Body Talk

Posted By admin on January 3, 2012

The effective use of body language plays a key role in effective leadership communication. Here are ten tips I’ve learned during the past two decades of coaching leaders and their teams around the world:

1) To boost your confidence, assume a power pose

Research at Harvard and Columbia Business Schools shows that simply holding your body in expansive, “high-power” poses (leaning back with hands behind the head and feet up on a desk, or standing with legs and arms stretched wide open) for as little as two minutes stimulates higher levels of testosterone — the hormone linked to power and dominance — and lower levels of cortisol, a stress hormone.

Try this when you’re feeling tentative but want to appear confident. In addition to causing hormonal shifts in both males and females, these poses lead to increased feelings of power and a higher tolerance for risk. The study also found that people are more often influenced by how they feel about you than by what you’re saying.

2) To increase participation, look like you’re listening

If you want people to speak up, don’t multi-task while they do. Avoid the temptation to check your text messages, check your watch, or check out how the other participants are reacting. Instead, focus on those who are speaking by turning your head and torso to face them directly and by making eye contact. Leaning forward, nodding and tilting your head are other nonverbal way to show you’re engaged and paying attention. It’s important to hear people. It’s just as important to make sure they know you are listening.

3) To encourage collaboration, remove barriers

Physical obstructions are especially detrimental to collaborative efforts. Take away anything that blocks your view or forms a barrier between you and the rest of the team. Even at a coffee break, be aware that you may create a barrier by holding your cup and saucer in a way that seems deliberately to block your body or distance you from others. A senior executive told me he could evaluate his team’s comfort by how high they held their coffee cups. It was his observation that the more insecure individuals felt, the higher they held their coffee. People with their hands held at waist level were more comfortable than those with hands chest high.

4) To connect instantly with someone, shake hands

Touch is the most primitive and powerful nonverbal cue. Touching someone on the arm, hand, or shoulder for as little as 1/40 of a second creates a human bond. In the workplace, physical touch and warmth are established through the handshaking tradition, and this tactile contact makes a lasting and positive impression. A study on handshakes by the Income Center for Trade Shows showed that people are two times more likely to remember you if you shake hands with them. The trade-show researchers also found that people react to those with whom they shake hands by being more open and friendly.

5) To stimulate good feelings, smile

A genuine smile not only stimulates your own sense of well-being, it also tells those around you that you are approachable, cooperative, and trustworthy. A genuine smile comes on slowly, crinkles the eyes, lights up the face, and fades away slowly. Most importantly, smiling directly influences how other people respond to you. When you smile at someone, they almost always smile in return. And, because facial expressions trigger corresponding feelings, the smile you get back actually changes that person’s emotional state in a positive way.

6) To show agreement, mirror expressions and postures

When clients or business colleagues unconsciously imitate your body language, it’s their way of nonverbally saying that they like or agree with you. When you mirror other people with intent, it can be an important part of building rapport and nurturing feelings of mutuality. Mirroring starts by observing a person’s facial and body gestures and then subtly letting your body take on similar expressions and postures. Doing so will make the other person feel understood and accepted.

7) To improve your speech, use your hands

Brain imaging has shown that a region called Broca’s area, which is important for speech production, is active not only when we’re talking, but when we wave our hands. Since gesture is integrally linked to speech, gesturing as we talk can actually power up our thinking.

Whenever I encourage executives to incorporate gestures into their deliveries, I consistently find that their verbal content improves. Experiment with this and you’ll find that the physical act of gesturing helps you form clearer thoughts and speak in tighter sentences with more declarative language.

If you want to know the truth, watch people’s feet

When people try to control their body language, they focus primarily on facial expressions, body postures and hand/arm gestures. And since the legs and feet are left unrehearsed, they are also where the truth can most often be found. Under stress, people will often display nervousness and anxiety through increased foot movements. Feet will fidget, shuffle and wind around each other or around the furniture. Feet will stretch and curl to relieve tension, or even kick out in a miniaturized attempt to run away. Studies show that observers have greater success judging a person’s real emotional state when they can see the entire body. You may not know it, but instinctively you’ve been reacting to foot gestures all your life.

