FREE online courses on Maximum Managing People - Dealing With People - Body Language

 

By pre-empting words with tough body language actions you extend aggressive support to your communication delivery. This orients the recipient the way you want before the meaning of the words spoken even kicks in. It can also support the emphasis of the words giving them life.

 

Body language can also extend beyond words to a complex interplay of styles and effects. Like a fireworks show, it has different colors, sounds and inferences. Some fireworks are loud and noisy. Others are soft. Some are very busy. Others are quick. In the same way body language is an art form, which involves your facial expressions, the use of hands, the torso, etc.

 

The use of body language requires what I call image associative communication. This incorporates the larger than life picture you want to project rather than the dry words that you speak. Used effectively, it can be an invaluable negotiating tool to convince people of your meanings.

 

Research has shown that 55% of communication is a direct result of body language or human physiology. This encompasses a diverse set of human expression factors. These being facial expressions, the gestures, the quality and type of movement of the person who is doing the communicating. Thus body language is far more relevant than actual words which only account for 45% of communication, 38% being made up of the tone of the voice.

 

Body language and the tonal modulations of your voice infer the basis of your communication. So, to be an effective communicator, you must be flexible enough to modify a range of body language and physiological elements. Some of these are your breathing pattern, posture, gestures, hand movements, accentuation's, attention, etc. We must use our bodies in hundreds of different ways.

 

These elements collectively tend to work on the listener's subconscious and either help to put him or her at ease or do not. Thus it is important to pay a great deal of attention to those elements which establish a rapport with the other person. From this rapport we create trust and mutual respect.

 

The business language of success is premised on the fact that people who are successful have to do business with their peers.  Therefore, they would prefer to be talking on the same wavelength. Ideally the person should also be working at the same speed. The reason being that this competitor may, in future, become a strategic partner and vice versa.

 

Thus, such a scenario creates a limiting protocol, a success language of social and commercial norms. It is predicated on assisting fellow workers/entrepreneurs to make higher profits, while of course helping yourself. Thus as an aspiring success driven manager you must ‘learn it, live it, and if necessary buy into it'.