- Master the Science of Body Language and Maximize Your Success -
Kasia Wezowski & Patryk Wezowski
Subjects: LCSH: Body language. | Success.
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Book Details
Price
|
3.00 |
|---|---|
Pages
| 257 p |
File Size
|
10,440 KB |
File Type
|
PDF format |
ISBN
| 978-0-8144-3974-6 (eBook) |
Copyright©
| 2018 Kasia Wezowski and Patryk Wezowski |
Introduction
Your Body Language Intelligence
Determines Your Success
Several years ago, Patryk and I were invited to predict the results
of a startup pitch contest in Vienna, where 2,500 tech entrepreneurs
were competing. We observed the presentations, but rather
than paying attention to the ideas the entrepreneurs pitched, we
watched the body language and microexpressions of the judges
as they listened. We gave our predictions of who would win
before the winners were announced; as we and the audience soon
learned, we were spot on. We had spoiled the surprise.
Two years later we were invited back to the same event. Th is
time, instead of watching the judges, we observed the contestants.
Our task was not to guess the winners, but to determine
how presenters’ nonverbal communication contributed to their
success or failure.
We evaluated each would-be entrepreneur on a scale from 0 to
15. People scored points for each sign of positive, confident body
language, such as smiling, maintaining eye contact, and persuasive
gesturing. They lost points for each negative signal, such as
fidgeting, stiff hand movements, and averted eyes.
We found that contestants whose pitches were rated in the
top eight by competition judges scored an average of 8.3 on our
fifteen-point scale, while those who did not place in that top tier
had an average score of 5.5. Positive body language strongly correlated
with more successful outcomes.
We’ve found similar correlations in the political realm. Let’s
look at the last two U.S. presidential elections.
During the 2012 campaign, we conducted an online study in
which a thousand participants—both Democrats and Republicans—
watched two-minute video clips featuring Barack Obama
and Mitt Romney at campaign events delivering both neutral
and emotional content.
Webcams recorded the viewers’ facial expressions, and our
team analyzed them for six key emotional responses identified in
psychology research: happy, surprised, afraid, disgusted, angry,
and sad. We coded for the tenor of the emotion (positive or negative)
and how strongly it seemed to be expressed. This analysis
showed that Obama sparked stronger emotional responses
and fewer negative ones. Even a significant number of Republicans—
16 percent—reacted negatively to Romney.
When we analyzed the candidates’ body language, we found
that Obama’s resembled those of our pitch contest winners. He
displayed primarily open, positive, confident positions congruent
with his speech. Romney, by contrast, often gave out negative signals,
diminishing his message with contradictory and distracting
facial expressions and movement.
The 2016 presidential election also revealed a stark contrast
between the body language of the two candidates, which was
noticeable throughout the debates. While Obama was able to
gain an advantage over Romney in part because of his more convincing
nonverbal communication, in the 2016 election neither
Clinton nor Trump was able to use body language to create a
positive impression.
Trump’s hypermasculine behavior and his disconcerting habit
of following Clinton on stage as she talked was highly off-putting
to many viewers and voters. Clinton was more controlled than
Trump, but perhaps too much so. She was widely seen as inauthentic;
her studied mannerisms, in fact, made it harder for the
audience to connect with her.
Neither Clinton nor Trump’s debate performance was bad
enough to alienate their core audiences. A large number of people
responded well to Clinton’s composure; likewise, other people
liked Trump’s brash swagger. However, if one of the candidates
had been able to behave a bit more like Obama and form an authentic
connection with voters outside their normal base, it may
have improved their chances by widening their appeal.
Of course, the elections didn’t hinge on body language! Nor did
the results of the startup competition. But the right kinds of nonverbal
communication do correlate with success.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction 1
1. The Five Principles of Body Language Intelligence 15
2. Self-confident Body Language 25
3. Positive Body Language 49
4. Negative Body Language 85
5. How Body Language Reveals Emotions 119
6. Interpreting Facial Expressions 145
7. Microexpressions: The Dead Giveaways 175
8. Decisionmaking Body Language 191
9. Practice Exercises 219
Bibliography 231
Index 239
Bookscreen
Great Communicators Read Body Language
Although most of us like to think of ourselves as rational decisionmakers,
ample research shows that emotions play an outsized
role in sales and negotiations. If you can’t read what your counterpart
is feeling and instead focus only on what she is saying,
you’re highly unlikely to achieve everything you could have.
Of course, experienced negotiators know how to mask their
true feelings. They choose their words, tone, body language, and
expressions carefully. To the average observer, they often appear
neutral, impassive. Or they’re able to convincingly fake an emotion
if they think it will help them advance their own interests.
However, there is a way to read what your counterpart is
feeling even if they are deliberately trying to hide it from you. The
secret is to pay attention to the spontaneous and involuntary microexpressions
that rapidly flit across everyone’s faces at times of
intense emotion. If you know what to look for, microexpressions
can provide an instant, honest window into how your counterpart is feeling.
In our work in body language research and instruction, we’ve
long theorized that one of the key differences between exceptional
negotiators or salespeople and those who are merely average
is the ability to read these microexpressions. This enables
them to gauge visceral reactions to ideas or proposals, and then
strategically steer the other person toward a preferred outcome.
To test this idea, we conducted two experiments using videos
that measure users’ ability to recognize these expressions.
In the first study, we compared the video test scores of salespeople
from the Myo Company with their performances and
found that those with above-average scores noticeably outsold
their colleagues. The second experiment involved salespeople
from a BMW showroom in Rome, Italy. We found that high performers
(who had sold more than sixty automobiles in the most
recent quarter) scored almost twice as high on the test as low performers.
Our conclusion: Effective negotiators seem to be naturally
good at reading microexpressions.