The Secret Language of Business E-Book

Kevin Hogan

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 292

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2010

Beschreibung

The Secret Language of Business reveals the secrets of body language and nonverbal communication. Successful professionals need more than just good communication skills, you also need the ability to interpret the nonverbal signals that everyone displays. You'll learn how to master and manipulate your own body language, read the body language of others, and influence people through your new skills and perception. No matter what business you're in, this is a valuable guide to achieving more in life and business.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Praise

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Introduction

The Purpose of This Book

What to Expect from This Book

How to Use This Book

About the Author

Chapter 1 - The Secret Language of Business

The Study of Nonverbal Communication

Chapter 2 - The Power of the Secret Language of Business

Why Should You Care about Body Language?

Chapter 3 - Elements of Body Language

Eyes

Face

Gestures

Touch

Posture

Movement

Appearance

Voice

Chapter 4 - Context and Environment

How Context and Environment Influence Body Language

Same Body Language, Different Perceptions

When Body Language and Context Are in Conflict

Chapter 5 - Proxemics: The Secret Language of Business . . . Up Close

What Is Proxemics?

The Relationship between Body Language and Proxemics

How Big Is Your Bubble?

Different Environments, Different Distances

Using Proxemics to Improve Your Communications

Chapter 6 - What Does Your Body Language Say about You?

Status

Dominance

Submission

Uncertainty

Confidence

Personal Identity

Chapter 7 - Personal Interactions

Appearance

First Impressions

Building Rapport

Establishing Trust

Reading Messages

Sending Messages

Deception

Affection

Anger

Intimacy

The Complex Formula for Succeeding in Getting Attention from the Opposite Sex

Separation

Chapter 8 - The Secret Language of Inf luence in Business

The Business Environment

Meetings

Selling

Hiring

Peer to Peer

Manager to Subordinate

Chapter 9 - Secret Language of the Sexes

The Differences between Men and Women

Gender Differences in Sending

Gender Differences in Receiving

Navigating through the Differences

Chapter 10 - Back Home with the Kids

The Parental Role

Newborns and Infants

Toddlers and Preschoolers

School-age

Preteen

Teen and Young Adult

Adult Children

Grandchildren

Chapter 11 - Using The Secret Language of Business

Body Language in the Real World

Sending Powerful Nonverbal Messages in the Real World

Receiving Nonverbal Messages in the Real World

Observing Nonverbal Messages in the Real World

Is It Influence or Manipulation?

Integrity and Intent

Chapter 12 - Body Language and Other Cultures

Global Similarities and Differences

Common Cultural Misunderstandings

The Influence of Culture and History

Respect and Accommodation for Others

Chapter 13 - Practical Applications

Academia

Business

Diplomacy

Politics

Everyday Life

Bibliography

The Body Language Home Study Course

Need a Speaker for Your Company or Convention’s Next Meeting?

Index

Praise forThe Secret Language of Business

“If you want to communicate more powerfully, influence with greater impact, and lead more effectively, you will want to read this book. Packed with research and real-world application, The Secret Language of Business will help you in far more than business. Use it, and the information in this book can change your life.”

—Kevin Eikenberry, author of Remarkable Leadership: Unleashing Your Leadership Potential One Skill at a Time

“A revealing tour through the fine points of the ‘nonconscious’ mind, and how little details make all the difference! This book is an authoritative shortcut to using powerful nonverbal communication skills to read others, and, to send intentional and deeply effective messages to get the results you want.”

—David Garfinkel, author of Advertising Headlines That Make You Rich

“Ninety-three percent of your effectiveness is determined by your nonverbal cues. Kevin Hogan divulges what you’re unconsciously communicating and decodes what others are revealing about themselves. Read this book before you ask for a raise. Hide this book from your vendors. The Secret Language of Business will give you an unfair business advantage as clients’ inner thoughts become transparent.”

—Ben Mack, best-selling author of Think Two Products Ahead and former Senior Vice President, BBDO

“This is a book that is needed by everyone who communicates (okay, that is everyone!). Kevin Hogan manages to give a comprehensive overview of nonverbal communication while giving depth, advanced skills, and surprising facts. I can’t wait to share the ideas I learned with my coaching clients!”

—Larina Kase, PsyD, MBA, business psychologist and coauthor of the New York Times best-selling book The Confident Speaker

Copyright © 2008 by Kevin Hogan. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey. Published simultaneously in Canada.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, [phone], fax [phone], or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, [phone], fax [phone], or online at www.wiley.com/go/permissions.

Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Hogan, Kevin.

The secret language of business : how to read anyone in 3 seconds or less / Kevin Hogan.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-0-470-22289-8 (cloth)

1. Body language. 2. Nonverbal communication in the workplace. I. Title. BF637.N66H64 2008

153.6’9—dc22

2007025169

ForMark, Jessica, and Katie

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Matt Holt, “my” editor, and John Wiley & Sons, Inc. The staff at Cape Cod Compositors, too. Thanks also go to the people in my life who make it better. Michelle Drum Matteson, Lisa McLellan, Jennifer Battaglino, Ken Owens, Mark Ryan, Bob Beverley, Blair Warren, Scott and Carmen Schluter, Devin and Rachel Hastings.

Thanks to my Inner Circle for making me better at what I do. Bryan Lenihan, Paul Thomas, Gary May, JJ Austrian, Sonya Lenzo, Steve Chambers, Craig Ernst, John Bedosky, Eliot Hoppe, April Braswell, Jimmy Slagle, Gail Hurt, Phil Hamilton, Duane Cunningham, Erwin van den Boogaard, Michael Neumann, Luis Lopez, Phil Graves, Sami Miettinen, and Aleta Batz.

Introduction

Welcome to The Secret Language of Business: How to Read Anyone in 3 Seconds or Less, a book that will have a powerful impact on your life. The information presented here is based on a combination of academic research, science, practical application, and over 20 years of experience in the teaching, communication, and influence professions.

If you’re ready to embark on a journey of learning, self-discovery, and the kind of real-world practical information you’ve always wanted but could never find, then you’re in the right place.

Regular updates to this book will be posted at www.kevinhogan.com. . There is a secret link at the bottom of the page. It says “Language.” Click there and join other readers for free updates . . . forever.

The Purpose of This Book

There are hundreds of books available on the subject of body language and nonverbal communication.

They range from the purely academic to the purely incidental and everywhere in between. Throughout my years of teaching and professional speaking, one of the most consistent complaints I have heard from students and professionals is their inability to find a book that is reputable, engaging, and applicable to the real world in which they work and live.

In other words, if you’re like them, you want to know what other people are thinking. You want to know what messages others are sending.

You want to know if they like you.

You want to know if they are deceiving you.

You want to be able to read what kind of people they are from looking at them and the things around them.

And, maybe most importantly, you want to make the right and best impression you can on others, especially the first time you meet them.

There is a widespread hunger for accurate information on this subject, but few, if any, resources combine the facts with useful practical applications.

And that’s why I wrote this book.

This book is designed to help you wade through the external noise and confusion of other resources and focus on the information that is most relevant to your needs. It is not strictly academic, nor is it strictly self-help. It is a combination of these two things that will take you through all of the most important aspects of nonverbal communication and how it influences every part of your daily life.

I’ve devoured a lot of nonverbal communication material over the last two decades.

As far as this book is concerned, it’s hard to know when to say “when.”

A lot of people want to know what every gesture and movement means.

As you will find out, even the person performing the gesture or behaving in a certain way typically doesn’t know what the gesture means.

Getting past how the brain works (which we will only touch on here) and how it directs most of nonverbal communication, we’ll talk about the core factors of the Secret Language of Business.

The context in which X occurred.

The culture in which X occurred.

The person’s catalog of reactions and responses.

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of contexts within which nonverbal communication occurs. (Being at the grocery store vs. watching TV at home.)

There are literally dozens of cultures per country on the globe, making for easily thousands of cultures and significant differences between cultures. (Society family vs. Gangsta Rap dudes.)

There are literally hundreds of gestures, signals, movements.

That combines for trillions of possible meanings that culture, context, and reaction can ultimately have.

That’s a whole bunch of possibilities.

That was the biggest challenge about writing this book: writing an eminently useful book without turning it into a concordance of situations.

What to Expect from This Book

Expect to be a little nervous.

The study of nonverbal communication including body language is often a study of stereotypes and prejudging.

Those words make my heart skip a beat.

A lot of people don’t want to hear that. (Like you and me.)

But it’s an enormous part of the comprehension equation.

You have to think both stereotype and prejudice on a few different levels to master reading other people’s nonverbal behavior.

Stereotypes are just that. They are generalizations about people based upon certain characteristics they possess.

Research is abundantly clear that women stereotype more accurately than men do. Women “get people” better than men do. It’s not a close contest. (Except when it comes to deception where men perform as well as women do and stereotype the deceptive behaviors of others as well as women do.)

