Communication Break-Down

Happy (late) New Year.

Many of us are still recovering from the holidays- the overspending, the overeating:

The time with family.

Don’t get me wrong, spending time with family can be great, but it can also be a pain in the neck. Especially with in-laws.

My friend and I were talking about in-law relationships recently when she asked, “Why are they so hard? What’s the deal with in-laws?”

It really comes down to permission.

I don’t mean the act of asking permission. I define permission as how receptive someone is to you or your message. The more receptive they are, the more permission you have, and vice versa.

The problem with in-law relationships is that in-laws often feel that they have more permission than they really do. Meaning, they feel we are more receptive to their influence than we actually are.

When you think about it it makes sense as to why: when we first meet our future spouses we are overly polite and bend over backwards to get our future in-laws to like us. Which means we let the small annoyances go and overlook the nosiness of our future mother-in-law or the pushiness of our future father-in-law and just figure it’s more important that everybody get along.

Which is fine until we actually get married and the little things we overlooked become big things. But because we overlooked them in the first place we’ve now sent the message that asking when we’re going to have children already or suggesting we have the Smiths over for dinner because, well, didn’t they have you over last month, and it is important you reciprocate- is just fine with us. Except that it’s not.

As I was working on writing this post I asked my husband Kevin for an example of in-law permission, figuring since we are temporarily living with my parents, he’d have plenty of examples.

“Your mom’s brutal honesty,” he said without even pausing to think. “She didn’t have permission with me to be so honest.” This is the woman who, when I said we were thinking about having children, said, “aren’t you too old to have kids?” Ouch. (In her defense she said it out of concern, not to be mean.) She’s equally honest with Kevin, not understanding that when he asks how she likes a meal he prepared (he’s a professional chef) a simple, “It’s great, thanks!” is appropriate. His feelings have been hurt more than once.

“What changed?” I asked, knowing that it bothers him much less than it used to. “Well,” he said, “I now know your mom a lot better and know that’s just her way. It’s also comforting to know that if I want the truth I can go to her and be sure to get it. There’s no bull with your mom, and I like that.” Which is the beauty about my mom. What you see is what you get, which, when you think about it, is so rare in today’s world.

The Permission Principle states: “The amount of permission we have is directly related to the strength and quality of our relationships.” When my mom and Kevin were first getting to know each other she didn’t have permission to be brutally honest. But as their relationship grew, so did the permission.

Lack of permission (read: boundary crossing) is detrimental to relationships, sure. But if we realize that the forced “instant intimacy” between the in-laws and the new spouse contributes to the false sense of permission, we might think about giving our in-laws a little more grace.

Now that the holidays are over and they’ve gone back home that is.

Why is it that every time they tell us to expect snow it doesn’t happen, and then when they tell us we’ll just get a dusting, we get 6 inches?

I guess predicting the weather is a pretty complicated business.

I was thinking about that this week and how similar it is to the ability to read someone’s nonverbals.

In both cases you can have sophisticated equipment -radar and satellite in the case of weather predicting, machines that monitor heart rate, sweating and other physiological responses in the case of predicting if someone is lying- and in both cases you can be wrong.

TV shows like Lie to Me or The Mentalist rarely show the times a “read” is wrong, and so we continue to get the impression that if we just knew what to look for, we could predict how someone might act or what they might say based on their nonverbal behavior.

It reminds me of the first time I met two graduate teaching assistants I would be teaching a year-long class with at Portland State University. One exhibited closed nonverbals. She rarely offered her thoughts up in the classes we had together, she didn’t often smile, she looked down as you passed her in the hall. The other was friendly, participated in class, and smiled a lot. I immediately assumed it would be difficult to start a friendship with the first but a breeze with the second. Over the year the three of us forged a solid friendship, and I found that in the first case my fellow graduate teaching assistant was merely shy. Once you got to know her, she was friendly, chatty, and warm. The second graduate teaching assistant was friendly and outgoing, but took much longer to warm up to people. I made incorrect assumptions based on their nonverbals and first impressions.

Which really teaches us two things: 1) how powerful first impressions really are and 2) reading nonverbals in an attempt to interpret someone’s thoughts or feelings is a slippery slope.

