Power Gesture

The attorney could also have used the gesture popularized in pop culture as talk to the hand. However, it is wise to start with small nonverbal management of another’s behaviour and increase as needed. Talk to the hand is definitive power gesture. In most Western cultures, it plainly states stop. Use it wisely and only when the situation truly calls for it.

Using a power gesture can ramp up emotions. Therefore, before you do so, consider the amount of influence and/or power you may need to gain compliance. If you choose to use power gestures, the slower the speed of the gesture and the greater the bend of the elbow, the less aggressive the gesture appears. To produce the talk-to-the-hand sign, move your arm closest to the heckler straight out from your shoulder, ending at a predetermined bend in the elbow. At the same time the arm is moving parallel to the ground, the wrist bends 90 degrees up exposing the open palm with fingertips extended. Hold that position only until the offender complies. The longer you hold it, the greater the chance of damaging not only your message but also your reputation. Consider the amount of power needed to stop the behaviour immediately, and if it’s worth the collateral damage.

Collateral damage can come in several forms: the emotional upset of other group members or the destruction of your reputation or relationship within the group. Often when the leader resorts to power, others interpret it as just as offensive as the bad behaviour the leader was trying to fix. The other members of the group will have one of two responses, “Thank goodness, finally somebody did something!” or “Whoa, if the speaker did that to him, would she do it to me?”

Depending on the group’s culture, a speaker can actually spilt herself off from the group and encourage them to protect the heckler from the speaker’s aggressive gesture or action. The opposite can also be true. Another group might applaud the speaker for taking action to stop the annoying person. The attorney could have requested that the heckler leave. She may have even raised her status within the eyes of the rest of the group if she had made the request while breathing low. It’s vital to know the most likely response and meaning of your gestures with the given group and context before gestures that assign negatives, or that can be seen as power gestures.

Rapport Establishment

Rapport is the ability to hold someone's attention and create a sense of trust. It means implementing the feeling that you understand each other; that you have the other's best interests at heart and that you can be trusted to do whatever they've come to you for.

One way to establish rapport, something you've probably been doing anyway but without thinking about it, is behavioural matching. That means doing what the other person is doing – or something very similar. If the other person is sitting, you take a seat instead of standing. If the other is speaking with a soft voice, you modulate your own. It's what we do unconsciously, particularly in a new situations: following the other person's lead, a modified form of Simon Says, without being aware that we're doing it.

By becoming aware, which means making the choice to focus our conscious attention on matching another person, we can draw the other into a sense of rapport. You do something in order to create in him or her the feeling that you're kindred beings that you understand. Behavioural matching actually increases yourself understanding of the other person because you've aligned yourself with the other, literally put yourself in his or her position, and the increased understanding isn't pretence; it's real.

This is not the same as mimicking, however, which would almost have the opposite effect and break the rapport. Mimicking someone, copying the exact tonality or gait or repeating the words back verbatim is a way of teasing and making fun. Above all, it conveys disrespect. Instead, you want to create an environment of respect and understanding with the other person.

Specifically, you match posture, volume, and tempo. If the person you’re talking to is sitting, you won’t be standing because you don’t want to be placed at a higher level; it gives the impression that you’re speaking down, and that would not be the best way relating, to put it mildly. In business, with personal relationships, or even with new, still undefined contacts, you want to start out at eye level. If the other person speaks slowly, it makes sense (and increases rapport) for you to slow down your own speech; you’ll speak softer or louder, depending on the cues you’re getting. Matching is like dancing, following someone else’s lead.

Matching creates the experience of being on the same wavelength. I’m reflecting back what you’re doing so we can dance together; my movements suggest yours; we’re in tune and in step with each other, seeing eye to eye, aligned with each other.

When you’re mismatching the behaviour of the other, you’re out of sync, moving to a different drummer. You’re using a different tempo- or volume or posture- and it’s almost guaranteed to antagonise the other person so much that your communication has no real chance of getting through.

For example: You’re a Realtor, trying to convince someone to buy a house. They’re leaning forward and speaking slowly, and you're leaning back and speaking fast. No rapport. No sale. No way.

You, the Realtor, are a city person, used to a hurried pace and to the distance city folk migh like to put between themselves. Your clients are country people, used to slower ways, more time, intimacy. If you move your upper body forward, giving the impression that you’re really interested and that you have lots of time to hear them out, and speak in a slow, deliberative way, chances are good they’ll want to buy from you. If not this property, for sure the next.

Matsumoto explains Microexpressions

David Matsumoto, PhD is an expert in reading microexpressions. He can be seen here in an interview regarding the 7 universal human emotions. For more information regarding facial expressions and microexpressions, go to http://www.humintell.com.

Pamela Meyer: How to spot a liar (TED)

Super-physical Communication

All human share some communication traits, regardless of culture gender or language. We explore these later in depth, but for now let us get to know the essential concepts so the details of body movements relate to how individual gestures might fit into a meaningful, complete picture.

Illustrators are gestures used to punctuate a statement. Examples are finger pointing; head bobbing; batoning with the hand, arm, or head; and arm outstretched with the palm up, as if to suggest you are giving something.

