topics: |  psychology | body-language

[Advice to a saleswoman who's not doing well.]

"I believe it's your general attitude. You sit with a customer, slumped
forward, your head down—why, you hardly ever make eye contact.
Are you afraid of the customers? ... Your advice is a hundred
percent great. Look, let's do a little body language reconstruction.
Try sitting up straight, leaning forward, making eye contact and,
yes, even smiling!"

To her surprise, Lisa found that sitting and moving in an affirmative way
increased, to a small extent, her confidence in herself and the advice she
was giving.  7

Dr. Robert Zajonic, a psychologist at the University of Michigan: Simply
stated, looking happy makes you feel happy. Looking sad makes you feel sad. 8

JANUS FACTOR: every [employee] has two faces. One face is turned toward the
   people higher up in the corporate structure, and sends out one type of
   subtext. Another face is turned toward those lower down, with quite a
   different subtext. - 16

A corollary of the Janus Factor is that the more secure the
person is in the corporate structure, the less difference there is
between the two faces and the two subtexts. The president of
Jake's company seems to have only one face, but of course no
one at work sees the face he presents to his wife and children.

Sometimes we find a deceptive charm about uncontrolled people.  The subtext
they send out is romantic, above commonplace demands, even primitive and
natural, but they are difficult to live with and next to impossible to work
with—or, worse still, to work for!

I asked Walter J. Pfister, Jr., former vice president of news for ABC 
how do you send out a subtext of confidence?

Smile, was his first suggestion.

"In any business situation," he stressed, "it's very important
to look as comfortable as you can. A smile certainly helps. Another
way of transmitting comfort and ease is to use the other person's
first name. The first name, far from offending, puts the other
person at ease, and creates a subtext of friendliness. To keep
that subtext going, be conversational. Don't speechify or lecture,
even if you're addressing a group. Remember, the shorter your
talk, the better. It's not so much what you say as the way that
you say it!"

HAIR: "A lot of women tell me that when they cut their hair they feel freer,
more aggressive, more energetic. Of course there are some who feel naked and
vulnerable!"
Long hair is particularly fascinating to men, and women are made aware of
this at an early age. Some women equate cutting their hair with losing their
femininity, but worry that the image projected by long hair can be
problematic in business. - 28