1) As a body language specialist, what specific advice do you havefor Pres. Obama during the debates?
A. In the past Obama’s debating style has included great eye contact,a weak laid back style at the beginning and then powerful passionate bodylanguage at the end. There was a weak first impression (primacy effect) but anexcellent ending (regency effect.) I suggest he come out strong, warm and charismatic before hebegins speaking and make a strong positive first statement before he respondsto the first questions. I would coach him and say, “President Obama, smile more as youmake strong positive statements. When you speak about how great and hardworkingAmericans are and what this country is and has become. “From now on he is not speaking to just Democrats so he can’t speakwith venom about the other guys out there. He is speaking to everyone so heneeds to connect more with the audience, he can’t seem angry with his audienceor he’s ashamed of us.
B. He is sounding and looking tired and strained. He needs to relaxhis voice so he can use it to make us feel confident in him. As a nonverbalcommunication expert, I have analyzed hundreds of hours of tapes of politicalleaders and candidates and written and spoken about them. I have received more emails about my reads ofBarack Obama’s voice. His voice use to be very rhythmical, powerful andcharismatic and he spoke with ease very loudly without any vocal strain. Deep, low voices are perceived, according toresearch, as more authoritative, believable and trustworthy and you can hearhis voice coming from the TV in another room and feel its authority and power.Hilary Clinton’s voice strain in the last presidential campaign severelyaffected her credibility and perceived warmth. A change in Obama’s voice nowwill affect our perception of him.
C. He had great positive emotional moments and gestures in his DNCspeech. He needs to pull some of that emotion and passion into the debates. He needs to gesture upwards above the waist ashe speaks about where we can go to symbolically show he wants and can bring usjoy and hope. And he also needs and look up and out to the future. His last campaign he did this as he talkedabout change.
D. He has started this new bizarre habit that I call “The Tobacco Chew’where he seems to cleanse his tongue inhis mouth, pursing his lips then pushing his lips outwards and down and out ashe says distasteful things (Look at *:59 in his DNC speech) He did this over 20times in his DNC speech. He needs to look at that tape and note what motivatedhim to do that. Stop making statements that call forth that emotion and smilemore instead.
2) What specific advice do you have for Gov. Romney?
The singlemost important piece of advice for Governor Romney is to show genuine warmemotion in his voice and body language. A credible candidate’s movement,gestures and expressions are in sync with what you are saying. Governor Romneyshould move more to illustrate what he is saying sothat we feel he is speaking sincerely. Look at Romney at minute 7:38 of his RNC speech. He says “When every new wave of immigrantslooked up to the statue of liberty or knelt down to kiss the shores offreedom.” but, as he says that vividly visual and emotional content he doesn’tmove or look up or gesture up as he speaks of freedom or move or look down tokiss the shores. There is no Ah orwonder or gratefulness. This unfortunately makes him look like someone whomemorized a speech.Again at (10:45 or so) his words are passionate and his voice, in this case,does show emotion but, his body is stiff as he says, “Work harder… hug yourkids a little longer. His voice andmovement should be in sync.
When someone is genuinely feeling an emotion as they speak thespeaker feels the emotion in their limbic brain where body language isprocessed and they show that true emotion with their body language before thespeaker moves to the neo cortex to access the words they want to use to expresswhat they are feeling. As the viewer just a beat before a candidate says I loveAmerica we should see the candidate reach out and up, and or smile and look outat the crowd then hear the words, I love the United States of America. Just abeat before we hear their body language express it and we hear it in theirvoice.
Perhaps due to his car accident, Romney holds his back and pelvisvery stiffly. Gesturemore over all. We know his car accident may be the cause of his overall stiffappearance, but he can move and he needs to have more animated and passionate emotionalmovement, facial and vocal expression. The speech writers did a good job on hisRNC speech giving him several emotional stories to share in the first half ofhis speech and Romney did an excellent job of expressing his parent’s emotionalrose story (“…every day dad gave mom a rose”pointing and his eyes teared up. My mom and dad were true partners. Shouldwomen have less say than our men? Eyes welled up, his voice cracked.)Buthis speech coaches needed to get him to reveal more. Many feel that he ishiding his money; he needs to show nonverbally he is not keeping anything fromus.
Stiffposture and little passionate body movement - He only has had a handful ofgestures in the first 15 minutes of his RNC speech. For example, when he says “…freedom…to build” his arms shouldhave swept up. Instead he stands frozen, arms at his side, not looking out atthe audience or up. Then his first gesture as he says, “But not just what wewanted but it’s what Americans deserved.” (9:05)here is a rather puny pinched finger gesture down rather than a passionatesweep up or to the heart. He needs to be present in the moment and connect morewith the audience. For much of the RNC speech he seemed into himself ratherthan connected to his wildly enthusiastic fellow republicans. He needs to look out at everyone andthen speak using the power of thepause.
Forexample he said in the RNC speech “Withyour help we will do something,” He should have looked at the audience, swepthis arm out to everyone and said, “With yourhelp.” Then done
anopen palm up Gathering Gesture gesturingout towards the audience paused slightly as he looked at them and made a realconnection and then brought the gesture back to himself. Instead he kept hishands frozen at his sides and then at (11:23) you see him do eye shutter andclose his mouth. Indicating nonverbally Romney either didn’t feel we can dosomething or he does not feel he needs our help.
Seemy blog post at http://www.bodylanguagelady.blogspot.com/2012/09/pattis-reads-body-language-of.htmlPatti reads the Body Language of the Presidential Candidates and Other Speakersat the Republican and Democratic Conventions if you would like more on theconvention.
3) Can you list Three Secrets of Successful Body Language when itcomes to political debates – dos and don’ts?
In my new book SNAP- Making the Most of First Impressions BodyLanguage and Charisma I share that there are four “first Impression factors” weassess when we first meet somebody – credibility, likeability, attractiveness,and power. Charisma profoundly affects which candidate we vote for. Charisma is based on the last three factors.So I would say the secrets are to
Be Charismatic, Be Powerful –To be powerful you have to take upspace nonverbally, be tall, gesture out and away from the body and use a lowfull voice. (See more on the four first impression factors and charismabelow. Be likable – Let your emotionsshow. Make sure your emotions and your nonverbal messages are in synch. Speakwarmly and have a big, likeable smile and have laser focused eye contact andconnect with the audience (See more on likeability below.) and of course beattractive.
Mostresearch says when it gets down to the final two candidates we vote for themost charismatic one. In fact a candidate can have little or no credibility buthis or her charisma will win our hearts and our votes. Charisma overrides our abilityto detect someone’s deceit. To understand how people use non-verbal behavior tocome to those SNAP judgments, we need to understand these four factors.
Thefirst and most important factor they are looking for is credibility. When aperson has credibility, they are who they say they are. You can trust them andyou can feel safe. Credibility is a very critical aspect to first impressions.
Whena person demonstrates likeability, she smiles easily, laughs easily, and usesfriendly upper body language. She shows emotions and visible expressions thatallow us to know how she’s feeling. The opposite of likeability is a lack of expressionand affect, and often, a monotone voice.
Aperson who demonstrates likeability does so in person or over the phone. Youknow immediately he is likable. Sometimes, it’s as simple as how expressive heis. And like credibility, it’s a universal recognition. We can recognizelikeability in the first split seconds we meet someone.
Likeabilityis not commonality, which can be summed up in the statement, “I like thisperson because they’re like me.” Likeability is more a factor of their affect,personality, warmth, gregariousness, and friendliness. A person who is likableturns and looks at you and opens their body windows to you when they aretalking to you. In likeability, you open yourself up to connect with otherpeople.
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