CW_JA08_NonVerbal_prep 5/29/08 1:32 PM
beyond words
We’re all familiar
with managers who
pride themselves on
having an open door.
But how many pride
themselves on keeping
an open mind when
an employee offers a
process-improvement
suggestion?
28 Communication World • July–August 2008
Page 28
with mixing business and reli-
gion, Cathy viewed his role as
deliberately spending time—his
scarcest resource—to reinforce
the company’s values.
Presence and accessibility.
You can think of presence and
accessibility in four ways: phys-
ical, social, intellectual and
emotional. Each has its diffi-
culties. We’re all familiar with
managers who pride themselves
on having an open door. But
how many announce their
availability for impromptu
collaboration with hourly
employees? More important,
how many pride themselves on
keeping an open mind when
an employee offers a process-
improvement suggestion?
More common, I fear, are
managers like those I met at a
factory in Tennessee, who made
clear they resented the inter-
ruption and viewed employee
suggestions as meddling. Far
from implementing any process
improvements suggested by
hourly workers, these managers
ignored them all. Something
tells me they’re still wondering
why employees are so cynical.
None of this is to say that
words do not matter. Far from
it. Words matter greatly.
Indeed, many of these atti-
tudes, behaviors and decisions
reveal themselves in the pres-
ence of words. But the words
count only to the extent that
people regard them as true and
real. For that, they look around
them, and they take notice.
SHUTTERSTOCK
At day’s end, people may or
may not hear what you say. But
they will always see what you
do, and seeing is believing. ●
CW_JA08_NonVerbal_prep 5/29/08 1:33 PM Page 29

First
impressions
really matter
A conscious approach to controlling subconscious perceptions
by Tonya Reiman

I
n our complex world of and body, your movements and
high-tech communica- mannerisms, even your pitch
tions, we can get caught and vocal tone, body language
up in the business-build- is everything you can do with
ing possibilities of new your body to say whatever it is
technology—blogs, social net- you’re trying to say. Or, interest-
working, webinars, oh my! But ingly enough, sometimes what
in our fascination with the you’re trying not to say.
promise of shiny new gadgets,
we sometimes lose sight of The inescapable truth
the fundamentals of face-to- of the first impression
face human contact. And When a person first meets you,
nothing is more fundamen- her brain scans you for hun-
tal to communication than dreds of signs that will tell her
body language. more about you and whether
Research suggests that or not she can trust you. She’s
as much as 90 percent alert to how close you come
of human communi- as you approach her personal
cation is composed space, your facial expressions,
of body language the smoothness of your move-
signals. Made up ments. She notes your sex, age,
of your facial race, grooming. She looks for
expressions, clues to social status. She looks
the way you at the dimensions of your face:
hold your How wide set are your eyes?
hands How low is your forehead?
What gestures are you making,
and how should she react?
She does this entire evalua-
tion, and much more, in a split
second. Literally. When we meet
Researcher Alex Todorov
and his colleagues from Prince- someone for the
ton University have shown
that when we meet someone first time, we make our
for the first time, we make
our initial judgments about initial judgments about
a person’s attractiveness, lik-
ability, trustworthiness, com- that person within 100
petence and aggressiveness
within 100 milliseconds—one- milliseconds—one-tenth
tenth of one second. And
once those impressions are of one second.
formed, they tend to become
even more ingrained.
You can control many of the
variables of your first impres-
sion and make them sway your
audience in your favor with a
bit of forethought, preparation
and training. A few simple
techniques can help anyone

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CW_JA08_NonVerbal_prep 5/29/08 1:33 PM Page 30