Nonverbal communication does assist us in reading what other people need so we can better accommodate them. I’ve spent so much time warning you about the pitfalls of reading the nonverbal communication of others, you might be wondering if there’s any reason to read other people at all. A future post will focus on how to sensitively interpret what others are sending us nonverbally and what to do with that information. It’s when we pigeon-hole people based on their nonverbal behavior that we get into trouble.

For example, when lawyers hire me to assist them during jury selection, I always give the caveat that I can provide a nonverbal read of prospective jurors, but to compare it with all the other information they have. If it bolsters the case for or against a juror, great. If all information points the other way, then throw it out. More importantly, I focus on working with the lawyer. We have the most control over our own communication, and focusing there will create the biggest impact.

So the next time I hear it’s going to snow (or not snow) I’m going to take it with a grain of salt. Just like when I meet someone new. I’ll take in what they are communicating nonverbally but keep an open mind, just in case I miss something.

My assistant Val attended a poetry reading a few months ago and was asked by a woman what type of work she did. Val said she worked for Nonverbal Solutions, and that we train people to use nonverbal communication systematically.

The woman interrupted her and said, “Oh, so you manipulate people.”

Sigh.

I can’t say I’m surprised, although I’d love to start a workshop sometime without having to explain that what we do is nothing close to what people think we do. No, we can’t read your mind by watching your nonverbal behavior. No, we don’t train people in how to tell if someone is lying. And no, we don’t show you how to manipulate others by using secret, wildly influential nonverbal “tricks.”

If you’ve been following my blog, you know I can’t stand being called a body language expert, and you also know that I still struggle with explaining just exactly what it is that we do.

But I’m getting better.

A little over a year ago I was asked to speak for Portland Female Executives. I attended an event prior to my speaking engagement to check out the venue. The speaker spoke about passion, and at one point asked us to turn to our neighbor and share our passion. The woman I was seated next to asked me if I was passionate about nonverbal communication. Imagine my surprise when I realized my answer was…no. I left behind my career in music to devote myself full-time to nonverbal communication. How on earth could I not be passionate about it?

When I attended my first nonverbal communication workshop years ago I was surprised -just like many of my attendees now- that the information wasn’t anything like what I expected. Instead of learning isolated nonverbal cues and what they mean, we learned how nonverbal communication assists us in creating high-quality relationships. Relationships are the key to success both in the personal and professional realm, and clear, effective communication is essential for attracting, establishing and preserving relationships.

There are several ways to ensure clear communication occurs, but most programs work only with the verbal level- ignoring the nonverbal. This is unfortunate, because although it’s important to know what to say, research shows that how we say it makes a much bigger impact.

More importantly, nonverbal communication gives us insight into how others wish to be treated. Once we have that information, we can adapt our approach and meet people where they are. One of our greatest needs as humans is to be understood. Striving to understand others and communicate clearly is respectful and considerate, not manipulative.

So forgive me if my feathers get a bit ruffled when people assume we manipulate people. What we do is the exact opposite. Helping people create strong, quality relationships is what I am really passionate about. Nonverbal communication is how I choose to get there.

I recently received my first piece of hate-mail. It was actually pretty cool. I’ve been kind of down about my recent television interview. It was very short, and nothing came of it. No excited phone calls from prospective clients, no offers to appear on Oprah, so getting hate-mail made me feel kinda…famous.

I really shouldn’t call it hate-mail. It wasn’t “hateful” really, and it was an email, not the type of letter you think of when you think of hate-mail: cut-out letters from magazines pasted onto a piece of paper. It’s also pretty difficult to get offended by someone who can’t put together a well-constructed sentence. But ever since receiving it Val and I have been affectionately calling it the “hate-mail.”

Basically the writer expressed amazement that someone would be so “simplistic” to “try and reduce human non-verbal behavior to that of a cat or dog.” He or she (there wasn’t a signature) is referencing -I can only guess- my recent interview with Willamette Week, in which I discuss the cats and dogs analogy I use in my work.

