Body Language and the Handshake

Attending a recent early morning meeting, I was taken with the abundance of unspoken words. Just looking around the group was a vast array of stance, shifting, hand shaking, eye movements and a volume of language before the first word was ever spoken. The early work in body language is typically credited to Charles Darwin and Sigmund Freud, but I think we learn the most from cavemen and poker players. It is interesting science to be sure, but the reality is that we humans have relied instinctively on body language for thousands of years. Cavemen certainly needed body language if for no other reason than other communication did not fully exist. If you have ever played a good game of cards, you can learn a lot by just looking at the movement around the table to see who is bluffing.

Body language has evolved in spite of human tendencies. We humans do have a tendency for lies, deceit, manipulation and pretending. Masking our true feelings just seems to be in our nature. It would seem that body language has evolved as a type of guardian angel to work to keep us at least a little honest. Body language works to help us communicate and resolve issues when the words just fail us.

Darwin’s book The Origin of the Species was far outsold by his other book called The Expressions of the Emotions of Man and Animals published in 1872. In this work, Darwin discusses the six universal emotions of happiness, sadness, fear, disgust, surprise and anger. The general idea is that man’s expression and the ability to recognize them are inborn and universal among people. You could smile in the most lost, remote part of the word, and it will mean the same thing as if you were saying thank you to the waitress at Cracker Barrel. It is a part of human evolved nature, genetically inherited, not driven by social learning and conditioning.

But……As study in this area has grown, we understand that there is a nature and nurture component. Cultural and ethnic differences as well as age and gender, all play into how we understand each other. Think for a moment on the most simple of greeting: The Handshake.

Body language involves consideration of the hands to a very high level, and it is no wonder. The hands have more nervous system connections to the brain than any other part of the body. Tactile sensitivity and manual dexterity are clearly human traits, and we should not take it for granted when we are speaking. How many of you can quite literally say very little should you be forced to put your hands behind your back? We use our hands for emphasis, illustration, conscious signaling and greetings as well as the unconscious signals. Body language research supports the idea that we just say more with our hands than practically anything else. It has been suggested that the handshake evolved to show that no weapon was in the hand, as did the open palm gesture. But a handshake isn’t everything that we may think. While a good, firm handshake is looked for and expected in business, too firm, and you may come across as domineering. A good handshake from a woman today goes over a lot better than the curtsy that we were relegated to a century or so ago.

So what does your handshake say about you? Palm down and you may be a bit domineering. Palm up is too submissive. A two handed shake suggests honesty, but shake my hand while clasping my forearm and you just stepped over to controlling and arrogance.
Who knew that we could say so much while saying so little?

The Eyes Have: Body Language and Business

Let’s visit a bit this week some more on the useful understanding of body language in the terms of our professional conversations. I had several comments of interest to learn more on the topic, so let’s spend some time learning about the eyes.

Our ability to ‘read’ people’s eyes without knowing how or why seems to be inborn. We are able to make eye contact from about 100 to 130 feet away well past the distance where we can really see the detail of someone’s eyes. We can see whether someone is really focused on us or not, and we can detect the difference between the glazed blank stare, the drop dead look, the embarrassed awkward glance or the moist eyes of fighting back tears. When we additionally consider the eyelids, and the flexibility of the eyes to widen and close, and for the pupils to enlarge or contract, it becomes easier to understand how the eyes have developed such potency in human communications. One subtle measure is the widening of the pupils when someone of emotional interest walks into a room.
Eyes tend to look right when the brain is imagining or creating, and left when the brain is recalling or remembering. This relates to the right and left sides of the brain and broadly stated the parts of the brain handling creativity and feelings dwells in the right while and facts and memory hang out in the left. The research behind this is called Neuro-linguistics Programming theory, or NLP Theory, was developed in the 1960s and has its range of skeptics and supporters. In general, NLP delves into the idea that there are patterns of behavior and patterns of thought that underlie them. The research and theory is used today in organizational development strategy and organizational change management. In this example it centers on the idea that under certain circumstances 'creating' can really mean lying. So if a person looks right when asked a question requiring a recall of facts, they may be making those facts up. Or it could mean that the person isn’t really lying, but is uncertain of the answer, and is creatively speculating. Either way it may be good to know that a look right in search for an answer to a direct question means that the person is probably lying or guessing according to this theory. What you really want to see is a direct straight on look with the direct straight on answer.
NLP theory and the Mehrabian's model that we discussed here in a previous article are both seminal pieces of work in understanding behavior, and it's amazingly helpful in explaining the importance of careful and appropriate communications. And like any model, care must be exercised when transferring it to different situations. The idea may not work as cleanly when you consider communication via email, telephone or video conferencing when so much of the communication “package” is eliminated. Imagine how you feel when you receive a text message with a request that is followed by multiple question marks and exclamation points as opposed to a : - ) or the message that you send when you pause a long time before speaking on the telephone. The reader or listener in each example gets the message loud and clear that the sender or speaker is irritated, anxious or impatient. One suggestion here for you is to put a mirror by the phone if you do a considerable amount of phone work to check your facial expression while speaking….you may surprise yourself to see what you are REALLY saying. Here is a suggestion on texting for you too. Don’t do it while driving. Enough Said.Remember, take care of your customers, or someone else will