9) To sound authoritative, keep your voice down

Before a speech or important telephone call, allow your voice to relax into its optimal pitch (a technique I learned from a speech therapist) by keeping your lips together and making the sounds “um hum, um hum, um hum.” And if you are a female, watch that your voice doesn’t rise at the ends of sentences as if you are asking a question or seeking approval. Instead, when stating your opinion, use the authoritative arc, in which your voice starts on one note, rises in pitch through the sentence and drops back down at the end.

10) To improve your memory, uncross your arms and legs

Body language researchers, Allan and Barbara Pease, report a fascinating finding from one of their studies: When a group of volunteers attended a lecture and sat with unfolded arms and legs, they remembered 38 percent more than a group that attended the same lecture and sat with folded arms and legs. To improve your retention, uncross your arms and legs. And if you see your audience exhibiting defensive body language, change tactics, take a break, or get them to move — and don’t try to persuade them until their bodies open up.

If you follow these ten simple and powerful body language tips, I guarantee you’ll increase your nonverbal impact.

Happy New Year!

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Posted By admin on December 20, 2011

Don’t you just hate dealing with people who fight against every plan for organizational change? You know the type: They’re disruptive, set in their ways, and highly resistant to change, even when it is obviously in the best interest of the business. Well guess what? New research suggests that those trouble-making, inflexible, change resistors are . . . all of us!

Recent advances in brain analysis technology allow researchers to track the energy of a thought moving through the brain in much the same way as they track blood flowing through the body. And, as scientists watch different areas of the brain light up in response to specific thoughts, it becomes clear that, when it comes to change, we all react pretty much the same way. We try to avoid it.

Most of our daily activities, including many of our work habits, are controlled by a part of the brain called the basal ganglia. These habitual, repetitive tasks take much less mental energy to perform because they have become “hardwired” and we no longer have to give them much conscious thought. “The way we’ve always done it” is mentally comfortable. It not only feels right – it feels good.

Change jerks us out of this comfort zone by stimulating the prefrontal cortex, an energy-intensive section of the brain responsible for insight and impulse control. But the prefrontal cortex is also directly linked to the amygdala (the brain’s fear circuitry, which in turn controls our “flight or fight” response). And when the prefrontal cortex is overwhelmed with complex and unfamiliar concepts, the amygdala connection gets kicked into high gear. All of us are then subject to the physical and psychological disorientation and pain that can manifest in anxiety, fear, depression, sadness, fatigue or anger.

It’s no wonder that logic and common sense aren’t enough to get people to sign up for the next corporate restructuring.

So what’s a leader to do?

1. Trust people to see the need for change

You can’t “sell” change and you can’t command it. But you can provide enough background information (about trends, customer demands, competitive pressure, and other key issues) and a forum for people to reflect on and discuss the implications of those forces for the organization. You’ve hired the best and the brightest. Trust them with the facts and let them reach their own conclusions.

2. Make new ideas become familiar

With change comes the need for an ongoing communication strategy. It takes a lot of repetition to move a new or complex concept from the prefrontal cortex to the basil ganglia. Continually talking about change and focusing on key aspects will eventually allow the novel to become more familiar and less threatening.

3. KISS your communication

The prefrontal cortex can deal well with only a few concepts at one time. As tempting as it may be to lump everything you know about the change into one comprehensive chunk – don’t do it. Your job is to help people make sense of complexity by condensing it into two or three critical goals they can understand and absorb.

4. Never underestimate the power of a vision

And, by using the term vision, I’m not referring to a corporate statement punctuated by bullet points. I’m talking about a clearly articulated, emotionally charged, and broad picture of what the organization is trying to achieve.

5. Don’t “sugar coat” the truth

The prefrontal cortex is always on guard for signals of danger. When overly optimistic outcomes or unrealistic expectations are exposed (and they always are) the prefrontal cortex switches to high alert – looking for other signs of deception and triggering the limbic brain to respond with feelings of heightened anxiety.