Receiving the email made me realize two things: 1) what I’m doing is getting attention, and that’s cool no matter how you slice it, and 2) what I do is not easily explained in a one-page article or even a three-minute television interview.

I’m still trying to find a way to talk about what I do in a way that makes sense to people. Just this morning the receptionist at my chiropractor’s office asked what I did. I said I was a nonverbal communications consultant which resulted in a blank stare, and the more I tried to explain, the more confused she became.

Yesterday I presented an all-day workshop in which at least a half-dozen participants said, “I was not looking forward to coming to this workshop, but I’m so glad I came. It wasn’t what I expected at all.” This isn’t unusual. And although I am delighted that people find my work useful and practical, there has to be a better way of explaining it.

For now I’ll just keep plugging along knowing that the media attention is nice but I can’t expect it to sell my services. All of my work up until this point has come from word of mouth. We’ve never purchased advertising and I don’t have a publicist. People who attend workshops tell other people and that’s why Nonverbal Solutions is here and thriving, even after a recession.

So to my clients and supporters out there, thank you. And to my anonymous email writer: thank you as well. You can’t know how fun it was to feel famous.

Teachers are under a lot of pressure these days. Increasing test scores, keeping the class under control, creating interesting lesson plans- teachers juggle these responsibilites daily. But how important is the teacher-student relationship?

Very.

My husband’s high school experience is a great example. He wasn’t too interested in school, so his grades weren’t anything to brag about. Except in one class. He received an A. “Why did you work hard in that one class?” I asked once. “Because I felt the teacher liked me,” he said. It was that simple.

Yet creating relationships with students is anything but simple.

I’ve observed in hundreds of classrooms, worked with hundreds of teachers, and I can speak from personal experience when I say that knowing a student doesn’t like you is incredibly painful and confusing for most teachers.

Add to that the expectation from administrators that teachers should be striving for high-quality student relationships, and most teachers are ready to pull their hair out.

It’s not that teachers are unwilling or unable to do this. There are so many issues out of their control- absentee parents, media influences, video games- that the pressure to be liked can often feel like a millstone around the neck.

Like the teacher I coached recently. He expressed that the office didn’t like it when he sent students out of the classroom, preferring that he take care of the discipline himself. So he did. And then they said he was too “authoritative.” So he tried joking around more. Until one student complained to his parents about a joke, and the parents called the school. He couldn’t win, he said.

Students learn best when the learning environment is safe and respectful. There are times teachers need to be authoritative and come from their position, but there are other times they need to be friendly and come from their person. Oftentimes a teacher only operates from one or the other. If position, they are seen as too authoritative. If person, they are seen as too accommodating. Nonverbal intelligence is knowing when each is appropriate and having the ability to do both.

Nonverbal classroom management assists teachers by allowing them to separate the student from the behavior when coming from their position. In other words, it allows the teacher to manage without making it personal. Through appropriate use of eye contact, visuals and nonverbal cues, teachers can foster trust and safety in the classroom without fearing they are being too strict or too lenient.

Effective use of nonverbal communication leads to clearer classroom messages, which means less misunderstandings and hurt feelings. Teachers feel in control and students feel respected. This is how I define high quality student-teacher relationships. Being liked is secondary.

So my advice to teachers is this: don’t try to be something you’re not in an effort to get students to like you. Be systematic in your use of nonverbal communication, but more importantly, be authentic. People, particularly students, respond to authenticity. The rest is just details.

I’m going to be on TV. KOIN’s Keep It Local, channel 6 here in Portland, next Thursday at 4 p.m.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous, specifically about how to camouflage my arms- the camera adds 10 pounds they say- but besides the inevitable television bloat, I’m nervous about the angle.

I’ve made it very clear, through my assistant Val, that I am not a body language expert. This, I think, is disappointing to some people. Like the reporter who interviewed me a few months back and never ran the story. She seemed very interested in the mainstream “body language” stuff- “what am I communicating now?” she asked at one point, leaning forward, freezing her body, as if she were expecting me to pull a rabbit out of a hat. I explained that our work really centers more around becoming systematic with our own nonverbals- and well, the story never ran.

