If you want to be evaluated as authoritative, understand what’s at stake in any situation and adjust your body language accordingly
Before the meeting began, Adam assumed a power pose: standing with hands on hips and feet wide apart for two full minutes to get all the advertised benefits of doing so. It worked. He could almost feel his stress level lowering and his self-confidence rising. By the time he strode into the conference room, took…
Don’t let physical distancing make loneliness worse. Here are three tips to reduce isolation and increase connection
The message is simple: Work from home, don’t meet in person – or if you must get together, keep your social distance! But as we increase our efforts to fend off the spread of COVID-19, we need to watch that we aren’t worsening another threat to public health: loneliness. The ‘loneliness epidemic’ has seen rates…
The high achievers of today are not so much a product of superior expertise as they are a product of superior networks
What really distinguishes high performers from the rest of the pack is their ability to maintain and leverage large, diversified networks that are rich in experience and span all organizational boundaries. Ironic, isn't it? Here we are, smack in the middle of the Information Age, discovering that our greatest advantages aren't coming from what we know…
Research shows that your posture affects both how you feel and how others perceive you
My name is Carol and I’m a posture junkie. It all began with the reaction I saw when I was introduced as a speaker who writes and lectures about body language. I watched as people automatically changed their posture. They held their heads higher, pulled their shoulders back and tightened their abdominal muscles. In doing…
Making sure you understand the kind of signals your body is sending is important every time you are talking to someone
One time, during a radio interview entitled "What you're saying without speaking," I was asked to comment on the host's body language. He was a very good sport about being critiqued in public, and he quickly understood that, in order to change your body language, you must first be aware of what your body is…
It takes ongoing teamwork to produce innovative, cost effective and targeted products and services
Most leaders agree that effective collaboration is more important than ever. In a "do-more-with-less" reality, it takes ongoing teamwork to produce innovative, cost effective and targeted products and services. In fact, a company's very survival may depend on how well it can combine the potential of its people and the quality of the information they…
Most workplace lies (and liars) are discovered after the fact – it's time to put an end to the cycle and end the lies before the harm is done
Most workplace lies (and liars) are discovered after the fact – after you’ve signed the faulty contract, hired the wrong person or agreed to work on that career-limiting project. Wouldn’t it be great (as well as a professional advantage) to spot liars in action, before the harm was done? To sharpen your lie-detection ability, follow…
If the interviewer stops in the middle of your conversation to practice golf swings, forget about a job offer
As the candidate in a job interview, you’re aware that you’re being assessed for competence, confidence and candor. But what about the interviewer? Is he or she being totally upfront with you? Here are 10 clues that will tell you what the interviewer really thinks: 1. If the interviewer says he "could go on talking…
People are two times more likely to remember you if you shake hands with them
Apparently there is some controversy over the question of whether businesswomen should hug or shake hands. My vote goes to the handshake. Here’s why: A study on handshakes (by the Income Center for Trade Shows) showed that people are two times more likely to remember you if you shake hands with them. The trade-show researchers…
Your nonverbal communication is more powerful at conveying emotions than the content of your message itself
Do you know that your team is constantly evaluating your emotions through cues in your body language – and that they can do so in a fraction of a second? At the Center for Cognitive Neuroimaging at the University of Glasgow, researchers found that it takes only 200 miliseconds to read someone’s emotional state from…
We all tend to mimic the facial expressions and reflect the mood of those with whom we have contact
It started out a wonderful day. The sun was shining and I was singing along with my favourite radio station while driving through unusually light traffic to the San Francisco airport. Then, as I turned into the airport parking lot, a driver abruptly pulled in front of me and glared through his rear-view mirror. At…
Men lie about their accomplishments, salaries, and status. Women, by contrast, lie to minimize their perceived deficiencies
I don’t mean that men tell more lies, or are better at lying. But men and women lie about different things. When men lie, it’s often to look bigger – taller, richer, more powerful and more sexually attractive. In both personal ads and in face-to-face conversations, men tend to “inflate” the numbers by saying they…
Team spirit can quickly disintegrate as individuals who feel that they are being discounted simply withdraw
You are brought into a room to play a computer game. On the screen you see your avatar, a computerized graphic that represents you in this virtual environment. You also spot the avatars for two other players, both of whom you assume are physically located with their own computers in similar rooms. At first it…
Discontinuous change is like leaping off a cliff while building your parachute on the way down
There are two kinds of change – incremental and discontinuous – that are taking place simultaneously and constantly in today’s business organizations. Incremental change is the process of continuous improvement – what the Japanese refer to as “kaizen.” Discontinuous change is the kind of large-scale transformation that turns organizations inside out and upside down. Incremental…
As a leader you must make it a routine part of your decision-making process to ask the question: Will this be perceived as equitable?
Let's play a game. Here are the rules: We'll be asked to split a sum of money. I get to make the split and you get to choose whether to accept or reject the split. And if you reject it, both of us will walk away empty-handed. Rationally, I should realize my advantage and offer…