During my 2nd year living in Paris, I had the opportunity to get better at public speaking during a 30 weeks course at the School of Oratory Art. Public speaking isn't about perfect scripts or rehearsed gestures, it's about creating authentic connections that move audiences to action and knowing that impactful communication starts with physical presence.
Reading Time: 30 minutes
Summary:
Your body speaks first: Success in public speaking starts with physical presence, not words. Master your look, back, and voice before worrying about your script; these physical elements are your foundation for authentic connection.
Embrace your character: Like an actor stepping on stage, consciously transform into your professional role while maintaining your authenticity. This isn't about pretending; it's about embodying the best version of your professional self.
Connect before you perfect: Focus on creating genuine moments with your audience rather than delivering flawless sentences. When you're truly connected, your message will resonate more powerfully than any memorized speech ever could.
Public speaking is about conveying a message with more life than in writing. Don't put everything into your text, you have to dramatize it in the sense of bringing it to life. The speaker's goal is not to convince but to get a message across, to make people hesitate because the speaker experiences his message so intensely. The more emotions are communicated, the greater the impact. The speaker is responsible for the exit state of his audience. He must bring energy, respect the character and listen the crowd with his eyes which will place his back straight in order to carry his speech well.
Public speaking is an effort from which the body only relaxes afterwards.
Public speaking is a weapon of mass conviction.
Public speaking is listening to the audience.
Public speaking is a contract made up of 3 laws inspired by theater:
The Contract of the Ramp - The speaker is responsible for the exit state of his audience, he takes all the responsibilities and the audience all the rights. The speaker adapts to his audience and is responsible for it.
The Respect for the Mask - The character whose function I embody as part of my intervention, which must be understood in order to be interpreted. The character is greater than my person and I owe it to the audience.
The Stage Obligation - The speaker brings his body into the scene so that it embodies the character in compliance with the contract of the ramp, so that the spectator does not have to make an effort as the speaker must bring energy and it is physical
The contract of the ramp unites a speaker with his audience. An architectural element in the theater, the ramp is the border between the stage (the actor's workplace) and the room (where the audience is). The speaker is responsible for his side of the ramp but also for the state of exit from the room because the audience does not carry any burden (they can choose to applaud or leave in the middle), everything is the result of the actor. This also applies in business. If the audience is difficult, it is up to the speaker to adapt to it. In short, the contract of the ramp is 100% speaker.
The 2nd constitutive law between the speaker and his audience is respect for the mask, the character, the role, the function. The speaker provides and produces the person in whose name he exists. This is taken from the theater where the audience only sees characters on stage who know why they are there. When speaking in front of an audience, we owe them a role (manager, expert, consultant, journalist, etc.) driven by a project, a message, a file. The speaker takes a step back from his file in advance to know who he is and why he is there. The speaker embodies a character. In short, respecting the mask is respecting the character. Starting with humor only works if it is the speaker's style. Keep your nature despite the character, you have to really live fictional situations. We are actors in a social theater play and our character protects us.
The stage obligation gives a concrete form to the first 2 laws and is also taken from the theater. The actor's entrance on stage is physical, he shows his character through the presence of his body. The speaker must provide the role in which he speaks in all circumstances. The oratorical technique will allow him to do this. In short, the stage obligation is to remain physically mobilized.
The speaker LBV virtuous circle: Look > Back > Voice. Speaking is respecting the relational project by the active, curious and interested look with the audience. This look brings the back, the interest decided for the audience brings verticality. It is then up to the speaker to decide to give a quality voice, strong, powerful. The virtuous circle is therefore a back placed by the look and a voice that carries the speech. Let go of the look, let go of the back and lose the voice. There are 3 keys but 2 projects: the relational project thanks to the look and the musical project thanks to the voice. The back is placed vertically thanks to these two projects and we do not decide on its verticality, we check it.
The Look - The only way to listen to the one to whom we speak when we speak to him and whose reactions will guide me. The other is my partner with whom I weave a unique relationship, whether he is my adversary or my ally, because he helps me to develop my thought. The look is an organ of perception that violates intimacy, it is the window of the soul that can shoot, sparkle or imitate the look of a fried fish. It is the look that brings the back and guarantees the relevance of the speech.
The Back / Verticality - We are homo erectus characterized by the verticality of our spine. Vocal stewardship, the air column, is also vertical. Those who guide are vertical, being vertical makes one a leader. A speaker is first of all a body that enters the stage. Being straightened up relaxes the arms and gives them the autonomy and little energy needed to go about their lives.
