Does your body language add calm, or escalate drama? Are you one of those people who can just come out and say something controversial without creating a problem, or have you already made it worse before you’ve even started talking. Your body language is speaking volumes, and good or bad, your presence really sets the stage.
I didn’t fully grasp what my body was saying to people around me, until I took my dog to obedience school and discovered what I was saying that made things worse.
Business communication strategies need to incorporate calm body language, so you relax tension during delicate subjects.
It all started when I got this dog named Max, last Saturday. He’s an Australian Blue Heeler, which is a herding dog, the same kind of dog Mad Max had in Road Warrior. He’s strong, a herder and a hunter, and Max doesn’t seem to understand why we have “animals” running around loose in our house! Of course he’s not thinking of himself, but the cat and guinea pig. They are clearly just animals (especially the rodent), invaders to our den, and clearly not “of the pack.”
Unfortunately there is nothing in Max’s wiring that would lead him to question that which is obvious to him – he must herd these animals out of the domain of the pack, or simply kill them.
My business insight began when I noticed how much worse the dog got as I tried to calm him down and teach him not to attack my other pets. The more I tried to control the dog, the worse it got. Max went from intense interest to a bloodthirsty commitment.
A very strong and determined animal, Max pulled double whatever I could muster to hold him back. Once he pulled the leash through my fingers and lunged at the cat with snarling teeth and a ferocious bark. I tackled the dog, putting him in a full nelson held-lock. As I held back this creature of muscle and teeth, I saw the cat’s fur blow under in the angry wind of Max’s breath, just before she scratched and bit my wife Kim in the process of making her escape.
Later that day I found Angela Strong, a tough cookie of a dog trainer doing some coaching at PetSmart. Angela is pretty, slender with long dark hair, half my size, and double my confidence. Her handshake hurt my fingers, and I’d bet you an honest fifty that she drives a jeep wrangler.
She watched me struggle to hold back the dog, and serendipitously, one of those crazy pet owners who actually walks his cat on a leash, happened into view. Max had dragged me half way across the pet store for a little cat nip before Angela gestured to say, “Let me show you how it’s done.” I was thinking, “Have at it, little lady.”
It wasn’t two minutes before she was walking Max right up to and around that cat. They were calm, Max trotting alongside her, obediently minding his manners while she talked to the cat owner about feline leash training. She was holding Max’s leash with only two fingers and there was enough slack that he could have easily snatched up that furry little cat-snack. But he didn’t.
“Your body language is escalating him,” she said upon returning, and I’m wondering if she somehow swapped dogs without me noticing. “You’re telling him there’s a problem, and I’m telling him that everything is just the way it’s supposed to be.”
She explained that Max was picking up all the little cues that gave away my tension on the matter of the cat entering the room. “He feels your hand tense up through the chain. He sees your posture stiffen. If you draw up the slack on the leash, or set your hand on him, he’ll notice. If your standing, he’ll feel your leg stiffen. He’ll spot changes in expression, head position, and voice tone. You want him not to attack the cat, but your body is sending the message that you are not okay with the cat entering the room, and that gives him permission to address it his way.
Then came the tip for business. “All mammals read body language before anything else. Dogs are just more sensitive to it.” My career life flashed before my eyes.
I noticed Kim, her hand puffy and red from the cat bite (our next stop would be the clinic). In a mutual past life, Kim had been my Chief Operating Officer in my interactive media company, Digital Café, and she was the kind of person who could just come out and say what had to be said where I had trouble bringing up delicate topics like “we’re over budget” or “we screwed something up and it was going to take longer.”
What was it about some people that lets them just put it out there, where other people’s attempts to deliver bad news or broach tough subjects creates palpable tension. I seem to go wrong in the setup, and the other person becomes threatened in anticipation of what I might say.
I’m trying to show care and compassion in easing them into it, and they’re bracing themselves for the sky to fall, because my body language is warning them that something bad is coming. I remember getting close to “having the conversation,” only to back off because the would-be recipient suddenly appeared too fragile. I created that in them.
It’s body language that’s setting the stage for a horror scene. This happens with important messages like, “The client has a problem with the work you delivered,” or, ‘We’re announcing layoffs,” or, “I’m going to need you to stay late… again.” I remembered Kim being able to just put stuff like that out there, and nobody fainted, or even gasped.
Her body language was like Angela Strong’s. She was able to find “relaxed.” She could be factually objective about what I was so subjective about. Kim and Angela were both able to choose not to put something deep and personal into something they wanted to be nothing more than information.
My work is all about inspiring people – putting more behind the words, making it personal, amping up the power of possibility to milk every moment to its highest experience. That’s what, at SagePresence, we do. But sometimes a word is just a word, and you don’t want to add to it.
This week, I grasped the strategy of calming situations with a casual, neutral body language. And I’ve proven that both at work and at home. I begin with the “appreciation sandwich” that SagePresence is famous for in its business communication strategies, and all our public speaking. I practice genuinely appreciating the person I’m talking to at the beginning and end of any crucial interaction to silently communicate care and respect.
Between the open and close on appreciation, I have mastered the body language that says, “Calm, and relaxed… no big thing.” I get there by feeling it.
Emotions are often a reaction, like the fear that pounded from my heart which was picked up on by my dog. The filmmaker in me knows that emotions are also an activity, and I have engaged in the activity of the “no big thing” feeling. With that feeling, my body language is calm, and relaxed. No big thing. And with that emotion, I can just put things out there with the best of them, like Kim Hyers and Angela Strong.
I walked Max today. We walked around the block, past two ill-behaved dogs who were pulling and tugging their masters for a drag around the block. Max kept his attention on me, and we walked right through them, and I held his leash with two fingers, the chain dragging on the sidewalk. We were calm, and relaxed… no big thing.