beyond words

You can control
many of the variables
of your first impression
and make them sway
your audience in your
favor with a bit of fore-
thought, preparation
and training.
make a favorable first impres-
sion on a group of skeptical
reporters, a new business asso-
ciate or the employees of a
prospective multinational part-
ner—whether in front of a
crowd of hundreds or, yes, even
via a podcast or vlog. Just fol-
low these basic suggestions.
Get into a positive frame of
mind. You’ve probably heard the
expression “Fear is contagious.”
Even if you try to mask your
anxiety about a presentation,
your audience will absorb your
mood from your microexpres-
sions, the fleeting expressions of
emotion that flash across your
face in as little as 1/25 of a sec-
ond. These tiny muscular move-
ments sometimes go undetected
by the conscious mind, but are
eagerly absorbed by the uncon-
scious. In a 2000 study, Swedish
researchers used subliminal
techniques to show pictures of
happy or angry faces to subjects
without their knowledge. Just
30 milliseconds—3/100 of a
second—of exposure was all it
took for the subjects’ correspon-
ding facial muscles to imitate
the emotion, without them hav-
ing a clue what they’d seen.
Before you begin your pre-
sentation, take five to 10 very
deep belly breaths and let them
slowly out; this exercise will
decrease your heart rate and
initiate a relaxation response
that will help you appear less
nervous and more confident.
Give more space rather than
less. In 1966, nonverbal com-
munication expert Edward
Hall defined four zones of
space in which human beings
interact:
● Public (from 12 to 25 feet
apart, the zone between a
concertgoer and the musical
performer)
● Social (from 4 to 12 feet
apart, the “beach blanket
zone”)
● Personal (from 2 to 4 feet
apart, the zone for friends
and family)
● Intimate (0 to 2 feet apart,
the zone reserved exclusively
for loved ones)
While we don’t walk around
measuring these distances with
rulers, we do carry with us a
kind of mental yardstick to
gauge the appropriate space
to afford people in all settings.
We humans are, by nature,
extremely territorial, and
invading someone’s personal
space can cause him to have a
visceral reaction.
The general rule is to main-
tain one full arm’s length
from each other, which gener-
ally turns into about 3 to
4 feet. Find a good solid
middle ground to ensure
comfort for all.
Maintain eye contact 70 per-
cent of the time. Eye contact is
crucial to demonstrating sin-
cerity and establishing trust. In
the United States, the inability
to maintain eye contact is
taken as a sign of disrespect, a
lack of personal confidence
or a short attention span—and
in some cases, people might
assume you’re a liar. Keep in
mind, though, that some cul-
tures, such as those in South
Asia, regard direct eye contact
as threatening, rude, disre-
spectful or impolite. But in
U.S. culture, when you main-
tain eye contact, you’re likely to
be perceived as attentive, com-
petent and powerful.
While a reasonable amount
of eye contact is good, outright
staring can be insulting, even
scary. If you tend to stare, try
visualizing a triangle on the
other person’s face, made up of
the two eyes and the nose.
Move your eyes around within
that triangle so you can be sure
you have appropriate eye con-
tact without staring the other
person down.
Talk in a low tone of voice.
Stress affects every muscle in
the body, and our vocal chords
are no exception. When we’re
nervous, our voices become
more high pitched. A high-
pitched voice in women can
come across as ditzy, and in
men it is perceived as effemi-
nate. On the other hand, a low
voice is considered dominant,
giving the speaker power and
influence in the situation.
Before you go to the meet-
ing, practice doing deep-
breathing exercises, because
they’ll slow down the heart rate
and allow the vocal chords to
loosen, which will keep your
pitch normal. A strong
approach is to use a low-
pitched voice when you are
stressing a point.
Control your movements.
Few things are as annoying as a
person jiggling his or her leg,
tapping a pen cap, drumming
fingers on the table, or doing
any other repetitive movement
that serves no other purpose
than as an outlet for nervous-
ness. For years, experts have rec-
ommended that people just not
do those behaviors, but very
recently, German scientists
actually discovered the “fidget
gene” in many who “just can’t
sit still.” If you suspect you’re

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CW_JA08_NonVerbal_prep 5/29/08
plagued with this gene, just try
to keep your gestures within the
range bounded by your hipline
and your shoulders to demon-
strate that you are in control.
Natural gesticulators can make
use of their hands and arms to
deliver a clear and concise mes-
sage and do so with ease. Wildly
erratic or overly exuberant ges-
ticulators are sometimes seen as
overbearing and obnoxious.
Gestures should emphasize ver-
bal statements and consistently
take place in the square area sur-
rounding your torso.
These are just a few of the
myriad body language signals
that make up the first impres-
sion. Taken individually, each
of these suggestions may seem
like common sense, even triv-
ial. When you combine them,
however, you increase the
likelihood that people will
trust your message and want
to help you convey it. Don’t
forget that the cliché “You
never get a second chance to
make a first impression” is
a powerful business maxim.
Take care that in these times
of shiny gadgets and heady
electronic networking, you
don’t lose the ability to con-
nect with other people in that
most powerful moment of
body language communica-
tion—the first impression. ●
about the author
Tonya Reiman, author
of The Power of Body Language,
is a well-known television
personality, speaker and body
language expert.
www.iabc.com/cw
1:33 PM Page 31
Lost in
translation
People are constantly telling each other exactly
what they think and feel—and it often has nothing
at all to do with the words they say
by Carol Kinsey Goman, Ph.D.
Y
our boss tells you that
you’ll be considered for
a promotion. But if
she’s leaning back with
crossed arms and a forced smile,
she’s sending the opposite mes-
sage. Your customer may say he’s
not interested in the deal you’re
presenting. But if he keeps
glancing at the contract on the
table, he’s telling you that he is
DAVE CUTLER/IMAGES.COM
interested.
These are but two examples
of how body language plays an
important role in our day-to-
day business activities. In work-
place settings around the world,
in fact, people are constantly
telling each other exactly what clear signals of others or who
they think and feel—and it don’t have a clue how their own
often has nothing at all to do nonverbal behavior is sabotag-
with the words they say. ing their efforts. Six factors have
A thorough understanding of converged to make body lan-
the role of body language is a guage in the workplace more
vital tool in today’s business important now than ever before.
environment. And yet I see it
time and time again: profes- 1. Emotional literacy
sionals at all levels of the organi- in communication
zation who aren’t reading the When gauging the impact of
Communication World • July–August 2008 31
CW_JA08_NonVerbal_prep 5/29/08 1:33 PM Page 32