The Voice - The vocal will or musical project, it is a technical vector that is worked on. The speaker must desire a beautiful voice. A professional voice must be obtained through work. A beautiful voice consecrates the speaker without which he is only a speaker. The voice carries emotion. Project the audience behind you and speak loud enough to reach those at the back.
The look takes, the voice gives. The look is continuous, the voice discontinuous. The look controls time and the controlled time is called rhythm, the voice controls space. The look works in the singular relationship (I can only look at one person at a time), the voice works in the plural relationship. Voice and look do everything. Mastering this complementarity produces a speech that rings true. Parasitic words fill the void when the speaker is thinking, but if he looks with interest at his audience, he is in his intuition and not in his reflection, making the parasite words no longer useful. The look allows you to listen to the audience when you speak to them. We do not scan the audience with our eyes, we take them into account. The look must neither sweep nor flee. Speaking quickly and into space is the result of the absence of perception of the presence/resistance of the audience. It requires a deep look, a held back and a beautiful voice present throughout the speech. It all starts with the look and it is the intention of the look that matters. Have the non-analytical look of a 5-year-old child or that of the footballer for the ball.
We decide on our look and we check with our back, which places itself. The leader is raised vertically between earth and sky by his audience, he is a tightrope walker physically balancing between his subject and the audience. Being too focused on his subject can lose the audience, being too focused on his audience can lose his subject. Getting closer to the audience means moving away from his subject, and vice versa, it is up to the speaker to self-control. It is only in a complete vertical posture that he finds himself halfway between a subject behind him and an audience in front of him. Not being with either, his independence allows him to organize the subject-audience encounter by developing his speech. The state of self-control allows organization.
Verticality is a system of 5 supports, 4 passive towards the ground (2 feet shoulder width apart for stability and the shoulders themselves) and 1 towards the sky (the head that has straightened up while looking at the audience). All of this is federated by the look. The speaker's energy is housed in the back.
Fear and stress won't go away. Charisma is innate while presence is worked on. The look takes, the back prepares, the voice gives.
Exercise: Imagine an audience looking at a wall, check that your back is placed (vertical posture called ecological) and, without taking your eyes off this imaginary audience, practice speaking with a strong and clear voice, making a presentation, ringing true.
You have to let the first words come by looking at your audience, trust the relationship and don't stick to a text decided in advance. Anything that the speaker may have written or thought before the event is worthless. You should not think but let your ideas come, stop looking for them because that cuts off contact with your audience. If you think about what you are going to say next, you lose the value of the present, even the thread of your thoughts and your look. There is a world of difference between what you think you look like and what you really look like.
Looking at the audience means meeting the look of each person and to be interested in them, in a random order to build the speech with them. The random look allows you to have a relevant perception at each moment of the changing state of the audience. The random looks transforms the accumulation of singular relationships into a general feeling exploited by the brain. Each stop must last a minimum of time and punctuate our words. To know if you are ready and if the audience also is, you have to observe. Getting used to talking with your look leads to speaking in the moment to the point of asking yourself "Where will the audience take me today? What will they make me say?". You must stop at each person to listen, almost with love, not sweep around. Losing your look is losing your voice.
You should not imagine settings or other imaginary situations but confront the reality of the situation. By relying on the audience, you put fear into perspective. The resistance that you encounter when looking at the other person gives you the right rhythm, whether it is fast, slow or average. Do not have an object in hand that attracts the attention of the audience to avoid creating an alternative listening. The look federates the movements. As it is random, everyone in the oratory feels that they can be looked at or even feels looked at.
It's easy to start by setting a fixed objective, a common thread, such as "reassure shareholders about the company's performance". The goal is not to finish each sentence but to make each word resonate as they carry the general meaning. We don't forget what we know because we talk, don't worry.
Thoughts are constructed in the time of silence, wait for your brain like a rider waits for his horse. Don't go too fast to give the audience time to experience what you're saying.
In the theater, the actor enters the stage in a structured world with a set with which he builds his character. In real life, the set is not structured on paper and it is from the structuring of the character that the world around him will also be structured. The speaker therefore works in the opposite way to the actor because it is he who structures the world. He does this by metamorphosing in front of the audience while conversely, the actor metamorphoses before entering the stage. School and business are inverted theaters.
To pass / metamorphose from the person to the character / function before speaking, we stop being spontaneous and become aware of the look, the back, the voice. The entrance walk is slow, take your time and be guided by an intense look by which everything begins including the placement of the back. It is in this entrance on stage that the metamorphosis takes place.
