Women, Take Your Place at the Table…the Right Place!

Meetings, meetings, meetings, your working life is probably full of them. Sometimes you’re no doubt temped to avoid a few when you can; I know I used to!

It makes sense to use your time wisely and some organisations get into meeting overload culture. However, make sure you are not missing any key meetings where crucial decisions are made or where people are selected to make crucial decisions. It’s very easy for women to get sidelined, particularly in large organisations. And it’s easy for women to be largely invisible in meetings too.

I’ve written before about the importance of making sure you’re voice is heard in every meeting and the tendency of men to interrupt and talk across women; this time I’m adding a few tips about body language in meetings.

Body Language Tips for Meetings

• If you’re presenting, stand tall and use open body language. If your body is saying ‘nervous and anxious’ you are likely to get a bored or negative reaction. Try to keep the energy up in your voice and sound as if you are really enthused by what you’re saying. Remember the nodding head trap….
• Make sure you talk to everyone, making comfortable eye contact with all, and not just focussing on the most senior person.
• Your choice of seat can unconsciously influence your relationship with colleagues; it all depends on the shape of the table. If at a square table the person on your right will be most attuned with what you are saying and will tend to want to agree with you. It could be useful to get your most difficult colleague in that position of possible. The person who will feel least sympathy with you will be the one seated opposite as the table is a very real physical barrier between you.
• Round tables can work well in helping everyone feel very relaxed, unless there is someone present who is much senior to the others. Then square table rules er… rule.
• Try not to sit with your back to the door if you are at a long meeting table. You will have less authority than if you were facing the door. Sitting at the short end of a rectangular table facing the door gives added authority (think Victorian fathers at Sunday lunch!)
• Be careful about touching anyone in meetings or being touched. Touching can be seen as an invasion of personal space, but it’s also about power too. Men touch women more than women touch men. Researchers think there is a strong link between gender and social inferiority, i.e. men tend to keep women on their dominant side; if they are right handed it will be their right side and vice versa. Research has also found that when men touch women it’s often seen as a signal of power (or a sexual advance). When women touch men it’s usually a sign of intimacy. Make sure your personal space is respected.

Photo Credit: Michelle Ho

Be a Mind Reader! Tip 2

Some research by Professor William Ickes shows that, contrary to popular opinion, living with someone for years doesn’t necessarily equate to knowing them well as in understanding what they are thinking!  In fact, he discovered that it could be a distinct disadvantage.

As our intimate relationships develop our ideas and perceptions on our partners tend to become fixed. This means that we have more difficulty interpreting their thoughts accurately because our bias comes into play. We think we know what they are thinking, or going to think, before they themselves have even thought it……

So if you want to try and work out what your partner is thinking, forget you know them! Listen to what they say and do as if they were strangers and you’ll probably get more accurate information

Are YOU a Social Magnet?

If you have social magnetism you will be the person that always seems to get stopped by people asking for directions; the one people gravitate towards at parties. It plays a significant role in business too.

Research has shown that people with social magnetism exhibit body language and facial expressions that other people find attractive and inviting, like smiling, and eye contact.

However, the biggest indicator is the amount of ‘closed’ or ‘open’ body language used. The more open your body language (i.e. turning to face the other person, arms not defensively crossed) the more of a social magnet you are, and the more of a social magnet you are the more encounters you have.

And the more encounters you have with other people, the more opportunities come your way! This applies to all areas of your life, personal and professional, work, romance, friends and family.

Look around at your peer group. How many social magnets do you know? Are YOU a social magnet?

Watch Those Hands!

After to our faces, our hands are the most animated and communicative part of our bodies. Interpreting hand movements is not an exact science but there are some general interpretations of what various hand movements mean. See if you agree with any of the following:

• Clenching your fist is usually taken as a sign of anger or frustration
• In most cultures a ‘wave’ of the hand is a sign of greeting
• Open face up palms are seen as a sign of honesty. Oaths of allegiance are often taken with open palmed hands placed across the heart. We put our palms up to show we mean no harm, to be submissive and say we have no weapons, for example.
• Showing off our thumbs by poking them out of the top of a pocket can be a gesture of dominance.
• Rubbing our palms together indicates that we think something good is about to happen.
• Another dominant hand gesture is making a steeple with our hands; fingertips and tops of fingers are pressed together to form a steeple or church spire shape. This is often used by individuals who are, or believe themselves to be, of higher status than the person they are speaking to.
• A hand may be used to grasp the wrist of the other behind the back.  Prince Charles frequently uses this hand position. This is a sign of dominance as the person feels confident enough to leave their front exposed.

What gestures with the hands have you noticed in others and in yourself?

4 Ways to Tell if Someone is Lying

We all do it, let’s not lie to ourselves!
‘How are you?’   ‘Oh I’m fine, thanks’, can actually mean ‘I feel awful and really don’t want to talk about myself. Please go away’. We’d feel rude saying the latter and so we indulge in a little social lying or fibbing.

It is possible to become very skilled at lying. But if you are feeling at all negative about the lie you are telling there are some give away signs; they are micro changes of nuance in your mood and body language.

Here are 4 to look out for:

• Literally guarding the mouth, holding fingers or whole hand up in front of the mouth when speaking.
• Lots of eye rubbing. It can, of course, just mean tiredness, but may mean one is lying, or think that the peron speaking is lying.
• Nose touching can be a sign of untruthfulness. It may occur once or several times in a conversation.
• Pulling at your collar, rubbing arond the neck can indicate the speaker feels uncomfortable about what they are saying.

It’s Not Always Good to Talk!

The Office Chatterbox

On a recent course I was asked by a participant, ‘How can you politely get away from people at work who keep talking at you?’ There was much laughter as each one of us immediately brought to mind people we knew who button hole us and whom we can’t seem to get away from!

It is a serious point though. Most of the time at work we want to maintain an ongoing, amicable and professional relationship with work colleagues. We don’t want to hurt their feelings and create a bad atmosphere.

A Couple of Tips

One tip is to get in first. As you see them bearing down on you say, ‘Hi, I’ve got five minutes before I must get on with …whatever.’ Then pay them really good attention for those 5 minutes and in 4 minutes glance at your watch. If they don’t take the hint you may have to bring your assertiveness skills into play.

Appearance Is Key

Use their name to get their attention: tell them it’s been good to have a break from your work but now you must get back to it. Remember that in terms of how messages are received the actual words you use are not that important. In fact they account for about 7% of the total. Your tone of voice is important too but a whopping 55% is all about your appearance and body language. So don’t act as if you are doing something wrong or behave too apologetically. It’s perfectly reasonable to get on with your work. You don’t want to be rude but neither do you want to feel that your time is not your own.

If you are sitting, stand. You may break eye contact as you look towards your desk. Direct eye contact is often seen as an invitation to speak. Slightly turn your body in the direction in which you want to go. Put your hand on your watch, subtly drawing attention to the time. Try only to look at it when you are speaking so it appears as if it’s your time to speak you are curtailing, not theirs.

If you really find it difficult to get away without hurting their feelings you may have to have a conversation with yourself about the value of your time, and maybe how much you value yourself. If you are in an open plan office you maybe could initiate a general discussion about how people indicate to others they are happy to be interrupted. And, more importantly, when they don’t want to be!

And eventually, if all else fails, you may just have to be fairly blunt and say you find it distracting and could they please stop!