BODY LANGUAGE: EYES, HEAD, AND HANDS
and he asked me to videotape it for him. "I want to show my
wife and kids. They'll get a kick out of it."
I taped his talk, and I was amazed at the way he charmed his
audience of would-be medical writers. What was there about this
insignificant-looking guy that captivated everyone? Trying to dis-
cover a pattern in his approach, I ran the tape through a few
times, then played it at fast forward. Suddenly I noticed something
I had missed. From the minute he mounted the podium, his head
went from side to side like the tail of a friendly dog. Watching
closely, I noticed that he constantly maintained eye contact with
everyone in the audience, never favoring just one side, his eyes
sweeping that group of students like the beam of a lighthouse.
Eye contact, I realized, was the secret of his charm. Whether
he talked to one person, to a dozen, or to a roomful, he managed
to make eye contact, and though he broke it, he returned to it.
Conversely, when you talked to him, eye contact let you know
he was listening.
Years later, when I had to lecture myself, I tried to copy that
same technique, sweeping the room with my eyes to make contact
with everyone I could. One time, when I was asked to talk to a
group of businessmen at Xerox, I broke my glasses the day before
the speech. I went to an optometrist whose sign promised GLASSES
IN ONE HOUR. He took my broken glasses and shook his head.
"These are bifocals. Reading glasses I can give you in an hour,
or distance glasses, but not bifocals. That'll take a week!"
What a dilemma. With reading glasses I could see my notes,
but not the eyes of the audience. With distance glasses I couldn't
see my notes, but I could see the eyes of the audience. Which
to choose? In the end I opted for the distance glasses. I could
always memorize the notes, but to avoid eye contact during the