My assumption is not based on hard facts. No statistics I’m aware of support my point. Just simple, plain experience: Women do it more often than men.
In other posts you learned about the great humorous effect of self-deprecation. Laughing at yourself? Fantastic. You also learned about the power of your smile – an indispensable brick when it comes to building bridges of sympathy with your audience.
Laughing at yourself? Awesome. Smiling at your audience? Awesome. Giggling? Awful.
And yes – women do giggle more often on stage than men (according to my experience).
Giggling is a phenomenon that seems to occur every time we think we are saying something ridiculous. The challenge we all face is to accept – once and for all – that our own perception has nothing to do with what our audience perceives.
Our audience wants to learn something new. Our audience wants to be entertained, motivated, inspired. What our audience doesn’t want at all is lose their time listening to ridiculous content.
This is exactly where the phenomenon of giggling enters the scene. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. By giggling about something – which is not perceived ridicoulous in the first place – we turn it into something ridiculous.
It’s the moment of giggling when our authority as a speaker goes down below zero. It’s the moment of giggling when we lose our audience.
I have no hard facts to offer, no robust statistics to prove my point. Still – next time you see a speaker giggle, ask yourself two questions. Does the speaker transmit a positive image when s/he giggles? Does the speaker transmit authority when s/he giggles?