TJ Walker explains the importance of eye contact in effective communication, opening with cultural caveats (some cultures avoid direct gaze) and then addressing Western/American norms. He outlines common eye-contact mistakes (reading a script, staring at slides, rapid scanning like a windshield wiper or sprinkler) and prescribes a technique: pick one person, hold eye contact for a full thought (a few seconds), then move to another person—doing this inclusively across the audience to make individuals feel seen and engaged.
Chapters
An important aspect of communication is eye contact. There's the old expression, I wouldn't trust somebody who didn't look me in the eye. And that is true with most people. Now, there can be cultural differences. In some cultures, it is a sign of disrespect to look someone directly in the eye. You're actually showing respect by closing your eyes when they speak to show that you're concentrating heavily on their words. But I'm going to address myself to American audiences and a lot of Western, Western European and most developed nation practices, even though it is very different in places like Japan. So here's my rule of thumb. You do want to look at someone who's talking to you. Most of the time, when you're talking to them, you want to look at them. But it shouldn't be a staredown contest. If it's a one on one meeting, you're looking at them a lot, you're looking away. You try to do it in a way that isn't uncomfortable for you or for them, but you're looking at them most of the time without it seeming like a stare. When someone is talking to you, you look at them. If they're looking away, you look away. Now, for most people, the one on one, the one on two, that, that's easy. The hard part for most people is when the audience gets a little bigger. If you've never spoken to six colleagues at once at a Monday morning staff meeting, that's going to be scary. If you're used to speaking to 100 people, but now you have to speak to 1,000 people, that's going to be scary. So what most people do is something to try to mask their nerves so they stop using normal eye contact. For some people, and this is really the worst thing to do, they start staring at a script. So they've completely destroyed all eye contact with their audience. They're reading a script because they're nervous and they don't want to leave something out. Big mistake. Or they are staring at their PowerPoint slides. They're turning their back literally to their audience sometimes and reading bullet points off the slide. Horrific thing to do. Great way to make your audience hate you, ignore you and check their email. Now the next thing that people do, this is the more common situation, they are staring at the whole audience, but it's kind of like a windshield wiper. They're never really looking at any one person for a thought. They're not looking at anyone for more than half a second or eighth of a second, or they're Like a water sprinkler head. Click, click, click, click. They're just quickly going all over the place. And any individual in the audience feels like, wow, he never really looked at me. She never really looked at me. Your audience feels anonymous that way. It's therefore easier for them to tune out. It's easier for them to pick up their cell phone and read email because they feel like you don't really see them. That's not what great communicators do. Great communicators doesn't matter if they're speaking to 10 people, 50, 100 or 10,000. What they'll do is pick one person in the audience, really look at them in the eyes for a full thought. We're just talking about a couple of sentences, four, maybe five seconds at the most. And then you go to another person in the audience and you have a private one on one conversation with that person for a full thought, just a sentence or two, and then you go to someone else. So it's a very different experience for the people in the audience because they feel you looking directly at them for a full thought. So they feel like, wow, I better pay attention, she's really looking at me now. The key is you're doing this to everyone. If you're speaking for 20 minutes and there are only 50 people in the room and you're only holding eye contact for four or five seconds, well, you do the math. You can give every single person every in the room eye contact multiple times. So please note, I'm not talking about just looking at someone who's a friendly face. I'm not talking about just picking someone who seems like they are your friend or they like you or they're laughing. You're not just looking at a good looking person. You're not just looking at the person on the front row. You're not just looking at the decision maker. You're trying to be as inclusive as possible, but not in this quick windshield wiper way. You're focusing one at a time. Do that and it'll have a profound experience on your audience. Make them feel like you care about them more, that you're listening to them, and they in turn will listen to you more carefully and be more responsive to you.