beyond words

When a leader
stands in front of
a thousand employees
and talks about how
much he welcomes their
input, the message gets
derailed if he hides
behind a lectern or
leans back away from
his audience.
workplace communication, I’ve
found that it’s not the medium
or the message that matters
most. What really counts is the
quality of the interpersonal rela-
tionship that exists between
sender and receiver. And a large
(and largely unexplored) part of
that relationship is determined
by nonverbal cues.
Look at it this way: If words
are used to communicate con-
tent, body language comments
on the emotions and relation-
ships behind the content. A
classic study by Dr. Albert
Mehrabian at UCLA (Univer-
sity of California, Los Angeles)
found the total impact of a
message is based on words used,
7 percent; tone of voice, 38 per-
cent; and facial expressions,
hand gestures, body position
and other forms of nonverbal
communication, 55 percent.
Consider the oil company
CEO who showed up at a refin-
ery in an expensive suit and tie
to discuss the company’s state of
affairs with rank-and-file opera-
tors, electricians and members
of the warehouse staff—dressed
in their fire-retardant blue over-
alls. After being introduced and
walking carefully to the front of
the room, he removed his wrist-
watch and quite visibly placed it
on the lectern. The unspoken
message: “I’m a very important
man, I don’t like coming into
dirty places like this, and I have
exactly 20 minutes to spend
with you.”
Quite different from what he
actually said: “I’m happy to be
with you today.”
Which do you think those
refinery workers believed—the
CEO’s spoken words or what his
body language said?
2. Leadership’s move
from command to influence
The effectiveness of “command-
and-control” management tac-
tics declined dramatically with
the end of the Industrial Age.
Today’s leaders must lead
through influence, rather than
rely on the control (or at least
the illusion of control) that a
management position implies.
And influence relies on the
effective use of two communica-
tion skills: (1) the ability to
really understand the other per-
son’s perspective (which means
listening to what’s being said)
and knowing how to read the
messages that are being deliv-
ered nonverbally, and (2) the
ability to communicate congru-
ently, to align the spoken word
with body language that sup-
ports an intended message.
When a leader stands in front
of a thousand employees and
talks about how much he wel-
comes their input, the message
gets derailed if he hides behind a
lectern, or leans back away from
his audience, or puts his hands
behind his back, or shoves them
in his pockets, or folds his arms
across his chest. All of those send
closed nonverbal signals. Con-
versely, when a leader fully faces
the audience, makes eye contact,
keeps her movements relaxed
and natural, stands tall, and uses
open hand and arm gestures, she
sends silent signals of inclusion,
credibility and candor.
3. The validation
of face-to-face communication
For years, communicators have
debated the most effective ways
of delivering messages. News-
letters, videos, personal voice
mails, public address systems,
even text messaging all seem to
have their proponents. But if a
leader is going to talk about new
initiatives, major change, strate-
gic opportunities—or if he or
she has to deliver bad news—
every employee communication
survey shows a preference for
face-to-face delivery.
Consider the case of one
Fortune 25 company, where
teleconferences provided an
ongoing opportunity for small
groups of employees to get
up close and personal with the
CEO. Time after time, employ-
ees would ask about policies or
pending organizational changes
that had already been communi-
cated in various company publi-
cations and dozens of e-mail
announcements.
After the meetings, the CEO
would ask his communication
manager, “How many times
have we told them about that?
Why don’t they know that?”
“Oh, they know it,” the com-
munication manager replied.
“They just want to hear it from
you. More important, they want
to be able to look at you when
you say it.”
4. The visual technology
revolution
For much of the recent past,
business professionals felt they
could duck behind a computer
monitor and ignore their
nonverbal behavior. After all,
who cares about body lan-
guage when sending an e-mail,
text messaging, blogging or
(until recently) taking part in
a videoconference?
Cisco Systems is one of sev-
eral companies working on
products that make the virtual
experience almost the same as a

