Communication Break-Down

I’ve been working a lot with my chiropractor lately -workouts (he’s also a personal trainer), multiple sessions, etc.- and what I’ve come to find out is that there isn’t much wrong with me.

Don’t get me wrong – I am in constant pain- but there isn’t anything necessarily physically wrong with me. At least anything that can be fixed by a new mattress, books on back pain, acupuncture, massage, meditation, trigger point workshops- and believe me- I’ve tried it all.

Supposedly, I am not kinesthetically intelligent. In other words, I am kinesthetically challenged.

Kinesthetic intelligence, according to my chiropractor, is knowing which parts of your body are supposed to do what, and awareness of what it feels like to move correctly. I don’t move correctly at all -my husband has kindly pointed this out in terms of my dancing ability- I use my smaller muscles (neck, shoulders, etc.) to do the work my larger muscles are meant to do, and in turn I have constant neck and shoulder pain.

It seems odd to me that moving- something we all do naturally- could be done wrong. It’s so…basic. Yet there it is, and there I am, in the gym, lifting a pitiful amount of weight, not to bulk up, Seth tells me, but to “learn what your muscles should be doing.”

It’s so embarrassing.

We tend to think the things we do naturally are “correct” because, well, they’re natural. But what comes naturally isn’t always effective. And just like it’s possible to be kinesthetically challenged, we can also be nonverbally challenged.

You can be academically intelligent, emotionally intelligent, socially, morally, and ethically intelligent, but if you don’t have a degree of nonverbal intelligence you run the risk of pissing people off, or going unnoticed, or coming on too strong, or a host of other things nonverbally intelligent people avoid.

Nonverbal communication translates the majority of the message. Yet how often do we think about the messages we are sending or receiving?

For example, if I am in an interview, and the person interviewing me has very credible body language -stiff posture, weight evenly placed instead of leaning to one side or forward, voice pattern that curls down at the ends of statements- I know to cut the small talk and get to the issue. People who use credible body language are issue-oriented. They want to know you’ll be able to get the job done and to their satisfaction.

However, if I enter an interview with someone who uses approachable body language -relaxed stance, bobbing head, voice pattern that curls up at the ends of statements- I know that small talk is warranted and I spend time getting to know the person. People who use approachable body language are relationship-oriented. They want to know you’ll work well with others, and that you’ll care about your future team members.

If I did what came “naturally,” I would only be effective with one type of interviewer. That’s a 50% chance of success. By increasing my nonverbal intelligence I can accommodate the needs of whatever situation I encounter.

What comes naturally isn’t always effective. Sometimes we need to bring things into our awareness that weren’t there before. Like consciously engaging my abs. I still don’t get what that means exactly, but I’m working on it.

Of all the bad advice I encounter in my work -never turn your back to the audience, move around a lot when speaking, always be friendly- the advice to always maintain eye contact has to be the worst.

We have very deeply held beliefs -especially here in the States- about the role of eye contact. We’ve been taught that eye contact equals respect, and that avoiding eye contact is tantamount to disrespecting the person you are engaging with.

This is bad advice and can really get us into trouble.

Eye contact does equal respect when you are in relationship. But there are times -delivering negative information for example- when we want to separate the relationship from the message.

There are three things to remember about the use of eye contact.

1. Go visual with information, especially if it is negative.

You must have the negative information on some sort of visual if you hope to have the person receive it and not attach the negative message to you. If you are working one-on-one, the visual will be small -a piece of paper, report, fax, or memo- if you are delivering negative information to a group the visual will be larger -a PowerPoint presentation, flip chart, or white board. Those in the medical field will also want to adhere to this rule. Although medical personnel almost always have an x-ray, lab report, or diagram handy they rarely use them effectively. A doctor often looks at a patient when saying, “You have cancer.” By looking at the person while delivering this information what he or she is really saying is, “You are cancer.” When the doctor uses direct eye contact the patient has a more difficult time absorbing the information. The patient may -understandably- become upset, volatile, or breakdown. This can be avoided using the next step.