6. Watch your body language

When discussing organizational change initiatives, there are two conversations taking place, and the second, nonverbal one, can reinforce or sabotage your verbal message. When your body language (which speaks directly to the limbic brain) is out of alignment with your stated message, people will believe what they see and not what you say. And they will do so quickly and unconsciously, not always able to articulate why they sense something is “off.” One final note: Because body language tends to reveal your real motives and feelings, if you don’t truly support the change, don’t try to convince others. They’ll see right through you.

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Tags: Body Language, change, leadership

Posted By admin on December 11, 2011

Let’s play a game. Here are the rules: We’ll be asked to split a sum of money. I get to make the split and you get to choose whether to accept or reject the split. And if you reject it, both of us will walk away empty-handed.

Rationally, I should realize my advantage and offer a lopsided split in my favor and you should accept the uneven split – because any amount of money is better than nothing. Right?

Wrong. If we’re like everyone else who plays the game, we’ll end up with an even split.

While the fairness of the split shouldn’t logically affect the second player’s decision, it nearly always does. If offered a lopsided split, the second player will reject the deal, and neither player will get any money. So most people end up offering a fifty-fifty split to the second person.

To find out why people react in this way, a team of Princeton researchers attached players to functional MRI machines. They discovered that when people are offered an unfair split, a primal part of their brains known as the anterior insula sends out signals of disgust and anger. It doesn’t matter one little bit that rejecting the split – regardless of how unfair – is an irrational financial decision. It feels right.

That’s the power of the equity factor. And it has everything to do with Mitt Romney’s leadership mistake in the latest GOP debate. After Rick Perry accused him of writing that the insurance mandate included in his Massachusetts healthcare overhaul should be a model for the rest of the country, Romney tried to wager $10,000 that Texas govenor was wrong.

A small event, really. But a big leadership error.

When a presidential hopeful (or a corporate executive) addresses an audience, the most important part of his or her message is to connect with that audience by understanding and relating to them in an equitable way. (“We’re alike and we are all in this together.”) Romney’s bet, in a state where the average income is $50,000 per year, made him look out of touch — and emphasized the inequity between his experiences and theirs.

If you don’t think you’d make a similar mistake, ask your employees how they feel about the latest round of cutbacks.

As companies downsize, restructure and refocus, employees are asked to do more and work harder. And they have, on the whole. But their resentment is growing, and most frequently seen in their reaction to executive compensation. Big disparities in pay between executives and the work force, especially in times of layoffs and plant closures, can destroy employee engagement – just when it is most needed. Here’s how one employee sees it: “The biggest budget cuts were employee-focused. They eliminated all our merit increases, rewards and recognition programs. And then the top management got bonuses. I used to be a ‘gung-ho’ employee. Now I think my loyalty has been misplaced.”

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Posted By admin on December 6, 2011

On a speaking tour a few years ago, I traveled from the United Arab Emirates to China to India to Malaysia to the Philippines to Indonesia – and it seemed to me that in each country, the audience was arriving later and later. When I reached Jakarta, my program was scheduled for 7:00 p.m. “Just ignore that announcement,” I was advised. “We tell people to get here at seven, hoping they will arrive by eight. But just to be on the safe side, we never begin the program before nine.”

Contrast that to a recent experience in Toronto where my speech was scheduled to open the conference at 8:00 a.m. In order to check the audio-visual equipment I arrived an hour early, only to see a line of people already standing outside the auditorium. Concerned that I had misunderstood the agenda, I grabbed the meeting planner. “Don’t worry, “ she assured me, “you’ve got plenty of time. We Canadians just have a habit of getting places early.”

Here’s the question: Which was right – the Indonesian concept of “rubber time” or the Canadian view of promptness?

Your answer, of course, depends on the cultural standards you grew up with –because different cultures relate to time very differently.

Body language is the management of time, space, appearance, posture, gesture, touch, facial expression, eye contact, and voice. The concept of timeliness is only one of the many nonverbal variants you encounter when doing business internationally. Other variants include greeting behaviors (kiss, bow, or shake hands), seating arrangements, the way business cards are distributed and treated, and the amount of eye contact, visible emotion, and hand gesturing that is deemed appropriate. Many emblematic gestures have cultural overtones. For example, what we in the U.S. think of as a positive gesture, the “OK” sign with thumb and forefinger together creating a circle, has very different meanings in other countries. In France it means “worthless” or “zero,” in Japan it stands for money, and in other parts of the world it represents a lewd or obscene comment.)