From the first contact (elevator exit, stage entrance, meeting in the street), the intention of the look guides a confident approach that impresses and even intimidates. Public speaking is a physical art that requires energy. Although we look at the audience 1 by 1, we must not try to interpret what each of them is saying, the brain will adapt to the average of the faces.
Exercise: Look at one person at a time instead of sweeping when entering the stage before speaking as well as when you're speaking.
The speaker decides to have a beautiful voice but not the tone and the prosody that he will use.
The 3 components of the voice are the prosody (rhythm + intonation = melody), the articulation and the timbre (sound that touches the audience physically). The voice adapts to the context. Look for your comfortable voice pitch to work on it. Seek to honor all the potential that your voice has to offer. The timbre can be nasal, breathy, guttural if it is missed, otherwise it is called full. Some sounds are more easily pronounced than others, realize each syllable nonetheless. Working on your verticality is working on your voice. The face and the stomach must be plastic, not frozen, because they convey many things. A beautiful voice requires little energy. Stress makes you double your energy / effort which is bad for the voice. Wanting to do too well is to be energetic first. You have to be relaxed physically as well as mentally and thus enter a state of flow. Feeling your voice vibrate means being sure that your audience vibrates too. Beware of the trap of reading which makes the prosody bland. Do not overdo it, life is not an eloquence contest. The mind would almost be an enemy of the voice because it takes resources from it.
Prosody constitutes all the musical aspects of the spoken voice, rhythm and note. Prosody should not be determined but guided by the audience thanks to the look and the desire for a rich timbre. The intonation / intention used to say a word can change its meaning. A rich prosody is obtained by the desire for a beautiful sound, to be attentive to the voice that you produce.
Never speak using your natural voice, always decide to have a beautiful voice.
Exercise: Make the aaaaaaAAAAAhh sound from when you're tired but by becoming vertical to look for low vibrations. Put your hand on the chest and try to make it vibrate.
Exercise: Imitating a sound extract with your own voice of course to better listen to the voice of others as well as your own.
Sitting upright implies a straight back and therefore a slight tension in the lower back at the lumbar level, this is the limbo-dorsal hinge. In hybrid meetings, looking at the camera means not forgetting those attending remotely. A good meeting allows for good public speaking and even rhetoric!
In video calls, put the camera at eye level and sit on the edge of the chair. Maintaining a forced look on the camera helps the speech to come out on its own. Have the screen / camera at eye level to maintain the 5 support points. Hold your back as well and note that the voice becomes more important. Remember that there are humans behind the camera. Without visual nonverbal feedback from the audience, you have to make them verbalize it. Keep your eyes looking at the camera 90% of the time and humanize it. The advantage of video is to be able to look each spectator in the eye.
There are 5 categories of movements split into 2 sub-categories. The 3 external movements are arm gestures, steps and facial expressions (eyes included). The 2 internal movements are breathing and thoughts. Movement cannot be decided, it is the voice that occupies space above all, not the body. Movement starts with the look that the body will follow once the relationship with the audience is established.
Gesture cannot be worked on, it is a movement that must remain free. Gestures vary according to personality, just like style since it is specific to each person. Breathing is part of the style as well but should be done thought the belly.
Supports come from technique, movements come from style. Unfortunately, movement masks support and style masks technique. In public speaking, you work on technique and free movement. It is because technique is well worked on that we can, without even thinking about it, free perfect movements. There is no art without technique but style must be free.
Even when angry, keep your appointment. Speak in leader mode, not in boss mode. Getting yelled at with a beautiful voice almost makes you like the message. Public speaking is not a combat sport but a team sport of the speaker with his audience. Do not forget the entrance on stage, the mobilization of the body, the awareness of the role / character to embody and the silence to listen. Even if you have been sufficient so far in your past speeches, it is time to get into character.
The look is the keystone as it unites technique and movement, making it it the hardest part to master. I look therefore I am a speaker, instead of I think therefore I think.
Exercise: Concerning look a late person until he goes back outside.
Exercise: One business partner yells at the other who apologizes for missing a $10M contract.
Be anti-Cartesian, don't learn your speech by heart.
Unfortunately society lives in Cartesianism but body language belongs in the trash. Hyper-analysis is useless, even those who have a certain attitude / pose don't know why. Do not get lost in the twists and turns of interpretation. As the audience has no obligation, their body language should not be over-interpreted, especially since everyone expresses themselves differently. Crossed arms do not necessarily mean being closed, open arms do not mean being open. Stop easy interpretations. Everyone has their own style, their own story that is expressed in the movements.