Regulators are gestures used to control another person’s speech. Examples are putting a hand up like a stop sign; putting a finger to the lips to ask for silence; and moving the hand quickly in a circle as a way of saying: “Speed it up.”

Adaptors are gestures to release stress, to adjust the body as a way to increase the comfort level. Examples are hand-wringing, neck throbbing, and curling the toes. People often develop idiosyncratic adaptors; they also can look very different depending on whether a man or a woman is doing them.

Barriers are postures and gestures we use when we are uncomfortable. Examples include standing behind a table, turning sideways, and sometimes crossing arms while in conversation. Everyone has seen someone sitting smugly behind a desk a appearing confident and secure.

These concepts will help us speak a common language as we spotlight body movements and reactions from scalp to sole. We will explore more on these facts later.

Interesting book about gesture

 

 

Eyes and Emotion

Eye contact is not the same as your eyes’ response to emotional stimuli. Your eyes’ response to emotions or outside stimuli, such as tearing up at a sad movie, cannot be easily manipulated, but eye contact can be. It takes little effort to shift your eyes away or look your gaze.

Your emotional eye responses, such as tearing up, can elicit a similar reaction in another person. Research has shown that prolonged direct eye contact can actually increase another person’s heat rate and speed of breathing. In extreme cases, acceleration in breathing and change in heart rate can leave a person hyper-ventilating or with a “fluttery” feeling, not unlike the feeling of falling in love. No coincidence, since one of the behaviours of the early stages of love is direct and prolonged eye contact.

Genders, cultures, and groups view eye contact frequently. Direct and prolonged eye contact is more prevalent in Western cultures and is seen as a sign of respect when talking to a person in a superior position. In Eastern cultures, however, it can be a sign of disrespect to look directly at a superior. Although this is changing, make note to understand the different norms regarding eye contact when meeting people from other countries and cultures. Businesses also have cultures. Eye contact norms can vary with all types of cultures.

Women typically hold eye contact longer than men. The more intimate the conversation, the longer the direct eye contact. As mentioned earlier, direct, prolonged eye contact elevates the heart rate. Between men the elevated heart rate can give a false sense of confrontation, aggression, or not being safe. If you have a hard time building rapport with a man, try standing side by side- both of you facing forward- looking and talking out into the foreground or down to the ground in an aw-shucks*, just-two-guys kicking-dirt position. This position when other attempts at rapport have failed.

The most important thing to remember is to always watch for cues from the other person or the group to understand when and how much eye contact to see how long it is comfortable for both parties. With a bit of practice it becomes natural. When the communication is friendly, and all signs are positive, eye contact comes and goes naturally.

Making comfortable eye contact while talking shows composure and conveys that you are paying attention, especially when you accompany it with a gentle nod. Look away from time to time, even if it’s at the floor, to make the communication seem more natural. Extended eye contact can mean there is either a strong interest or worry about safety. Since the same behaviour can mean multiple things, we must rely on other factors to have a true understanding of how much eye contact is appropriate. The boss has much more latitude with extended eye contact, or lack thereof, than the employee. The higher an individual’s status, the more latitude they have in breaking the social norms, especially facial expressions, including eye contact.

aw-shucks* - seeming to be modest, self-deprecating, or shy

   

Cleaning Up Your Language

from Neuro-linguistic Programming for Dummies by Romilla Ready and Kate Burton

Have you ever wondered how many questions you ask that make assumptions based on what you want, and your map of reality, rather than what the other person wants? As human beings it’s very hard not to project our ideas, our needs, our wants, and enthusiasms on to others – especially those closest to us. Your influence other people all the time. You just can’t help it. For that reason, most questions are not clean – they assume something, as in the famous 

                   ‘When did you stop beating your wife?’ question.

Even the one small word beating will have different meanings for each of us. Did you think of beating in the context of physical violence or did you think of it in the competitive sense of winning at a sport or game?

Therapists go into many years of training to work with their clients like a ‘clean’ mirror that can simply reflect the client’s issues back to them to deliberate on. Some get to shine brighter than others! After all, you already know how much you can communicate just through one raised eyebrow or suppressed giggle. (This was why Freud had his clients lying on a couch while he, as the therapist, sat behind the client’s head.

If you want to be respectful of other people’s views, then notice how well you can avoid prejudicing the result of a discussion. Are you telling somebody else what to do based on what you would do yourself?

Listen for what you say and if you hear yourself issuing instructions that begin with the words like: you must, you should, you ought to, you can’t – then it’s time to stop directing the action and imposing your stance on others.

Let’s suppose you are coaching someone. Maybe it’s a colleague, a friend, or a member of your family. In coaching session, it’s essential to begin with a clear aim in mind. So you might ask:

               ‘What do we want to work on today?’

The question is simple, direct, and focuses attention on the fact that you’re working on something.

Coaching is about exploring and challenging clients, leading them on to take responsibility and commit to action. Clean questions help you to do that. It’s important that suggestions are phrased in such a way that people think for themselves.

So a clean question that directs a client to think carefully for himself or herself might be:

                 

                   ‘I wonder what that’s about?’

Curiosity may have killed the cat, as the saying goes. We’ve never heard of it killing human beings. A different perspective is: curiosity is the best pathway to understanding. You choose which saying suits you best.

 

Other Neuro-Linguistic Programming titles