One of the most readily observed cultural differences is the degree of physical intimacy allowed or expected in a business meeting. From The Silent Language of Leaders: How Body Language Can Help – or Hurt – How You Lead, here is how a dozen business people around the world answered my question: “How close do you stand in a conversation with a business colleague – and how often do you touch?

The United Kingdom — Brits stand at least 2 feet apart – and hardly ever touch business colleagues. Some times we might tap the table with a pen close to the person we are connecting with, but bodily contact is avoided.

Brazil — Distance isn’t an issue for us. We can sit close or even stand very close to our business colleagues. Hugging, touching is quiet common in Brazil – especially in comparison with other cultures.

China — The Chinese tend to stand close in a conversation, less than 2 feet, but more than 1 foot. Sometimes, we touch the other person’s arm or back or grasp a shoulder to show that we have established a trusting relationship. We may also bump into you while walking or talking. It’s not considered rude in Chinese culture to bump into other people.

Trinidad and Tobago — Certainly men will not touch much, if at all; a pat on the shoulder at the end of a good meeting may be it. We stand about 2 feet apart.

Australia — Although known for our relaxed and easy-going countenance, Australians are surprisingly uptight about distance.  If you stand closer than two feet it is considered intense and possibly an indication you are to be told something very confidential. Unless there was a pre-existing close relationship, an Australian would take a step backwards or sideways to create space. We are more comfortable with 3 – 4 feet apart.

Australians would flinch or stiffen at a touch from a business colleague. Most male executives would be concerned about legal implications of touching a female in the workplace. However, a light touch on the arm or shoulder communicates that “I am like you, I am one of you,” or “I appreciate what you have done.”

Germany — Germans are more comfortable when keeping a good arm’s distance away. And you won’t see much touching, but it is more common in Southern Germany.

United Arab Emirates – People stand close as the concept of personal space does not exist and all transactions are dominated by relationships. In fact, if people stand too far apart it is seen as a negative and you can be asked why you are standing at a distance. However, not much touching happens in deference to the laws of the land where members of the opposite sex not related to each other by marriage are not supposed to touch each other in public.

Japan — We prefer to be 3 to 4 feet apart. 2 feet makes us feel uncomfortable. (A close physical proximity is unexpected except for the rush hour trains, literally packed with passengers, where we simply give up and accept the situation.) In Japan people hardly ever touch their business colleagues, but sometimes a male manager might pat his male colleague’s shoulder for encouragement.

India — It is good to keep a decent distance (about 2 feet) during conversations and a demeanor that is respectful and a body language that is open (No folded arms close to the chest!). More over, when it comes to ladies, sufficient care needs to be taken on how close one wants to stand and talk.

In a business scenario, generally the only touch is a handshake on meeting and parting. Indians are warm people, and an innocuous pat to congratulate or to ask someone to stop is not seen as offensive. A touch on the arm and shoulder is a normal trend, and a high-five among peers during a meeting is also a way of showing solidarity.

Tanzania — We stand at least a foot apart. We normally would touch/tap on the wrist or shoulder but very lightly.

Philippines –Two feet should be a good estimate for the Philippines, regardless of gender. For women, more senior executives would tend to be more formal and conscious of propriety. Touching is usually not appropriate among business colleagues in a meeting context.

Mexico — We stand close and constantly touch. If you don’t know someone well, you’d touch mainly the arm, shoulder, and back. With someone you know better, sometimes you’d lightly touch the leg.

Developing cross-cultural savvy can be difficult and time-consuming. But not doing so can cost you everything. In Hong Kong, I watched a newly-arrived American executive meet with his Chinese team members, and I saw the new man destroy in five seconds the delicate and productive relationship that the incumbent had taken over a year to build. Undoubtedly the exec thought he was coming across as a hard-charging, highly successful leader. And that might have been the case back in the States. But in this culture, his actions were seen as rude, insensitive, and overbearing.