Edgar Morin wrote about the complexity of complexity and René Descartes broke down problems into sub-problems and sub-sub-problems. We don't know what is happening to the audience, they are human like us, therefore a complex complexity. Through the look, we do not seek to understand the other but to connect to their complexity with a non-analytical look. This applies to the negative as well as the positive. We don't understand ourselves, how could we understand others?
The speaker should not think about his breathing during his presentation because it is part of the movements and therefore of the style, he should only think about his supports and his look. Breathing is worked on before the presentation but should not be conscious once in it. The respiratory system is stable at the end of expiration while inspiration extends the spine. On expiration, the diaphragm rises. Breathing is not conscious and inspiration is passive. The speaker therefore does not need to think about inhaling before speaking. Breathing management during the action is automatic. It is his placements and supports that create the right conditions for breathing.
Choose low breathing from the belly instead of high breathing from the chest. Ventral breathing with the diaphragm, an umbrella in the middle of the bust, requires a straight back. Observe where your breathing is placed during stress movements, which is often high, and lower it.
The voice is a wind instrument composed of 3 entities: the ventilator (respiratory system), the vibrator (vocal cords), the resonator (cavities). The speaker must learn to place his voice like a singer and strengthen the exhalation because that is where we speak and why the diaphragm need strengthening. By working on it daily and listening to it, the voice will naturally improve. Working on an instrument is a listening exercise. The goal remains to have fun since you are going to transmit it to the public and hearing your voice well placed is having fun. It's the intention that guides the sound of the voice. You have to work on your voice by ear, listen to it. The ear seeks to place the sound where it is beautiful. By listening, the ear is forged and forms the voice. You can only reproduce the sounds you hear. At the beginning, you feel like shouting but you are not at all.
The vocal timbre is the sound identity card that will translate the fundamental frequency into harmonics that strike the eardrums of the audience. A rich timbre creates a beautiful sound to which the audience is sensitive and preserves us in the present moment rather than returning to our minds. Our voice being moving and plastic, we can produce several timbres of voice: breathy, guttural, nasal and full which is the one to aim for. Reveal your vocal potential without shouting. The timbre does not depend on the note played and does not equal to setting the tone. Vocal will does not always imply a loud voice but a voice that is always engaged, vibrant, sustained. The sound must remain full, whether you speak loudly or not. In a professional environment, you do not use your natural voice.
Exercise: Synchronize breathing and open / closed hands.
Exercise: Repeat tongue twisters with a pencil or thumb in your month to practice talking with a high soft palate and improve articulation.
Exercise: Loosen your jaw by yawning, your mouth by making the pfff sound and your tongue by making the bllll sound to make them more flexible.
The speaker improvises, the actor memorizes. The speaker invents, the actor re-invents.
The speaker invents his text with the audience, the actor reinvents a text learned by heart. It is improvisation in both cases but in different ways, both serving an author's thought. The security of the speaker is not in his memory but in his body. Both need someone else, an audience for the speaker, a partner for the actor.
What you are privately must remain private because the audience doesn't care. A good posture, like a bad posture, influences the way you are perceived. The detour through theater is important for the speaker because the body is at the center of the work of the speaker as well as the actor. By isolating yourself through stress from the audience, you lose self-confidence and isolate your thoughts. You have to put your trust in the audience.
Building your character is an immense artistic challenge. You have to understand the situation of your character and his action within this situation. Only then does technique come into play. The actor plays on his mastery of the situation and technique. We think we understand a character by reading him, but it is only by embodying him that we can truly understand him. We are then surprised by the nuances, by the tone, proof that the character inhabits us and lives in us, in our body, while we are next to it. The construction of the character presupposes an understanding of the situation and a mastery of a physical technique.
Although nothing is natural on stage, everything must appear as such to the audience. It is the same in business where the CEO is the director, the president is the author. If the company is inspired by theater, it can obtain on its customers and suppliers the same impact that theater has on the audience, a real alliance with common experience that binds. Theater is perhaps the key to the genius of companies. There is no society built without theatricality.
The important thing is not to say things as we had planned but to say them. Say something that has the meaning you want. Make an impression on the audience so that they come back to you and produce emotions. Create a bond, back and forth, without thinking. Improvising is not a problem but a habit acquired by creating bonds. Don't care about the next sentence, the emotion and the meaning matter.