2. Avoid eye contact if the information is negative. Use eye contact if the information is positive.

If a doctor -instead of looking at the patient- looks at the x-ray and says, “The x-ray shows that cancer is present,” the patient is more apt to breathe, take the information in and assimilate it without becoming as upset. The doctor can then turn to the patient and with eye contact say, “Now here is what we’re going to do.” By using eye contact in a systematic way the doctor nonverbally separates the problem (x-ray) from the solution (doctor and patient working together.) This works in the business world as well. When you have to lay people off or tell a group that there is a salary freeze, look at the information (which should be displayed visually) not the person/group.

3. People follow your eyes, not your hands.

These skills are only effective if you understand that people follow your eyes, not your hands. Oftentimes we point to a visual but maintain eye contact with the listener. This is ineffective. Think about it: when you’re sitting having coffee across from someone and they look over your shoulder and towards the door, what do you do? You also turn and look. We’re programmed to follow someone’s eyes, and rarely look where someone is pointing unless they are also looking there. When using a visual to give sensitive or difficult information be sure to look at the visual as well as point to it. This will cause the listener to look where you want them to look.

Nonverbal intelligence is all about having more than one approach. Sometimes we’ll want to maintain eye contact (when the information is positive) and other times we’ll want to look at something else (when the information is negative.) Train yourself to be systematic with your eye contact and you’ll have an easier time separating yourself from the message.

I have a problem making decisions. My assistant, whom I adore, has pointed this out on several occasions. I get the feeling it annoys her.

["You get the feeling?" Val says when I read this to her. "Honey, it IS annoying."]

Every time I need to make a decision – how much to charge for a service, what to wear at a workshop, or even where to go to dinner- I run it by my assistant, best friend, business coach, husband, and on occasion, my dry cleaner.

I pay my assistant and business coach, and due to those pesky wedding vows, my husband has to put up with me. I’ve tried to pay my friend for her help but she won’t accept money. Because I feel so bad for always asking for help and advice, I give her thank-you-for-still-liking-me gifts. I take her for pedicures and lunch, and lately, I’ve given her furniture from my house. It’s amazing I still have a sofa.

Indecision is ingrained in my DNA. My father shops five hardware stores for a new hammer, and after buying one he often takes it back only to start the entire process all over again. Somewhere along the line, we learned that gathering all available information before making a decision is what you’re supposed to do in order to avoid making a mistake.

Turns out it isn’t. Malcolm Gladwell in his best-selling book Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking calls this into question. He says quick decisions can be just as good as decisions made cautiously and deliberately. We tend to over-think, and that gets us into trouble.

Tell me about it. My spare bedroom is missing a bookcase.

Can quick decisions be as good as thought-out ones?

Gladwell says our ability to “thin-slice” can often deliver a better answer than if we research and weigh all of our options before making a decision. He defines thin-slicing as the ability of our unconscious to find patterns in situations and behavior based on very narrow slices of experience. He says our unconscious sifts through the situation in front of us, throws out all that is irrelevant and zeros in on what really matters.

Nonverbal communication plays a big part in our ability to thin-slice. We subconsciously pick up on nonverbal cues that alert us to the authenticity of an interaction. We scan the faces of people we are talking to to look for congruence between what they are saying and what they are nonverbally communicating, and we watch body language to help clarify the verbal message.

As a nonverbal communications coach I train people to use it systematically. It translates the majority of face-to-face communication, so it’s important to understand what we communicate nonverbally so we can adjust our approach based on the needs of the situation. Which really means I train people to make decisions.

And therein lies the confusion. I trust that the information we receive and send nonverbally assists us in making decisions, especially if we know what to look for. So why is decision making so hard?

Gladwell says that we’re innately suspicious and tend to assume that the quality of a decision is directly related to the time and effort that went into making it. If something comes easily, we tend to distrust it. I see this over and over again in our nonverbal workshops. For example, our number one skill for giving negative information – have the information on a visual and look at it instead of the person- sounds too simple to be effective. People are amazed -and truthfully, a bit skeptical- that small things make such a huge difference. Until they try it and it works.