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face-to-face interaction. I was
lucky enough to get a demon-
stration of Cisco’s TelePresence,
which uses “life-size” high-
definition video and directional
sound technology that makes
voices seem to come from where
a user is located at the remote
site. This new generation of
videoconferencing makes partic-
ipants feel as though they are
actually sitting in the same room
with people who are on the
other side of the world.
5. The reality
of a global workforce
Organizations worldwide have
discovered that intercultural
communication is important—
not just because they have to
deal increasingly with globaliza-
tion, but also because the work-
force within their own national
borders is growing more ethni-
cally and culturally diverse.
In the high-stakes world of
international business, body lan-
guage often speaks for itself.
Unfortunately, much of the
meaning may be lost in trans-
lation. The most innocuous of
gestures, when misinterpreted,
can wreak havoc on business
dealings. Today, everyone is part
of the global marketplace, and
business professionals may be
required to deal with their coun-
terparts in other countries or
lead a multicultural team.
6. The latest scientific findings
Even digital technology is
exploring this topic. Alex Pent-
land and a team of researchers
from the Human Dynamics
group at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology’s Media
Lab have developed a range of
small electronic devices that
track not only the physical loca-
tion of the people who wear
them, but also their body lan-
guage. By taking note of people’s
proximity to others and the pat-
terns of their movements (body
language), the MIT team is
gathering insights regarding the
subtle differences between effec- about the author
tive and ineffective teams, and Carol Kinsey Goman, Ph.D.,
the kinds of interactions that is an executive coach, author
build or block collaboration. and keynote speaker who
addresses association, govern-
In his book On Becoming a ment and business audiences
Person, psychologist Carl Rogers around the world. This article
wrote, “Real communication is based on her latest book,
occurs when we listen with The Nonverbal Advantage:
understanding—to see the idea Secrets and Science of Body
and attitude from the other per- Language at Work.
son’s point of view, to sense how
it feels to them, to achieve their
frame of reference in regard to
the thing they are talking about.”
Reaching that goal of under-
standing, of empathy, can mean
a big difference in the business
world. Which is why nonverbal
cues are so important to our
professional relationships and
such a crucial part of business
communication. ●

Improve your interpretations using the five “Cs” of body language

The good news about understanding body
language is that our brains are hardwired to
respond instantly to nonverbal cues. The bad
news: That circuitry was put in place a long
time ago, when our ancestors faced threats
and challenges very different from those we
face in modern society. Life is more complex
today, with layers of social restrictions and
nuanced meanings adding to the intricacies
of our interpersonal dealings. This is especially
true in workplace settings, where the corpo-
rate environment adds its own complexities—
a unique set of restrictions and guidelines
for behavior.
You can improve your ability to read body
language by filtering your impressions through
the five “Cs”: context, clusters, congruence,
consistency and culture.
Context: The meaning of nonverbal commu-
nication changes as the context changes. We
can’t begin to understand someone’s behavior
without considering the circumstances under
which the behavior occurred.
Clusters: Nonverbal cues occur in what is
called a “gesture cluster”—a group of move-
ments, postures and actions that reinforce
a common point. A single gesture can have
several meanings or mean nothing at all (some-
times a cigar is just a cigar), but when you cou-
ple that single gesture with other nonverbal
signals, the meaning becomes clearer.
Congruence: When people believe what they
are saying, you see it corroborated in their
body language. Their gestures and expressions
are in alignment with what is being said. You
also see incongruence, where gestures con-
tradict words. Incongruence is a sign not so
much of intentional deceit as of inner conflict
between what someone is thinking and saying.
Consistency: You need to know a person’s
baseline behavior under relaxed or generally
stress-free conditions so that you can compare
it with the expressions and gestures that
appear when that person is under stress.
Knowing someone’s behavioral baseline
enhances your ability to spot meaningful
inconsistencies.
Culture: Basically, there are two kinds of body
language signals: instinctive and acquired.
Acquired gestures are socially generated, so
identical gestures often have different mean-
ings among different societies. From greeting
behaviors to hand gestures to the use of space
and touch, what’s proper and correct in one
culture may be ineffective—or even offen-
sive—in another.
—C.K.G.

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