Richa Shrestha

Kathmandu

Body language is an indicator of our attitude and is often the determinant, which will make you like or resent a person instantly. Only during job or visa interviews, are we probably worried over our intonation, inflections and the pitch of our voices or our postures.

It is only then that we show off our pearly whites, walk with brisk, easy strides and are prudent about not drumming our fingers and looking away while the other person is talking to us. What signals your body language sends across largely determine whether you are creating a favourable impression for yourself or sabotaging your impression rendering your hard-earned Curriculum Vitae irrelevant.

Since we spend 75 per cent of our waking hours communicating our ideas, opinions, feelings and knowledge to others, it is imperative that we match the content of our message with the attitude with which we present them. Our need to convey our feelings wholly extends beyond words.

Typography, layout, colour, font, emoticons in cyber-communications, rhythm, sound, pitch, our choice of words are all revealing information about us. Can we imagine cartoon strips without their trademark gulps, sighs, shocks, shivers or smiles, which have made them so popular?

Communication really does go beyond the spoken words and you may be surprised to know that they constitute only a measly seven per cent of all communications.

A Barbour the author of ‘Louder than Words: Nonverbal Communications’ writes that the total impact of a message is split into a startling seven per cent of it being verbal, 38 per cent vocal (volume, pitch, inflection, rhythm) and 55 per cent body movements and facial expressions. There are certain universalities in the way we communicate as in adults using higher-pitched voices to talk to infants, softer pitch for friendly conversations and a rising intonation to ask questions.

People do judge you by the way you lean forwards or backwards during conversations, whether you tap your feet and look at your watch during meetings, point your finger at other, putting your hands on your hips or are rocking back and forth. Leaning back on your chair, with hands clasped behind the head and looking at the space as you talk to your employees will make you appear arrogant. A hesitant and timid body language with a pitiful voice, lack of eye contact, reluctance in speech and basically an overall attitude that practically whimpers “I don’t have anything to offer you” is highly unlikely to win you that coveted job.

Knowing these bodily cues will help you manage it to a large extent: lean in slightly, look attentive but don’t appear too eager by sitting at the edge of the seat. Smile at the speaker’s jokes but just don’t grin constantly as you would look stupid. The way you carry yourself could tip the scale in your favour.

Nobody likes the other to invade their personal spaces: respect the others’ right to their own little spaces. The very fact that you approach them from behind and tap them on their shoulders as they work in their cubicle, carry on the entire conversations towering over their heads as they stay seated may breed resentment. And don’t occupy too much space by being too loud, gesticulating frantically or violate office etiquette by putting your leg over the arm of the chair and claim territorial dominion.

How you say a certain thing is often more important than what you say. Remember your elocution in which recitation of poems required you to gesticulate, make eye contact, take a brief pause at times, raise your eyebrows, and really own the stage as you recited Marc Anthony’s speech? Or the salesperson whose enthusiasm, cheerful smile and glib talking made you buy yet another water purifier?

Speaking in high, uncontrolled pitch, rattling off one word after another will make you appear nervous and lacking in confidence whereas speaking in a clear voice with controlled range of tones is always the safest bet. Silence can be used as effectively at times and can imply acceptance, boredom, or downright rejection.

Speech is an extraordinary and exclusive human instrument. Your voice reveals your gender, geographical background, frame of mind, emotional state, and your attitude towards the listener. Voice can be “read” with astonishing precision. Words can be performed by exploiting many ranges and subtleties in our own voices. A speaker who lacks energy, enthusiasm and passion will be wearisome and dull and lose his audience in a matter of minutes. But, a speaker who considers grabbing the audience’s attentions as his job and feels the emotion in his speech is spellbinding, is able to put his message across effectively.

Consider the following options and the difference in the following sentences:

I do not want to go there with you.

I do not want to go there with you.

I do not want to go there with you.

I do not want to go there with you.

Gestures are not new to humans. Desmond Morris in the ‘The Naked Ape’ writes that primates too show certain gestures to display friendliness or non-aggressive behaviour. Chimpanzees make certain lip-smacking action to show that they are non-aggressive, groom each other’s hair and allow the other to groom their hair as a gesture of sociability. The chimps’ screeches, grunts, and a variety of gestures and facial expressions comprise the simple repertoire of body language. Avoiding staring at the dominant one in the group, adopting meek and submissive gestures to avoid being picked on by the bullies are common strategies of the primates. This shows us that our own gestures, body language are instinctive, elemental and primal in nature.

But is it possible or even wise to try and decode body language all the time? Reading intent in paralanguage comes in handy during ambiguous situations when the communicator’s motivations are just not transparent. It is unreasonable to read hidden meanings in a thoughtless glance or a wayward wink every moment.

Don’t judge people’s drive and aims on one thing alone. Instead look for clusters of behaviour. If a date looks away while your are talking to her/ him, barely smiles at any of your jokes, taps her/ his feet impatiently, constantly fidgets, leans back with arms crossed defensively to create as much space between you two, chances are she/ he is uncomfortable with the way things are progressing. But if the same person, in a bus stop sitting with his/ her arms and legs tightly crossed, and eyes lowered might just mean that he is feeling cold as it is raining.

We can polish our body language and try to send out positive vibes but some of the gestures are involuntary that it is almost impossible to correct or imitate them. For example, when we meet someone we like, our eyebrows rise and fall gently and it happens so quick it lasts for about a fifth of a second. This is so common that it is duplicated by almost all the cultures of the world and is an immediately recognised friendly greeting. Our pupils dilate and increase in size if we see someone we like while our blinking rate goes up significantly. Moreover, we unknowingly mirror the person’s actions and behaviour as we communicate with them and adopt their gestures if we are attracted to them because we generally like people who are like us. Similarly, we orient ourselves to them subconsciously by pointing at them with our feet, hand or arms.

Words can be very deceptive. If your bodily cues do not match the sincerity of your words, it can contradict what you are trying to say. Smiling at inappropriate moments, taking too long a pause during the interview or not backing your desire to work for your company with an enthusiastic smile will make you appear untrustworthy.

If your boss buttons up his jacket, dusts off imaginary dust from his shirt, twiddles his thumb and nods furiously as you talk to him about a raise, irrespective of his “we will see what we can do” you can be certain that he was not impressed.

People are quick to make snap judgement. Adopting an open and confident attitude and keeping aggressive body language to a minimum and getting rid of unbecoming behaviour is the rule to live by. You cannot help it if the interviewer is already forming an opinion of you by the way you walk into the room, shake hands with him/ her, and utter your first word.

It has been done before and will be done, as human beings are largely visual in nature. Decoding body language however should not be used to gain insight into a person’s behaviour or label their personality but only to understand the behaviour and feeling of a person in a given particular time.