Louder Than Words You Don\'t

Louder Than Words

You Don't Have to Shout!

If you aren't having the success that you think you deserve, it's probably because you're sending the wrong message. Not in what you say -- although that could be a problem too. But in what you're saying without words -- with the body language that can tell the real story about you without your even knowing what you are revealing about yourself.

We've all heard the phrase that actions speak louder than words. That can certainly be true. But perhaps even more important is the fact that so often in each of our encounters with other people, actions and words get blended together as our body language meshes with what we are saying. How well our words and body language matches -- or doesn't match -- says more than most of us realize. But knowing how body language works is not just helpful so that we don't send the wrong message. It's also vital so that we can read the body language of the people we work with everyday.

Joe Navarro and Toni Sciarra Poynter's book Louder Than Words: Take Your Career from Average to Exceptional with the Hidden Power of Nonverbal Intelligence demonstrates how absolutely essential it is to be able to control your own body language as well as to read that of others. The authors make the case that getting and polishing these abilities can help you create a life of repeated successes.

If you're having a hard time believing this claim, just look at image, that of Barack Obama and John McCain after one of their televised debates in the 2008 presidential campaign. Obama is clearly more confident and also what might be called simply more presidential: He looks like a man in control of his own destiny and one who can present a smooth surface to the world. McCain looks both uncomfortable and scornful, someone unable to control his own dislike of his opponent and his contempt for him. It is hard not to believe that viewers of the debate did not notice these two different forms of bodily expression and make some assumptions about whom they wanted to lead the country because of the contrast between control and contempt.

Navarro is an expert on human behavior. His goal in this book is to give his readers a decoder to figure out human behavior so that you can get a better read everyone from your manager to your competition. He argues that an astute observer of body language can use the clues that individuals give to convey everything from doubt to belief, disagreement to agreement, and even intentions of future actions by all of the non-verbal cues that provide the background to everything that we say. And he's not just talking about body language: He also reminds us that everything about us gives off messages. Our appearance, how fast we talk, how often we pause to figure out what to say -- all of these things matter, as we can see in this diagram.

We may think that we are already skilled interpreters of body language because we can assess situations like the following (third image) as we look at body language like the following. We know that this is a negotiation; we know that the principal negotiators are relatively heated in their exchanges; and we know that the onlookers (especially those on the left) are uncomfortable with the level of confrontation that is begin displayed. However, while this is a perfectly accurate reading, not all situations are as dramatic as this staged tableau and often we have to apply much more focused skills. Often, it's a lot harder to figure out what is going on, which is why we have to work on our skills at becoming readers between the lines.

One important point that the authors make is that even if we ourselves are not skilled at reading the cues that others are sending out, they may well be skilled at reading us. Therefore, in order not to send the wrong impressions, we have to be aware of the messages that we are sending out in terms of posture, personal hygiene, attire, vocabulary choice, and confidence each time we look someone in the eye, shake a hand, or launch into a presentation.

Another important point made by the authors is that what constitutes appropriate messages to send to another person depends on a number of factors, and each one of these must be attended to. These factors include how well one knows the other person, the gender of the other person, any difference in rank between oneself and the other person, and cultural assumptions that may differ between oneself and another person.

We can get so caught up in the words that we are using that we forget about the importance of factors such as where one is meeting that affect the ways in which you can read body language, whether you're meeting indoors or outdoors, in an office or a more public place like a restaurant, or in a place like a factory setting. Taking into account all of these factors will allow anyone to make the other person(s) feel comfortable while at the same time making it clear that you yourself are confident and in charge of the situation.

So how can you learn to be an expert at reading all of the aspects of communication that accompany words themselves? Like every other skill, it takes practice. Part of the problem in learning how to read body language is that when we are watching someone else there is so much information being delivered so quickly that it is hard to know where to start. One possible way of learning how to read the many different messages and cues that someone is sending out is to think about reading body language like watching a very old movie in which there are very few images per minute,