Leadership for the Rest of Us

I again had the opportunity to hear US Senator Jeff Sessions discuss current affairs and take questions at an event held at Samford University this past week. As before, his insight and clarity of thought have made me seek out additional information as to the drivers behind our economy and what it can mean for small business. As Senator Sessions opined, “We need and welcome healthy, lively debate. What we do not need now is apathy.” He is so right, and as this writer has offered the challenge here on more than one occasion to please take ownership of where you collect your information. Please seek your information out in multiple sources, and preferably in person.

Gathering information in person is invaluable to understanding what someone truly means as you observe their body language with your own eyes, and listen with your own ears. Seeking out your own information to draw your own conclusions can be just the apple to keep the spin doctor away. For example, when it was suggested to Senator Sessions that we are in the middle of a healthcare debate with extreme opinions getting all the attention, and that perhaps the answer to our fiscal crisis and concerns on health care costs will be found in the middle, this is what happened. Senator Sessions stated, “Well we are at a 900 Billion deficit, now. Would you be pleased if we were at 450 Billion?” The clear point made that even the middle was not something that we can afford. More importantly, the statement was made with a small, but confident smile, sharpened with a small lean forward and to the left. No crossed legs. No pause. No looking up into the air. His message was clear. When is comes to United States debt, there is no middle ground at that level.

This message resonates as very important as the impact of the health care legislation sinks into the collective consciousness of small business owners. A level of dissatisfaction is bubbling to the surface as business owners recheck their balance sheet to see what line item needs to be juggled to pay for any potential financial obligations that the health care legislation will impart. The several companies that are now being called on the carpet to justify their dissatisfaction with a personal meeting in Washington will be watched with great expectation by this writer.

Dissatisfaction is a motivator for change, and this is true for not only changing someone’s behavior, but also changing the targets of change. People are more responsive to learning when they are moderately dissatisfied; too little, and they don’t want to bother; too much is paralyzing. Therefore, if you want to increase a group’s readiness to change, you need to manage their dissatisfaction. In Managing People: the R Factor, Allan Cohen writes that often this requires finding ways to increase dissatisfaction and can be accomplished in several ways which are often very intentional. The R factor examines roles, relationships, rewards, and rites and is the strategic and tactical method of cultivating dissatisfaction as a motivator to organizations. The status quo is a killer, and the art of managing dissatisfaction is key to driving our markets today on both the political and domestic front. Open the papers, read your online news, or listen to the TV or radio, and you can see examples of dissatisfaction everywhere. I see it as the primary driver behind the Tea Party movement and the rising expectation of transparency in business and in government. Organizational stress bubbles up when people no longer feel that they have control over their life at work. Pushing through this and leading through the change needed is critical for not just management and but all leadership. This ongoing challenge for management in business and government should be driven by educating to the growth and change needed, not testing the amount of power held or proving the level of correctness.

The answer may be found quite simply in asking yourself, “What are you measuring?” In Total Quality Management (TQM) lingo, don’t just look at your internal yardstick; look at your external yardstick too. For example, if your sales team only measures itself by improving over its own best performance, you may get passed up really quickly. Take a look at how others in your industry are performing too. This goes for government as well. How do we measure up to other states and even countries? This type of self reflection and line of thoughtful questioning may just help keep you ahead of the pack, and out in front of the herd too.

So remember, take care of your customers, or someone else will.