Like nonverbal communication, our subconscious is powerful: it collects and stores information from all of our past experiences, and within a split second gives us what we need to make a decision. We’ve been hard-wired from birth to read and interpret nonverbal cues, and our subconscious holds onto information over the span of our entire lifetime. This information helps us make decisions – literally – in the blink of an eye.

Gladwell points out that there are times when thinking through a decision is warranted, and I plan on exploring this in another post. But in general, I think it’s time I started trusting my ability to make good decisions on my own. My new decisiveness couldn’t come a moment too soon. I adore my end table and was not looking forward to giving it up.

“I’m writing my Coach blog,” I told my sister when she asked what I was doing. “Oh good,” she said, “I have a coaching question I need to ask you.” “No,” I said, “not a coach blog, a Coach blog.” “I don’t get it,” she said. “The purses,” I said. “Coach purses.” “You’re writing a blog about purses?” she asked. “What does that have to do with nonverbal communication?” “Because of the unfriendly salesperson,” I said. But let me back up.

I have a Coach problem. I don’t have a problem coaching people, I have a problem -some might say addiction- with the designer handbags.

I’ve tried to explain this problem to my husband by pointing out the numerous benefits of a Coach purse. For example, they last forever. His reply? “If that’s true, then you only need one.”

Good point.

Last Christmas I received a Coach gift certificate for $100. If you’ve ever been inside a Coach store, you would know $100 buys half of a wallet, so I decided to save it and use it at a Coach Outlet.

My friend and I arrived at the outlet one afternoon and started shopping. By the time I made it around the entire store I had 15 purses slung over my shoulders, and Rachel even had a few.

I caught the eye of a bewildered-looking saleswoman and asked for help. She plucked a purse out of the pile and began describing its features -zipper vs. snap, two straps vs. one, adjustable straps vs. nonadjustable. This went on for the better part of 20 minutes, until we had finally weeded it down to three purses. At this point, I simply could not make a decision between the remaining three. I said, “What do YOU do when you need to decide on a purse?”

Without hesitation she turned, pointed to another saleswoman and said, “I ask HER.”

She said it with such reverence and finality you would have thought we’d overlooked the designated Coach oracle, whose advice we should have known to ask in the first place. I looked over to where she had pointed and saw a saleswoman standing in the middle of the store, arms crossed, eyes scanning the store and its occupants. She didn’t seem interested in helping anyone, so I assumed she was on the lookout for shoplifters. But I was obviously mistaken. She was THE ONE TO ASK.

She walked over to where we were standing, and I explained my dilemma. Unlike a typical salesperson, she never made eye contact, smiled, or engaged in conversation. She quietly looked over the purses on the countertop and then down at the purse I had come in with. She pointed to the one in the middle, said “that one,” and walked away.

“Ring it up,” I said.

I tell this story a lot, because we believe salespeople should be friendly. But that’s not always true. Salespeople, like all of us, need to understand permission.

Permission is how receptive someone is to you or your message. The unfriendly salesperson had my immediate permission. Why? I needed someone to make the decision for me, and she did. No muss no fuss. Add to that her credible body language and voice pattern, and it was a done deal. She positioned herself as the “expert” and -wouldn’t you know it?- that’s just what I was looking for.

We increase permission by understanding and accommodating the needs of others. Some people need us to be friendly, others will need us to get to the issue. Sometimes we need to be credible and other times we need to be approachable. But we don’t have to guess or rely on luck. We can increase our awareness of what other people are communicating nonverbally and adapt our approach based on that information. Everyone can learn to do this. If we have only one approach to people or situations, we are severely limited.

My assistant and I stopped in the Coach outlet recently. It had been over a year since I had been there last, and Val, who had heard the story many times, wanted to know if the legendary salesperson was still there. I wasn’t sure, since I couldn’t remember what she looked like. I tried on a pair of sunglasses and asked a salesperson if they could be adjusted. She looked up and said “no,” then went right back to what she was doing. There was no mistaking her. She hadn’t changed her approach.

Sometimes it pays to be unfriendly, but not always. I didn’t buy the sunglasses. Turns out I needed a friendly salesperson that day.