So it will be interesting to see what type of questions I get. My hope is that I’m able to convey how important nonverbal intelligence really is. Although it may be fun to look at body language and guess at the person’s meaning, we are much more successful when we tune into our own nonverbal communication.

Watch KOIN’s Keep It Local next Thursday, November 19th at 4 p.m. to see if I’m successful getting that across. And after watching, feel free to email me your comments, specifically about how thin my arms looked.

This past summer my husband and I took a trip to Finland. My parents are Finnish immigrants, and I am first generation Finnish-American. We had a lovely three weeks, and when we returned I unpacked, stood in the doorway of my home office and contemplated going back to work. At that moment I heard the voice. It could have been mine, the universe, or maybe my dog, but it said,  ”You can’t work here anymore.”

Now perhaps you think I just didn’t want to go back to work, and that’s probably a teensy bit true, but in actuality, I didn’t want to work there. From home. And I never did again.

Luckily I found an office within a week, or Nonverbal Solutions would have ceased to exist.

I’ve had a love/hate relationship with working from home, and if I had to choose either/or, I’d go with hate. Yes, it’s convenient, but not so much when you have a husband who is home in the mornings-I can’t tell you how many times I had to sit down and say, “Honey, I work here, so please stop walking into my office to chat”-  and it’s really difficult to walk by a sink of dirty dishes and not drop what you’re doing to wash them. Not to mention the call of the afternoon nap, Days of Our Lives, and don’t even get me started on the constant snacking.

Working from home was beginning to take its toll. I either worked so much that I was writing copy for the website until 11 p.m., or I was so overwhelmed that I sat all day and did nothing. The latter wouldn’t be a problem on occasion, but it was difficult to relax and recharge when my work was always staring me back in the face.

I began to get anxious every morning, dreading going into my office to work. My home began to feel like a prison. It wasn’t until after my three week vacation that clarity hit: I was guilty of contamination.

Contamination is really easy to do. We’re constantly spilling one aspect of our life into another, instead of keeping them separate. My theory is we don’t take contamination seriously, thinking that efficiency is more important than sanity. This is why we bring our work into the bedroom, or our laptops into bed and then we wonder why we can’t turn our brains off and relax.

It’s easy to contaminate because location holds memory. Have you ever sat in your living room -perhaps watching TV- and then got up to grab something from another room, only to forget half-way there what it is you were after? What do you have to do? You have to go back. Walking back to the living room jogs your memory.

To illustrate this idea, let me borrow an example from the classroom. We caution teachers to avoid disciplining from the same spot in which they teach, because it makes it much more difficult for students to go back to learning. They can’t erase the memory of the discipline or the upcoming consequence from their minds. Instead we ask teachers to stop teaching, move to a different location, discipline from there, and then return back to the teaching spot. Students are more able to shake off the discipline because it was done in a different location.

We’ve observed in hundreds of classrooms and found that teachers only have to walk to the “discipline” spot twice before students understand what’s happening. The third time the teacher walks to the predetermined location, students are already shushing each other because they know that they’re about to get into trouble. The teacher has never indicated what the spot means, she or he has just been systematic about moving there every time the class needs discipline. This spot becomes so powerfully associated in the minds of the students, that we have to caution teachers to not do anything else from that spot.

Which just shows that we have to be careful -in all aspects of our lives- to decontaminate. In other words, we need to get systematic about where we do certain tasks, and be careful about what types of visual reminders are present. For teachers, lawyers, and managers, that means moving to a new location for the delivery of negative information. For me it meant moving my office out of my home. For those working from home who neither have the desire nor means to work somewhere else, it may mean containing work to one room and not spilling paperwork onto the kitchen table or working on the laptop in the living room. For those who work outside of the home, it might mean putting the briefcase into the closet when you walk in the door, and agreeing to stop checking email at night and on weekends.

Decontaminating my work environment has had a tremendous effect on my work and home life. I’m able to concentrate when I’m at work, and relax when I’m at home. My productivity has doubled. Look around and see if you’re inadvertently contaminating your home or workspace. Be vigilant about protecting your space and you’ll find it’s easier to concentrate, relax, and find balance.

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.