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Louder Than Words
Joe Navarro,Toni Sciarra Poynter
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eBook - ePub
Louder Than Words
Joe Navarro,Toni Sciarra Poynter
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About This Book
" Louder Than Words takes us from an understanding of nonverbal behavior to an understanding of something far more valuable for successânonverbal intelligence." â Robert B. Cialdini, author of Influence: Science and Practice
"Joe Navarro brings together the art and science of nonverbal communications for the business sector with the edge of a former FBI agent and the insight of a world-class observer." â Jack Canfield, co-author of The Success Principles
Joe Navarro, bestselling author of What Every Body Is Saying and Phil Hellmuth Presents Read 'Em and Reap and former FBI agent specializing in behavioral analysis, helps you successfully navigate the business world by training your brain to see what others are feeling, thinking, or intending. Job hunters and professionals of every ilkâas well as fans of the hit FOX television series Lie to Me âwill find many helpful and effective tips to reading body language and microexpressions in Louder than Words.
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PART I
THE FUNDAMENTALS OF NONVERBAL INTELLIGENCE
1
INFLUENCE AT YOUR FINGERTIPS
YOUâVE ARRANGED meetings with two financial advisors in order to choose one to invest your hard-earned savings. At the first office building, the shrubs lining the entrance need trimming and there are fingerprints on the revolving doors.
At the security desk, a guard pushes the guest book toward you. You know the drill: You sign in, volunteer your ID, wait as the call is made upstairs, and then the guard points you toward the elevators.
Upstairs, the receptionist is handling a busy switchboard. In between calls, you quickly state your name and business. She gestures you to a chair, where you choose a magazine from the collection on the coffee table.
You wait ten minutes and are just about to ask the receptionist if you could use the restroom when your prospective advisor strides in. His rolled-up sleeves and loosened tie signal his hectic morning. After quickly shaking your hand, he leads the way to his office.
In his office, the phone is ringing. He grabs it as he motions you to a chair. You sit down and try not to eavesdrop on the one-sided conversation. Finally he hangs up, and your meeting begins.
You proceed to your second meeting. The buildingâs windows are spotless. The paint job is fresh. The landscaping is crisp.
At the security desk, youâre pleased to be informed that you are expected: your name is on a list of guests. A quick show of your ID, and youâre in the elevator.
The receptionist is on the phone as you approach. She completes the call, hangs up, looks at you, and says, âGood morning. How may I help you?â
You state your name and business. She asks you to be seated while she lets the consultant know youâve arrived. You sit down and peruse one of the company brochures displayed on the coffee table.
In less than five minutes, your contact comes out, buttoning his suit jacket as he approaches. He greets you with a warm smile and a firm handshake, and you walk together down the hall to his office.
In his office, there is a choice of chairs, and your companion invites you to sit where youâd be most comfortable. Youâre surprised to notice that your favorite soft drink awaits you. Then you remember: you received a phone call confirming the meeting and asking what youâd like to drink. You both quickly settle in and begin to talk.
By now Iâm sure the answer to this question is obvious: Other variables being roughly equal, to whom will you entrust your money?
What might not be so obvious is that almost every influential element in these scenarios is nonverbal:
- The appearance of the premises
- The efficiency and courtesy of the security staff
- Whether you are spoken to or gestured at
- Whether you receive the full attention (time, eye gaze, and greeting) of the receptionist
- The type of reading material you are offered
- How long you wait
- The care your contact has taken with his appearance
- Your contactâs approach and handshake
- Walking side by side versus being led
- Demonstrated concern for your comfort (seating, offering of food)
- Your importance compared to the importance of the telephone
Perhaps you consider these things superficial or matters of appearance. But recall the last time you decided to discontinue doing business with someone. Often itâs the accumulation of small, corrosive detailsâunreturned calls, unanswered e-mails, habitual lateness, the uncomfortable feeling that the person dealing with us is rushed, is disorganized, or has other clients more important than usâthat erodes the goodwill and trust on which all commerce is based, ending what began as a positive relationship. Frequently we arenât consciously aware of how unrewarding a relationship has becomeâuntil itâs time to renew the contract, the prices go up, a competitor calls with an attractive pitch, or a careless or costly error becomes âthe final straw.â
THIN SLICE ASSESSMENTSâSNAP DECISIONS WITH SERIOUS CONSEQUENCES
We humans are born with big, busy brains that love to learn. Sporting a stunning lack of physical defenses (no shell, no claws, no beak, no wings, no fangs, no speed), we have had to depend for our survival on our mental agility: our ability to quickly size up situations, take decisive action based on our impressions, learn from everything that happens, and remember what weâve learned. We walk around with our radar always switched on. The world is constantly âspeakingâ to us through our senses, sending a continuous stream of impressions, and we are constantly assessing what those impressions mean.
Many impressions we receive and assess consciously: We spot someone we find attractive and move closer for another look. We smell freshly baked chocolate chip cookies and want to sample them. We hear our boss say our name and go to find out what she wants. Others we receive and assess without conscious thought: We see an oncoming car and leap out of harmâs way. We edge away when someone stands too close. We avoid those whose behavior or appearance seems outside the norm. In short, we are constantly making decisions based on an astonishingly small amount of informationâand we do so in an astonishingly short time. This is what is meant by the term âthin slice assessment.â
Thin slice work began to be verified in the 1990s, in studies showing that we make very accurate assessments about peopleâs personalities very quickly, often after viewing a photograph for just a few seconds or less. It turns out that a great deal of our decision makingâfrom the friends we choose to how we invest our moneyâis based on the constant promptings of our residual subconscious awareness. This awareness is omnipresent, bypassing logic, operating beneath notice, yet dominating our perceptions. Thin slice assessments give us remarkable insights into others, how we feel about them, their trustworthiness, and their feelings about us. Most of the data on which we base these millisecond, make-or-break evaluations are nonverbal.
