Meetings

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

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

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?

• 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?

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.

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!

Listening is critical to our everyday lives, yet during our early years we don’t actually spend a lot of time learning how to do it! It’s been estimated that 40% of the time in early school is spent learning how to read and 35% on learning how to write. Approximately 25% is spent learning how to talk and virtually no time at all is spent on learning how to listen or communicate! No wonder we occasionally need some help!

Bad Listening Habits

When I work one to one with individuals I often find the difficulties that they are experiencing arise from poor communication which stems from poor listening. We develop bad habits, particularly in intimate relationships with family and friends; we assume we know what they are going to say next. We ‘hear’ what we expect to hear. Have you ever had the same argument over and over when no one really listens to the other person because you know what they are going to say and they know what you are going to say and you both go round in inconclusive circles?

Or maybe you have spoken at length with a salesperson explaining what you are looking for, only to have them offer you something else? They have stopped listening once they think they have heard what you want and are mentally rehearsing their sales pitch for that product. Then they offer you something you don’t want and you walk away. Or worse, you actually buy it but never go back and never recommend them.

Personality Listening

Another poor listening habit is sometimes called ‘personality listening’, when we make a judgement based on what the speaker looks and sounds like- we will not give them our full attention if we conclude they are not worth our time. Conversely, we might listen attentively because someone’s appearance leads us to think what they say may be of use to us, emphasising the importance of paying attention to all aspects of how your message is delivered.

Verbal, Vocal & Visual

Listening is not just about interpreting the spoken words. A good listener reads the entire message presented to him or her. That message divides into three categories and has been researched by Professor Mehrabian. He found that words actually counted for only 7% of the total message being believed, with the tone and sound of the voice at 38%, and a huge 55% attributed to all the non verbal things that we receive like body language, posture, and the overall look. If the body language and facial expression does not match up with the words, is incongruent, the message is less likely to be believed. Body language over rides the words.

Develop Your Skills

To develop your listening skills you must first decide to listen. Despite all the talk about multi-tasking we know that if you want to do a task really well you should only do one thing at a time.  Sometimes you need to take the time to listen properly. If someone wants to talk to you but you are short of time, tell them you only have five minutes, but then give those five minutes freely. Don’t potter around packing your bag, tidying up, and checking your watch, but do sit or stand opposite them, making appropriate eye contact, looking at them and not letting your gaze wander. Let them have your full attention for those important five minutes. You can signal your intention to close the conversation by summarising what they have said after four minutes and, if you are unable to respond immediately, let them know when you will give them a proper response. If you do not listen well you will usually find that the encounter is prolonged as the speaker tries again and again to get their point across!

You can show people you are listening with a smile or a nod of encouragement for them to continue, (there are some very interesting differences between genders). Ask some questions about what they have said to make sure that you understand, maybe using an experience of your own to check out your understanding, but don’t start your own anecdote or response until they have finished. Make sure that you are responding first to what they have actually said and not just jumping in with your own contribution.

Listen in all respects. Does the pitch or timbre of their voice change at certain points? Are they using lots of feeling type words? Do they look relaxed or agitated? Are they telling you something through their body language, their eye contact? Sometimes people are unaware that their body is telling a story too.

Don’t Interrupt

Listening well means letting people get to the end of what they want to say. We all interrupt from time to time and in normal day to day conversation this can be fine. But if you really want to improve the quality of your listening practise not interrupting. Staying silent is a powerful tool and you will be surprised how much more information you will get and how good it makes the other person feel to be listened to attentively.

We make these errors because listening well is a skill; it’s not just passively receiving information. When we’re listening we should be trying to understand what the other person is saying. A simple test is to ask yourself before replying, can I accurately paraphrase what they have just said? If you can’t, you probably haven’t been listening.

Listen to Your Customers/Clients

Developing your listening skills will help you in all areas of your life. People love being listened to and they love good listeners. Listening to your customers or clients is vital. Whatever the service you offer, you will have a poor response if you offer them something inappropriate for their needs, or misunderstand what they are telling you. They will feel disrespected and ignored, and are unlikely to be repeat customers or recommend your services to others. But if you give them what they want- happiness all round.

In this world of fast and instant communication with text messages and Emails the norm it is even more of an asset to know how to listen. Good quality listening will mean you get better quality information, it will save you time, and it will enhance your professional skills. Try it out, and as usual, do let me know how you get on!

Your words may be saying one thing but your body may be giving out a completely different message! Most of us are very fluent in reading body language even if we don’t realise it. You probably don’t need telling in words that the girl in the picture is feeling sad or fed up.

The actual words that someone uses only account for about 7% of the message we receive with over the half the message being a visual one (that’s one reason why e-mails can be so disastrous at times; we only get a part of the writer’s intended message).

Stand Up for Yourself

Have you noticed how we tend to pay more attention to the person who is standing? People who are standing usually look more powerful than those sitting (this fact has particular resonance for anyone with a disability). It’s because they are taking up more space.

We often assume, when we see someone standing amongst a group of people sitting, that they are of higher status. It can also make them look busier and important, as if they have many more demands on their time.

Sprawl and Be Noticed

If you are sitting it is still possible to look powerful by taking up as much space as you can. Stretch out your legs as far as you can, have your arms out over your chair, and keep your body movements open and expansive.

When you are on the phone and want to feel more powerful and in control, just try standing up. It will help you sound more assertive and project a sense of urgency.

Read Your Client

If your client starts using a lot of hand-to-face movements such as scratching their chin, holding their face etc, it most likely means that they are thinking of making a purchase but that something is holding them back; they have a concern about something.

If customers are unsure about something they often don’t ask for clarification but just leave. Reading their body language correctly could help you give them the information they need to feel comfortable enough to proceed.

Nodding Off

In the Western world when we’re listening a lot of us move our heads or nod, women in particular do this to show that they understand. However, it can look as though we are seeking approval from the speaker and be interpreted as a weakness. If you want to look powerful try and keep your head movements to a minimum.

Mirror, Mirror!

We are all attracted to those people who we see as being similar to ourselves. It can create a sense of harmony or belonging if two people are adopting similar poses. Just look at people who are in agreement; they will often be sitting in a similar fashion, mirroring each other’s body movements. Sometimes people consciously ape the movements of others in order to create this sense of harmony but be careful, it’s easy to make yourself look ridiculous and simply succeed in irritating the other person!

Stop Fiddling

And finally, just try and be aware of what gestures and body language you adopt when you are not feeling confident. Do you start to chew your fingernails, or fiddle with your hair? Or maybe you revert to grooming yourself, like fiddling with your socks or brushing down your suit?

We tend to do this when we are uncomfortable or with someone we are unsure of. We start grooming to make ourselves more presentable or we use the displacement type activities like hair fiddling. All dead give aways of our lack of confidence!

Watch and Learn

You may be surprised by how much you know about body language. The next time you find yourself with a few minutes to spare just sit and quietly observe the behaviour of people around you. You will be able to tell a lot from simply watching their body language! But be careful how you are sitting – they may be also watching you!

Suggestions for Further reading from Amazon
Body Language by Carolyn Boyes