This week one of my college students said, “Professor Boone, I don’t feel like I can give my speech today, I’m just too emotional.”
I posed the following question back to her. “How is a purely rational speech, void of emotion, going to be any worse or any better than one that shows emotion?”
You’ve probably labored through a purely logical, rational, statistic-filled presentation. So you know they can be pretty dry and boring. If that’s the case, why do we still prize intellect and rationality over emotion when it comes to public speaking? Especially when it leads to robotic presentations that don’t connect with our audience members?
Neuroscientific research has proven time and time again that we aren’t just thinking beings. As neuroscientist Antonio Damasio puts it, “we are feeling beings who think.” So let’s take a look back at where we got off track and how we can get back on course.
Where We Went Wrong
We can definitely point a finger at French philosopher René Descartes who said, “I think, therefore, I am.” But the blame doesn’t fall solely on Descartes. Damasio says, “The ‘high-reason’ view . . . assumes that when we are at our decision-making best, we are the pride and joy of Plato, Descartes, and Kant. Formal logic will, by itself, get us to the best available solution for any problem. An important aspect of the rationalist conception is that to obtain the best results, emotions must be kept out. Rational processing must be unencumbered by passion.”
I’ve seen many a presentation “unencumbered by passion,” and I’m sure you have too. They aren’t fun.
Executive coach and author Ed Batista says, “This concept of ‘Cartesian dualism’ has had a profound effect on the Western worldview. One of its implications is that we tend to see emotion and reason not only as distinct spheres but also as forces working in opposition to each other.”
So not only do we elevate reason above emotion, we often don’t think there’s room for both in the same presentation. However, this simply isn’t the case.
Getting Back on Course
Thanks to the work of researchers and writers like Brené Brown and Antonio Damasio, emotional intelligence has gained traction in our global conversation. We are slowly getting back on course, but we still have a long journey ahead of us. Because, by and large, displays of emotion are still regarded as inappropriate during public speaking.
Dr. Brené Brown is a researcher, professor, writer, and presenter of one of the most popular TED talks. She reminds us that “Just because you’re standing in your office or your classroom or your studio doesn’t mean that you can take the emotion out of this process. You cannot.” And in most cases, I would add, and you should not.
This persistent, compartmentalized view of emotion and reason damages our capacity to communicate with authenticity, to create engaging presentations, and to fully connect with our audience. Without emotions, we lack the foundation and the materials to build bridges that connect thought and memory. We lack the very stuff that makes up the human experience.
I’m not suggesting we create presentations in which emotion completely replaces logic or that we blubber or yell our way through a presentation. I’m simply hoping that our perception of emotion and its place and value in public speaking is elevated. It’s high time we dismantle the notion that reason and emotion are separate, opposing forces. We need both emotion and reason to create presentations with lasting impact.
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