How To Read Faces When Presenting In Business In Japan

How To Read Faces When Presenting In Business In Japan

People staring at you intently when you are presenting can be unnerving. This is especially the case when we are already feeling nervous to begin with. If some of those faces in the audience look particularly hostile, then the level of inner tension can be reaching danger point. We are stressing ourselves in reaction to how we perceive the audience and what we imagine they are thinking about us ands what we are saying.

“Don't judge a book by it's cover” is ancient wisdom and the same is case when presenting. I was in Osaka a number of years ago, giving a presentation in Japanese to 100 salespeople in the travel industry on why Australia was such a great education destination for Japanese students. The idea was that I would inspire these salespeople to recommend education destinations in Australia, in preference to other competing countries, after I had fired them up with my passion for the idea.

I can still remember the scene. It was a long hall and everyone wearing dark suits, mainly men and a big venue. On my left side, about half way down, was sitting one guy who had a really angry face. Even from that distance I could tell he looked angry. He didn't seem to buying anything that I was saying at all.

At the end of the presentation, he leapt out of his seat and came straight down to the front where I was standing. I had just come down off the podium to exchange business cards with members of the audience. I honestly thought he was going to punch me! Instead he started thanking me profusely in Japanese for my presentation, said it was really great, he really learn a lot, etc., etc.

I felt like saying, "if you liked it so much why didn't you tell your face!" I also realised that what I took for an angry face, was in fact a face deeply concentrating on what I had been saying. Now Japan throws up a few challenges in this regard, because Japan is quite a serious place, with a lot of serious people, whose faces we may misread.

Whenever I write or speak about presenting, I am always making the point to keep eye contact with each person for around six seconds and to look at people in all six pockets of a room. Those in the front, left, middle, right and those at the back again left, middle, right. We do this in a random, unpredictable way to keep audience interest in our presentation. Having said that though, not everyone is equal. If you are nervous about speaking to groups, inside those pockets pick out the people who are nodding in agreement with what you are saying or who at least have a neutral face. To maintain you're your confidence do not look at anyone who looks angry, doubtful, quizzical or hostile.

Ignore them completely to concentrate on those who are with you. This will help build your confidence when speaking and over time you won’t need to do this but in the early stages it works quite well. Actually thinking about it, I am totally confident presenting, but I still continue to ignore people who look hostile, because I have no particular interest in engaging with them.

The part of the talk where the hostiles get to be a problem is usually during question time. If you have been trained in how to handle Q&A, you never worry about hostiles in your audience, because you know you can handle anything they throw at you. If the whole audience looks hostile, well tough it out and keep going, bracing yourself for the Q&A where you can expect a lot of pushback. By the way we teach how to deal with hostile Q&A, so let us know if you would like to learn the secret.

One key point – always specify how much time there is for questions, so that you can make a graceful departure and leave the venue with your head held up high. If you don’t, it looks like you are a scoundrel and a coward trying to flee the premises, because you can’t take the heat. We don’t want that as our final impression do we. They can disagree with you as much as they like, but you have to end the proceedings looking like the cool, calm professional you are.