Acting Techniques that Can Help You Communicate More Effectively
1.Understand your audience. Whether your audience is a life partner or whether it is someone interviewing you for a job, you need to become the audience. Actors are taught to visualize themselves as people sitting in the audience. This can help you make better connections, and help you to focused outward rather than inward on your own problems and thoughts.
2.Generate a sense of presence. In confrontational and stressful situations, many people shrink in on themselves. This also happens when in the presence of someone in a position of seniority. Rather than reducing the amount of space you take up, think about you are carrying yourself. This is called stage presence in acting. You need to exude a sense of presence, even if you are not confident. Stand so that your weight is evenly distributed and keep your rib cage high (but not puffed out) with your stomach muscles contracted (but not sucked in. When sitting, lean slightly forward and continue to keep your rib cage up. At a table, you should set your forearms on the table between your wrists and elbows. Clasp your hands and avoid fidgeting at all costs.
3.Control your voice and your inflection. Actors are required to control their voices from stage in order for it to resonate. Additionally, it is easier to understand them when they keep their voices at a lower pitch. You can apply these rules in speaking. People will understand you better, and they will enjoy listening to the sound of your voice. Do not make your voice go higher at the ends of sentences. You can make your voice resonate by speaking from the diaphragm and contracting your ab muscles.
4.Make eye contact. This is one of the most basic ways to establish a connection and command the attention with whomever you are speaking. Do not scan the audience when speaking to group. Rather, lock eyes carefully with different people in the room, careful to change which person you are looking at with each sentence. When speaking one on one, you can maintain contact by looking from one eye to the other. This adds a sparkle to your eyes, and it also adds a look of sincerity.
5.Make your exits with grace. Poise and tact should accompany your exit from a room or area. Continue to keep in mind the idea of presence as you leave. Try to end on a positive high note so that there are good feelings and positive impressions of you and what you have said. Actors try to facilitate audience enjoyment, and you will receive more attention and your ideas more credit if you make speaking with you an enjoyable experience.