Unlike the actor, the speaker is free in what he says. It is not "I have to get angry or be happy" but I have to commit myself. You don't play in your corner like you play in front of your audience. You have to accept not to give a text by heart. What the other person is experiencing matters more than placing your nice well-thought-out sentence, you're no longer at school. Take care of your audience, not our text. The idea is not to do what you planned to do but to experience something with someone.
Care comes in 2 flavors that, if you don't feel them in your body, both you and the audience will get bored:
Attention - How much are you interested in the person?
Intention - How much do you give the person?
Public speaking is a service work where you take care of the other. Behind the scenes, the actors do not work on the text but on the body. Incarnation > in carne > in the flesh.
Master your subject, not your text, without putting too much pressure on yourself. Your limiting beliefs are likely blocking you. You are not looked at, you look. Average commitment leads to average body leads to average results. Do not tell yourself that you have to look but be curious about the other. Does he know what I am telling him? What reaction does it provoke in him?
Improvisation is part of the art of public speaking but has been abandoned in many circles like business, media and politics, thus making speakers read or recite their text. They deprive themselves of many benefits: intellectual agility, vitality of the speech, creativity of the speaker. We must let improvisation return to our public speaking interventions, including those with stakes. The speaker negotiates his text with the room. Don't become a slave to your speech.
The speaker must be smiling and moving while controlling his emotions. The feedback from the audience dictates whether you can use humor, logic, feelings or something else. The greatest movement is that of thought, therefore creativity, and it is expressed better with an audience than alone to write. If there is no longer a speaker, there is no longer any thought. Mistakes and deviations are part of the speech, it is up to the speaker not to let it slip.
Exercise: Start a story based on a word taken at random in the dictionary.
Exercise: Give a plausible definition of a word taken at random in the dictionary.
Exercise: Build a story starting with "Once upon a time" with other people.
In Public Speaking, synthesis precedes analysis. You can only develop an argument if you have an idea of where you want to go. Without a clear objective, no clear message.
Clarify your point with a summary of 10-15 lines: this presentation is for, its objective is to, my demonstration will be structured around the following points, at the end of this presentation I want my audience to leave with.
Simplify your point by defining the TOM (Theme, Objective, Message): the theme / subject / object / title of the presentation, the objective is the why of the presentation (I want my audience <action verb like like> and <reaction verb like buy>), the message / the trace / what the audience leaves with.
Reduce your point to the essential: reformulate the TOM in a single sentence, imagine a common thread to your story with 3 milestones / essential elements / proofs / pivots to your presentation.
The TOM must be crystal clear because a speech must have a necessity for the audience. You get by with just your LBV, your TOM and your audience. The TOM is a filter that sorts what you know to keep the essential according to an objective.
The voice is inseparable from the written word in the creative process. By preparing the oral by oral, you find the path of the speech, get closer to the situation to be experienced and go further than what you would imagine in writing. Preparing the oral by oral is deciding to trust the audience and allows you to go beyond what you planned to say thanks to the audience. The best way to connect an idea to an emotion is to tell a story because it combines the emotional and the rational. Oral by oral helps to clear the way for your thoughts. The structure is found through oral by oral then is confronted with existing ones to be slightly rearranged, not the other way around. Use your TOM for yourself and a structure for others:
Aristotle's persuasion: explain the situation > clarify the problem > explain the solution > develop the associated benefits > launch a call to action.
The rise in power of the problem-solution duo leads to a dramatic rise that retains attention. This is based on the answer to a good problem.
Campbell's Hero Journey: call to adventure > refusal > supernatural help > crossing the first threshold > belly of the whale > road of trials > meeting with the goddess > the tempting woman > atonement with the father > apotheosis > the ultimate advantage > refusal to return > magical flight > rescue from outside > crossing the threshold of return > master of two worlds > freedom to live.
A story is a character (who) who has a concrete objective (what) associated with a stake (why). In his dynamic to achieve his objective, he encounters increasingly greater obstacles, these obstacles generate conflicts that are sources of emotion for the character and his audience. The audience is your hero and you are its mentor meaning that you help him to pass thresholds, to overcome obstacles and to take action.
Like the sets in the theater, the visual aids are there to amplify the emotion produced by the speaker through which the audience gains understanding. They are integrated into a global structure but do not serve to compensate for a lack nor to serve as a cheat sheet. A good visual aid starts with the base, the TOM (Theme, Objective, Message), where the work of the oral by the oral allows to find an intuitive path to it. Created after the TOM, the support is at the service of the speaker to amplify its impact. It is necessary to put the visual aids back in their rightful place, they are useful but the first role goes to the speaker.