NONVERBALS: HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT
My aim in writing this book is to provide the missing pieceâand perhaps the most accessible of allâto the success equation: our ability, literally at our fingertips, to influence others in the workplace, interpret othersâ nonverbal signals, and gain instant insight into their actions and agendas.
MAKING THE RIGHT MOVES: NONVERBALS OF THE BODY
Nonverbals comprise a vast array of movements and gestures as minute as an eyelid flutter and as majestic as the sweep of a ballerinaâs arm, from the way we tilt our heads to where we point our feet and everything in between. Popular misconceptions abound about the meaning of specific body nonverbals, and the practice of reading others can degenerate into something akin to a parlor trick. In the chapters that follow, youâll learn how nonverbal assessment is conducted by professionals, as I performed it in my FBI work, and you will come away with an impressive breadth of knowledge about how to read the body as it âspeaksâ eloquently in business meetings and in your daily life. You will also learn how body language is just one part of nonverbal communication.
MORE THAN SKIN-DEEP: NONVERBALS OF OUR APPEARANCE
Itâs interesting how we profess to dismiss matters of appearance, considering how obsessively we focus on looks (keeping up with fashion; buying anti-aging products; worrying about looking fat; gossiping about whoâs had âworkâ done; reading about the best-and worst-dressed, and so on). Our seemingly paradoxical fixation makes sense, though, when you understand appearance as a form of nonverbal communication. Our brainâs visual cortex, the processing center for what we see, is huge; clearly it evolved as a central component of our brain for good reasons: survival and aesthetics. We notice not only the unkempt fellow standing too close to our car but also the attractive woman behind the perfume counter. We are constantly observing how other people look, and we make decisions about who we want to affiliate with based on what we seeâto such a degree that when the tabloids and celebrity magazines tout the latest fashions, many seek immediately to mirror âthe new look.â
Our predilection for aesthetics and beauty is actually hardwired in us. Every culture has an appreciation for beauty, health, youth, aesthetics, and symmetry that can be explained only as an evolutionary necessity. Even babies, we now know from research, have an appreciation for beauty. Beautiful symmetrical faces make babies smile, and their pupils dilate in a subconscious effort to take in more of what they like (not unlike the first time I saw Ann-Margret at the Deauville Beach Resort in Miami Beach when I was thirteenâshe took my breath away, and I am confident my pupils were fully dilated).
We also appreciate the commanding impact of sheer physical presence. Thatâs why club bouncers are large, imposing figures. We have a biological affinity for height, which explains why our leaders tend to be taller than the average population.
The profit aspect of appearances has also been well studied and is referred to as the âbeauty dividend.â Economists find that people who are good looking tend to earn more money, as they tend to get hired and promoted more frequently. But the researchers also found that the companies benefited, too, as the presence of a good-looking workforce generated more revenue. The beauty dividend is something that advertisers have known for a very long time, which is why you see such beautiful faces associated with the most successful beauty products or just about anything advertised.
Our focus on appearances may not be fair, but itâs human, and if you want to become a nonverbal master, you must attend to appearancesâyours and othersââsomething we will be talking about in chapter 5 as we explore managing our appearance.
PETER THE GREAT, FASHION MAVEN?
Peter the Great, czar of Russia from 1682 to 1725, during his multiyear âGreat Embassyâ tour of the West, realized that Russia was backward in both customs and thinking. He intuited that in order to change how the Russians saw themselves vis-Ă -vis the West, he had to change his people inside and out. He began with his boyars (a term for Russian nobility), who would set the example for the rest. He required that the men shave their long beards and shorten their long hair (picture a Greek Orthodox priest to get an idea of the Russian costume of the time). He also demanded that they exchange their long cloaks for more Western clothes, such as pants. Having worked in the dockyards of Western Europe, he knew that pants were more functional, and he wanted Russians to be as innovative and productive as their Western counterparts. Just in case anyone didnât âget it,â a model of the ideal attire, known as the âGerman look,â was posted on Moscowâs city gates, and anyone failing to meet the new dress code was fined. Soon, it was too expensive not to follow the czarâs dictum. Resistance, even among his elites, was met with a visit to the prison and a shave. They got the hint.
Thus, Peter the Great began to change his people by first changing their attire and their looks. When Russians began to see themselves differently, they began to think differently. Within five years, visitors from Europe were astonished to see how much the Russians had changed not just in their attire, but also in their thinking. This was what Peter the Great needed to begin his quest for Western influence and respect for Russia. He knew that the West had two great symbols of power: great navies and great cities. Building on his peopleâs new thinking, he pursued both feverishly. He built a great navy (today, the second largest in the world) and moved the capital from Moscow to St. Petersburg. This city served as the center of government and culture for 200 years. In one generation, Russia went from obscurity to being a player on the global stage, a testament to Czar Pyotr Alexeyevich Romanovâs forward thinking and recognition that in order to achieve great things, you must think differently, and to do that, you must change how people see themselvesâquite literally.
HEAR WHAT IâM SAYING? THE NONVERBALS OF SPEECH
How we speak can also change how weâre perceived and how effectively we communicate. You may not have thought about how the spoken word relates to nonverbal communication, but there is a correlation. It has to do not so much with what we say, but with how we say it. Speech is made up of words but also of characteristics (paralinguistics) such as our attitude, inflection, vol...