Video conferencing training: Don’t wave your hands!

S.or more than a year and a half, most professional conferences have been held online. We tune in, listen, stare at video tiles and speak less and less ourselves. And getting worse? Do many working people now need speech training in order not to be completely silent in front of the laptop camera, not to lose all quick wittedness? What tricks are there to give good speeches in the video conference that really resonate?

I have an appointment with Dagmar d’Alessio. She studied rhetoric in Tübingen and acting at the Bavarian Theater Academy August Everding. Since 2000 she has been on various German theater stages, and since 2010 she has also been doing coaching and communication training in adult education. D’Alessio does not come to my office for her speech training, but simply zoom in on the screen in my home office.

The devil is in the details

It gets down to business quickly. I’m supposed to give a spontaneous speech, tell something about my everyday working life. Sounds easier than it is. I usually ask a lot and listen a lot, I hardly give any speeches. Because I can’t think of anything better, I present her the page planning for the newspaper next Saturday.

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The feedback comes promptly and is structured like in a textbook: First, say something positive – this is how every manager receives it in the training, and this is how the speech trainer starts. There is praise for “clear sentences”, for facial expressions and the use of the eyebrows. Then comes the criticism. She never saw my hands in the picture, says d’Alessio. “I also think it’s good at online meetings when we use a little gesture every now and then and show our agility and liveliness.”

The devil is in the details, however. If the image section is poorly selected and the camera is close to the body, gesticulating hands appear oversized in the image. “It also looks like the hands are coming straight out of the shoulders,” says d’Alessio. “That seems totally strange.” So: camera further back, show more upper body and hands close to the body. Her credo: Those who show a lot of themselves in the video are more likely to appear as they would in presence. “That connects us with our listeners.”

“Try to hold the gesture much longer!”

A trainer would not be a good trainer if she did not immediately have a little exercise on the subject ready. I should point to a wall in my room, to the right or left or in front of me and say: “This is a blue wall.” I feel silly, but try to move far enough away from the camera and use one of my sentences as possible sweeping gesture to decorate.

D’Alessio, however, is rather dissatisfied with my performance. She imitates me in front of the camera and shows how hectically and quickly my hand scuttled through the picture. “Try holding the gesture a lot longer,” she advises. “Until the sentence is really over.” Even when they were there, most people tended to wag their hands frantically and frantically instead of making calm gestures. Behind this is the feeling that “they do not know where to put their hands”. Enduring hand movements for a long time is the solution to the problem. This is especially important online. “Here the camera doesn’t really record these short, quick gestures,” says d’Alessio.

And the expert has another tip: “Make short sentences. This is very important for the spoken language. ”There is time to take a breath. “And we better get to the point where we speak to the point.” If you build sentences that are too long while speaking, you stay up with your voice for too long and hardly have the opportunity to take a break – the opposite of a strong voice and good intonation.

It is better to formulate it briefly, with lots of points and pauses. “Go down with your voice,” says d’Alessio. And finally something that is actually obvious: You should smile, show joy. “That motivates, that makes other people want to think their way through something and also to follow a topic.”