. Look neither too high above their heads,
nor so low that you appear to be looking at the floor. Making eye contact is
not necessary because if the audience looks into your eyes and you are looking
at their faces, you will feel as if you are making eye contact. The necessity
for direct eye contact is a myth. For example, when you go to the movies and
become involved with the story you laugh, you cry, you may become terrified,
yet none of the actors in the screen make eye contact with you. In the same
sense, when you are speaking, in is not necessary for you to look into the eyes
of your audience for them to feel involved with you. Just don’t look above or
below their faces. After two or three minutes have passed, and you feel you
have established yourself in front of your audience and your presentation is
flowing, you may choose to make direct eye contact with one or several of the
members in your audience, as long as it does not disturb your concentration. Do
what feels comfortable to you.
While keeping your gaze at the face level of your audience,
do not fix anyone with a prolonged stare. Actively staring into the eyes of
your audience implies that you are perusing them “Do you like me? Is this
good?” Don’t look for approval. The audience looks to you for leadership. Lead!
SCANNING THE ROOM:
When you fist stand in front of your audience, please—do not
mechanically scan the room, moving your head from right to left as if your eyes
where great flood lights emanating from a controlled tower. This is extremely
awkward and looks unnatural. Instead, as I have just said, when you first stand
in front of an audience, before you begin to speak, be as still as possible and
look straight ahead in the general direction of their faces. A smile is nice,
but it isn’t essential. If you can smile a small smile, smile. If you want the
complete attention of the audience, your physical stillness, rather than your
physical activity, will make this happen.
As your speech progresses and you become more comfortable,
from time to time, you can move your head slowly, looking at your audience to
the left or right. Once again, naturalness and comfort should decide when and
if you look at various people in the room. If at first this pose seems stiff and
robotic, do not change back to your old nervous behavior. Eventually, you will
relax into physical stillness so that you feel comfortable and empowered.
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