3 simple VSD (Visual, Simple, Design) rules for designing effective slides with added value:
be visual and focus on what the audience should remember (a bullet point list is not visual) > avoid redundancy, seek emotional impact, think big, use images not words
keep it simple and avoid the culture of filler (one graph per slide, create empty spaces) > one idea per slide with a build-up for complicated elements
think design and seek visual, structural, aesthetic coherence by asking yourself if, for the audience, does this slide serve my purpose?
"Perfection is achieved when there is nothing more to remove." -St Exupéry.
A good slide creates a resonance with its purpose, it is up to the speaker to create listening comfort for his audience. Silence during a presentation should not be intentional or premeditated but the consequence of listening to the audience. Talk to the audience about what interests them, direct the stories towards them to arouse their curiosity and interest so that they find a benefit and feel emotions. Slides can accentuate emotions, especially with images. Show must go on, not slide-show must go on.
Don't have visual support in the intro and conclusion slides in order to be alone with your audience. Occupy the center and put the support on the side. Start a section by looking at the audience before potentially developing by looking at the support, which is a demonstration for the audience, not a memory for the speaker. Be satisfied with a remote control to dissociate yourself from the computer as an accessory, no laser nor note.
Public speaking is thought in action and the impact of an intervention in a debate is measured by the opponent's reaction. In a debate, the opponent is the audience. The debaters are comparable to two actors who give each other the line. Because all intellectual ideas are defensible, the difference is made on the actor side with physical and vocal qualities.
The speaker's responsibility is to occupy the physical and vocal (PV) dimensions to free up his intellectual space and therefore find the right arguments. The brain only works a balanced body and the case must be prepared before going on stage. Good speakers are straight to the point, direct and effective. The important thing is not to speak early or late but to have the best PV levels, a better presence.
You either develop your arguments (your space A) or criticize those of others (others space B), there is no intermediary. By combining this with a difference in PV, we obtain 4 tactics:
Extension, a strong PV in your space - it is easier for your opponent to deal with your subject because he is dependent and reacting but it is detrimental to him, argumentative extension consists of expressing the expertise linked to his function (A)
Annexation, a strong PV in the other's space - showing your opponent that you have a better command of his subject by invading his argumentative fortress which pushes him to flee, argumentative annexation consists of appropriating the space of expertise linked to the function of the other (B)
Dependence, a weak PV in your space
Escape, a weak PV in the other's space
Weither in your space or others', the style does not matter as long as you are a better speaker / debater. The body is more decisive than the argument.
Thanks to the right LBV, the negotiator generates good intuitive proposals and, through his look, he attracts the opponent and promotes the win-win agreement. Entering into negotiation supposes that we try to reach a balanced agreement with the opposing negotiator, so that living together can continue. The world is a village and it is therefore by survival instinct that we must seek the win-win. In negotiation, the PV (physical-vocal) is decisive for the intellectual mastery of the negotiation. Entering into negotiation is like entering the scene. The LBV allows us to apply negotiation models deemed relevant without even knowing them.
Resonant negotiation lies in the principle of frank exposure, from the beginning of the exchanges, by each of the negotiators, of their own interests, in order to achieve a win-win situation using the 5-step circumvention strategy:
Do not react nor retaliate but keep your interests in mind and take a step back
Help the other party to manage their emotions by putting yourself in their shoes and taking an interest in them (telling them that they are right if that is the case)
Rather than sticking to your positions and only obtaining compromises, discuss interests rather than positions to reframe and open the discussion (expand rather than divide)
Detect and manage the dissatisfaction of the other party and take an even greater interest in them to find a golden bridge with them (the miraculous solution is found in several)
Cooperation is the best solution and you have to assert your power to the other
The negotiator's look, or active listening, allows him to constantly impress himself with the ever-changing and complex state of the other. The many micro-decisions to be made are made by the reptilian brain, by intuition to avoid reasoning (without asking questions). The prerequisites for intuition are knowledge of the situation, the value of the possible options and their consequences. In short, you have to know your subject. Be vigilant in the face of danger, look at it. If you don't feel emotion, you can't make decisions.
The speaker in a good PV must use intuitive negotiation to find a win-win agreement while the speaker in a weak PV must use thoughtful negotiation to find a compromise.