OUR BODY LANGUAGE GIVES US AWAY!

We are so predictable with our sub-conscious body movements, throughout the nations of the world, that to the experienced, trained communicator, like myself, and like you can be, having a proficient understanding of body language gives us a tremendous advantage.

It’s important at this stage to draw your awareness to the use of this knowledge. An animal watcher studies their habits and movements to enjoy the experience, and share that experience with others, not as an end result to shoot and destroy the animal.

In the same manner, knowledge of body language is not to take unfair advantage of people, but to benefit a deeper understanding of their predictable behaviour. This means that in conversation, discussion, negotiation, consultation and management, in a face-to-face situation, we can communicate more effectively, and create a “win-win” situation, where we all benefit.

“PREDICTABLE BODY LANGUAGE MOVEMENTS? …I’LL SAY!”

Peoples’ body movements in given situations are so predictable. If you were to write a speech to present to a number of people. Say a sales presentation, a seminar, a meeting or even a wedding; and you truly believed in what you were going to say, it would be possible to tell you at what points in the speech, you would be likely to make certain gestures and movements.

If there were areas of the speech you didn’t believe, we’d be able to pin point those, with gestures that would ‘give the game away.’

A NEED FOR UNDERSTANDING

It’s not sufficient to simply tell you which gestures, movements, expressions, distances, angles and postures portray the various meanings in body language.

Studies have shown us that “telling” doesn’t impart knowledge effectively, unless it is repetitious.

WHAT IS BODY LANGUAGE?

IN THE BEGINNING ……

As we understand it, just short of 2,000,000 years ago, man had begun to form, and began populating our planet in almost the form that we know now. We spread out through the world from Africa, and by 800,000 years ago, had populated most of the world.

We are, by nature, pack animals. Homo sapiens of a social nature who live together in groups. To allow us to get along together, we have to be able to communicate in some form or another. A million years ago we didn’t have the vocabulary we do today, and may have only had a few utterances, so that raises a question: -

HOW DID WE COMMUNICATE?

Historians tell us the earliest forms of written and verbal communication were around 10,000 years ago. So how did we communicate then, for the previous million or so years?

…With body language; our actions, movements, gesture, posture, expressions, angles and positions.

Studies by Birdwhistell and Mehrebian have shown that face-to-face communication can be broken down into 3 specific mediums.

1. Words.

2. Vocality.

3. Body Language .

WORDS

The maximum that words impact on our communication, according to these studies, is a mere 7%. This is a maximum, bear in mind.

Consider the English Language. There are presently over 750,000 words in the Oxford English Dictionary. The average person in the UK and USA only has a vocabulary of 5000 words; that is, they can understand 5000 words. Of these 5000 words they only use an average of 1200 each day. That’s the typical vocabulary of a bright 12=year-old.

People of University candidature will have 8000 plus. People with a thirst for knowledge, and who are prepared to pick up a dictionary when they don’t understand a word, will have more.

Lawyers, journalists, proof-readers; people who need more words, have 12,000 plus. If you want to measure yours, pick up a decent sized dictionary of at least 100,000 words.

Record the number of pages of word meanings. Count the number of word headings on an average worded page. Go down all the number of word headings and see how many words you understand.

Select around 30 pages at random through the dictionary, and score yourself for each page. Divide your score by 30 for an average. Multiply your average by the number of pages in the dictionary.

Body language is NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION. It is the way that human beings, apes and a very limited number of species of animals, such as cats; convey their signals, and messages and information, via conscious or unconscious gestures, movements, facial expressions, distances, angles and posture.

Body language has three general uses: -  

1. A conscious replacement of speech.

2. Reinforcement of speech.

3. Display of mood or attitude.

Harold Wilson, once a British Prime Minister, and a noted orator was measured with over 20,000 words. William Shakespeare, the playwright, was measured with over 26,000 words.

Words have become the main emphasis in our modern day communication. Consider that two people with 15,000 words in their vocabulary, may have 5000-10,000, which are different from one another. People in different walks of life, have different words to suit their business, vocation, cult, sport, hobby and colloquial dialect.

The words alone, however, become insignificant when spoken in a face-to-face environment. As a practical example, read a page of this book out loud.

First of all take a deep breath, and then start reading, fairly fast, with a monotone voice. Don’t punctuate the words, and keep reading aloud until you run out of breath.

Ask a friend to listen to you, and then wait two minutes and get them to explain what it was you just read out.

The retention of these words, without your voice being interesting, is going to be minimal.

VOCALITY

Now try reading the page out again, but this time, make it sound as interesting as you can. Be enthusiastic. Punctuate the words and put emphasis in the right places.

The difference is astounding.

Your voice has many characteristics to make it interesting: -

• Tonality.

• Reverberation.

• Pitch.

• Resonance.

• Strength.

• Volume.

• Intonation (bending of words e.g. slang.

• Modulation

Here’s the important part: - Even with an interesting voice, in a face-to-face encounter, studies show that the impact on communication is only around 20-30%.

Studies show that body language represents up to 85% of our face-face communication.

Gestures, movements, expressions, distances, angles and posture represent up to 85% of our face-to-face communication, yet most of us ignore it.

How much better a communicator would you be, if you could be more perceptive and decode these all-important signals of communication.

YOUR BEST LEARNING PROCESS

In order to understand the best method of learning about body language, and more importantly, retaining that knowledge, we need to establish a very important process.

Good preparation is always the key to the best result. When you paint woodwork, or metalwork, a house or a car; the preparation is always the largest part of the task, to enable the best finish. Studying is similar. Put down some essential ground rules, and you’ll have the start of a much faster learning curve.

Have an open mind whilst reading this book, and always remember the following as you’re reading:

• Start to monitor your own gestures and posture in everyday life.

• Notice your individual moods, and frames of mind, and the corresponding actions you do with them.

• Look at what your hands are doing.

• What is your body position?

• What are you doing with your legs and feet?

• What position is your head in?

• With each gesture, notice how you are feeling.

• Can you mirror someone who you see is negative and get the same feeling?

• Watch other people.

• Start to learn to control your body language, so you only show the signals you want to.

I’m going to take you now, through a process of understanding, which will make your learning curve much faster. If you get impatient, and skip over to the gestures themselves, and ignore the understanding, you’ll not easily develop the skills to become a body language expert.

Absorb the following pages of understanding ……. And you’re on your way.

Glenn Harrison

Author/Coach/Trainer/Motivational Speaker
Certified Acredited Behavioural Analyst

Glenn Harrison is available as a world-wide, international motivational speaker to give a hilarious, educational speech on Body Language.

We train all over the world; at no additional cost other than economy travel and overnight expenses.