Like anyone else dealing with an international clientele, I have made my share of cultural faux pas. One particularly memorable one was when I opened a global meeting with an “Ice breaker” exercise – a tactic that we in the U.S. are particularly fond of. (After all, “time is money,” so we need to find quick ways to get this “relationship-building stuff” in full swing.) The audience gave a collective sigh, and then one European participant said, “Not another American ice breaker. Why don’t they just wait until we thaw?”

I’ve also found that my international clients have been extremely generous in overlooking my cultural mishaps. As one client told me, “It will be fine, Carol. We know your heart is in the right place.” So Aretha Franklin was right; it all starts with R-E-S-P-E-C-T. If you show a genuine respect for other cultures’ norms and values – even if you make an occasional blunder – it will be fine.

Carol Kinsey Goman, Ph.D. is an executive coach, change-management consultant, and international keynote speaker at corporate, government, and association events. She’s an expert contributor for The Washington Post’s “On Leadership” column, a leadership blogger on Forbes.com, a columnist for “the Market” magazine, and the author of  “THE SILENT LANGUAGE OF LEADERS: How Body Language Can help – or Hurt – How You Lead.” To contact Carol about call 510-526-172 or email CGoman@CKG.com. To more information or to view videos, visit Carol’s website: http://www.SilentLanguageOfLeaders.com. You can also follow Carol on Twitter: http://twitter.com/CGoman, or “Like” her Facebook Fan Page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Carol-Kinsey-Goman-PhD/105398069543578.

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Posted By admin on November 28, 2011

Business leaders know that intercultural savvy is vitally important – not just because they have to deal increasingly with globalization, but also because the work force within their own national borders is growing more and more diverse.

Culture is, basically, a set of shared values that a group of people holds. Such values affect how you think and act and, more importantly, the kind of criteria by which you judge others. Cultural meanings render some behaviors as normal and right and others strange or wrong. (The Silent Language of Leaders: How Body Language Can Help – or Hurt – How You Lead devotes two chapters to the nonverbal aspects of cross-cultural communication. In my next blog I’ll cover some of the body language nuances of global business meetings.)

Every culture has rules that its members take for granted. Few of us are aware of our own biases because cultural imprinting is begun at a very early age. And while some of culture’s knowledge, rules, beliefs, values, phobias and anxieties are taught explicitly, most is absorbed subconsciously.

Of course, we are all individuals, and no two people belonging to the same culture are guaranteed to respond in exactly the same way. However, generalizations are valid to the extent that they provide clues on what you will most likely encounter – and how those differences impact communication. Here are three such generalizations.

Cultures are either high-context or low-context

Every aspect of global communication is influenced by cultural differences. Even the choice of medium used to communicate may have cultural overtones. For example, it has been noted that industrialized nations rely heavily on electronic technology and emphasize written messages over oral or face-to-face communication. Certainly the United States, Canada, the UK and Germany exemplify this trend. But Japan, which has access to the latest technologies, still relies more on face-to-face communications than on the written mode. The determining factor in medium preference may not be the degree of industrialization, but rather whether the country falls into a high-context or low-context culture.

In some cultures, personal bonds and informal agreements are far more binding than any formal contract. In others, the meticulous wording of legal documents is viewed as paramount. High-context cultures (Mediterranean, Slav, Central European, Latin American, African, Arab, Asian, American-Indian) leave much of the message unspecified – to be understood through context, nonverbal cues, and between-the-lines interpretation of what is actually said. By contrast, low-context cultures (most of the Germanic and English-speaking countries) expect messages to be explicit and specific. The former are looking for meaning and understanding in what is not said – in body language, in silences and pauses, and in relationships and empathy. The latter place emphasis on sending and receiving accurate messages directly, and by being precise with spoken or written words.

One communication trap that U.S. business leaders may fall into is a (costly) disregard for the importance of building and maintaining personal relationships when dealing with individuals from high-context cultures.

