SHIFTING VISUAL FOCUS

By Christopher Peck

Thanks for joining me this week as we explore visual focus and how it impedes or improves public and interpersonal communication.  Let’s dive right in! 

Try something for me: The next time you’re out with a friend, family member, someone you know well, stare at a fixed point on a wall/window/doorway/etc.  How long does it take your friend to look over at this fixed point?  Seconds?  Maybe a minute?  Visual focus is a powerful tool in communication.  When utilized appropriately, it directs and connects an audience to your message.  When used incorrectly, it undermines your intention and your product.

Remember the last time you were at a play?  How did the director focus your eye on a specific person, place, or object?  Maybe lighting was used?  Perhaps an outlandish costume?

Stage directors have a difficult responsibility.  Unlike film directors, they cannot control the audience eye.  Instead they rely on manipulative tricks to govern audience attention.  For example: If every stage performer is looking at a certain person or object, the audience will too.  Even if audience members want to look elsewhere, it’s hard to do so because other performers are redirecting their attention back to the intended focal point. 

The same can be said for presentation and in-person communication. 

Consider a presenter at a workshop.  He is intimidated by public presentations and nervously looks at the floor during his demonstration.  Not only does this fear and intimidation reflect on his messaging, but he is also encouraging visual focus toward the floor.  How does this affect his presentation?  He should be the audience’s point of focus.  If he continuously looks down to the floor, his audience will follow his eye.  Now not only does intimidation reflect negatively on his brand, but he also shifts visual focus away from himself--and his presentation--and toward the floor. 

We don’t want to look at the floor.  We want to look at you.  We want to look at your product.  You want us to look at your product.  Don’t undermine intention by deflecting focus away from your messaging. 

Keep this in mind the next time you meet with a friend, a colleague, anyone.  Are you inadvertently directing focus away from yourself?  Do you look at the floor?  The table?  The wall?  Look at your other!  Eye contact encourages attention.  Don’t worry, you don’t have to be creepy.  Eye contact doesn't have to be maintained throughout the entirety of the conversation.  That’s just unsettling.

Examine the picture below.  Your sweet spot to maintain client focus is inside the white box.  Again, you do not have to keep eye contact at all times, you don’t even have to continuously stay inside this imaginary box.  But here are two ways this box can be useful:  

1)      When you find your focus straying to the wall, table, or door, use the box as a refocus point.

2)      When your focus lies outside the box, make sure it is a calculated choice.  If you don’t want to be the focus, make sure you’re still controlling where focus is located. 

Focus is imperative in constructive and strategic communication.  It changes moderately when addressing larger groups of individuals, but the concept remains the same.  Focus on your audience and they will focus on you.  Make eye contact.  Talk “with” your audience, not “at” them.  They will be more engaged with your content, activated by your messaging, and prone to respond positively to your story, idea, or ask. 

Thanks for reading this week.  On June 21st, we tackle “Throw Away Gestures”.  See you then!