Sometimes the solution is so simple that we don’t see the wood for the trees. For years, I’ve been encouraging my training participants to use meaningful gestures and erase all meaningless ones. I’ve told them, Don’t MISS out on gestures – Use metaphorical, illustrative, symbolic and signaling gestures!
And then… HEUREKA!!! I thought, What if I don’t touch my hands at all? What would happen then?
Guess what – it works!
Try it! Speak in front of a mirror. Use hand gestures under the premise that the hands cannot touch.
If the hands cannot touch, all belly protecting meaningless gestures belong to your past. No more Angela Merkel, no more wedding ring twisting, no more praying, no more hand washing. It’s so simple!
Of course, to every rule there are exceptions. When it’s on purpose, you can continue to touch your hands. Like when you indicate a timeout.
But, in general, it looks like a great rule. I’ll apply it in my trainings from now on. I’ll let you know about the effectiveness, which is yet to be proven. In the meantime I’ll continue looking for more rhetorical wood.