Cultures are either sequential or synchronic

Some cultures think of time sequentially – as a linear commodity to “spend,” “save,” or “waste.” Other cultures view time synchronically – as a constant flow to be experienced in the moment, and as a force that cannot be contained or controlled.

In sequential cultures (like North American, English, German, Swedish, and Dutch), businesspeople give full attention to one agenda item after another. In many other parts of the world, professionals regularly do several things at the same time. I once cashed a traveler’s check at a Panamanian bank where the teller was counting my money, talking to a customer on the phone, and admiring the baby in the arms of the woman behind me. To her, it was all business as usual.

The American commoditization of time not only serves as the basis for a “time is money” mentality, it can lead to a fixation on timelines that plays right into the hands of savvy negotiators from other cultures. A Chinese executive explained: “All we need to do is find out when you are scheduled to leave the country and we wait until right before your flight to present our offer. By then, you are so anxious to stay on schedule, you’ll give away the whole deal.”

In synchronic cultures (including South America, southern Europe and Asia) the flow of time is viewed as a sort of circle – with the past, present, and future all inter-related. This viewpoint influences how organizations in those cultures approach deadlines, strategic thinking, investments, developing talent from within, and the concept of “long-term” planning.

Whether time is perceived as a commodity or a constant determines the meaning and value of being “on time.”  Think of the misunderstandings that can occur when one culture views arriving late for a meeting as bad planning or a sign of disrespect, while another culture views an insistence on timeliness as childish impatience.

Orientation to the past, present, and future is another aspect of time in which cultures disagree. Americans believe that the individual can influence the future by personal effort, but since there are too many variables in the distant future, we favor a short-term view. This gives us an international reputation of “going for the quick buck” and being interested only in the next quarterly return. Even our relationships seem to be based on a “what have you done for me lately?” pragmatism.

Synchronic cultures have an entirely different perspective. The past becomes a context in which to understand the present and prepare for the future. Any important relationship is a durable bond that goes back and forward in time, and it is often viewed as grossly disloyal not to favor friends and relatives in business dealings.

Cultures are either affective or neutral

With much angry gesturing, an Italian manager referred to the idea of his Dutch counterpart as “crazy.” The Dutch manager replied. “What do you mean, crazy? I’ve considered all the factors, and I think this is a viable approach. And calm down! We need to analyze this, not get sidetracked by emotional theatrics.” At that point, the Italian walked out of the meeting.

In international business dealings, reason and emotion both play a role. Which of these dominates depends upon whether we are affective (readily showing emotions) or emotionally neutral in our approach. Members of neutral cultures do not telegraph their feelings, but keep them carefully controlled and subdued. In cultures with high affect, people show their feelings plainly by laughing, smiling, grimacing, scowling – and sometimes crying, shouting, or walking out of the room.

This doesn’t mean that people in neutral cultures are cold or unfeeling. But in the course of normal business activities, neutral cultures are more careful to monitor the amount of emotion they display. Research conducted with people who were upset about something at work, noted that only some cultures supported expressing those feelings openly. Emotional reactions were found to be least acceptable in Japan, Indonesia, the U.K., Norway and the Netherlands – and most accepted in Italy, France, the U.S. and Singapore.

It’s easy for people from neutral cultures to sympathize with the Dutch manager and his frustration over trying to reason with “that excitable Italian.” After all, an idea either works or it doesn’t work – and the way to test the validity of an idea is through trial and observation. That just makes sense – doesn’t it? Well, not necessarily to the Italian who felt the issue was deeply personal, and who viewed any “rational argument” as totally irrelevant!

In today’s global business community, there is no single best approach to communicating with one another. The key to cross-cultural success is to develop an understanding of, and a deep respect for, the differences.

Carol Kinsey Goman, Ph.D. is an executive coach, leadership consultant, and international keynote speaker at corporate, government, and association events. She’s a expert contributor for The Washington Post’s “On Leadership” column, a leadership blogger on Forbes.com, a business body language columnist for “the Market” magazine, and the author of “THE SILENT LANGUAGE OF LEADERS: How Body Language Can help – or Hurt – How You Lead.”

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