Prejudice is prejudging people.

That’s what reading people is all about.

Breathe . . .

Neither of these actions is encouraged in society because they can lead people to behave unkindly toward others.

There’s nothing “nice” or “mean” about reading body language and nonverbal communication. It’s not good or bad, it’s simply reading and interpreting.

It’s a very real-life experience.

For better or worse, you must be effective at making generalizations and prejudging.

That said, I’m not encouraging prejudice from a behavioral standpoint.

In other words, just because someone is black or white, male or female doesn’t mean you shouldn’t hire them or date them.

It means there are characteristics that are often correlated with others of the same skin color, gender, religion, school affiliation, and so forth, typically within a given culture.

In other words, you probably won’t find gangsta rap popular in Nigeria, Haiti, or in the Australian outback. It’s not the skin color, it’s how people are drawn to each other in a culture by their similarities and then how they bond as a community.

Culture is huge in understanding nonverbal communication.

Within a culture, sometimes those correlations are cause/effect. Sometimes they are causation.

There is a big difference between causation and correlation, but this book is not about that difference.

This book is about reading people and being good at it.

This book is about sending nonverbal messages that are likely to influence others.

This book is a frank and intelligent discussion about complex and politically incorrect stuff. (And sometimes I lighten things up a bit . . . )

At no point in this book do I intentionally offend anyone. At no point do I intentionally attempt to stir a pot of controversy.

What you will discover here is factual information collected by the smartest minds on the planet as far as nonverbal communication, anthropology, social psychology, and neuroscience go.

Then I take all of that and hopefully make it easy to read and not all that painful.

I have prejudices. Lots of them. Conscious mind and nonconscious mind.

It’s important to recognize them in yourself and not ignore them.

If you say, “I’m not prejudiced,” you are practicing the art of self deception. You are prejudiced by nature of being a human being.

Recognize it, and master the emotions that go along with it.

Be good to people.

Six years ago, I got to moderate a really neat event: Speed Dating. There were 16 men and 16 women who would rotate throughout the evening, spending four, count’em four, minutes with each other.

At the end of the four minutes they would tick off on an index card whether they wanted to date the person.

I ultimately guided three of these events. Two in Minneapolis and one in Seattle.

What I learned was fascinating.

1. Women wanted to date far fewer men than the number of women men were willing to date. (We’re so much more flexible and accommodating . . . or desperate.)

2. Ninety-three percent of women told me that they knew in the first 30 seconds whether they would be willing to date the person again.

3. Almost as many men said they knew “right away,” “instantly,” “within three seconds.”

4. The more people someone wanted to date, the fewer people wanted to date (usually) him.

The lessons of those three evenings are many and could fill a book themselves.

But for now, realize that I thought these people were prejudging each of their dates that night.

And then I realized I may not have been correct.

Perhaps we know our yardstick very well and do know in three seconds.

The Secret Language of Business is nonverbal communication, but nonverbal communication is not simply body language. You’ll find out more shortly.

You will read about the very basics of body language and the power it has to influence attitudes, actions, and outcomes. You will learn about the key elements of body language and how they influence communication, as well as the effects of the things people wear, the symbols they surround themselves with, the context, environment, proxemics, personal status, income, physical features, and chronemics.

And don’t worry . . . I’ll make it easy to understand.

Where I say, “There’s a lot of research,” please accept that as a fact. Otherwise we have to go get 60 journal articles and footnote each idea. Let’s keep this simple but very accurate.

With this solid examination of technical aspects under your belt, you will move on to the chapters that I believe are the heart and soul of this book.

They focus on the real-world impact of body language and nonverbal communication on personal interactions of all kinds. From the business world to the personal world, you’ll discover important information and insights that you can put to good use right away . . . even with your kids.

What’s going to amaze you is that what takes place in the office is very similar to what takes place in sexual relationships and among family members.

The final chapters look at self-examination and how you can take a look at your own nonverbal communication. They also discuss how you can make the most of the power of The Secret Language of Business in your everyday life.

For most people, everyday life includes working with a diverse array of people from other countries and other cultures, whether it’s face to face in the workplace or using modern technology to interact across the globe. This is an increasingly important area given our increasingly globalized world, so I have included a chapter on body language and other cultures as well.

“Kevin, when you come to Italy to give your presentation to the private investment bankers, don’t wear black like you did last time.”

“Why not, Ronald?”

“Because it is boring.”

“What should I wear?”

“Anything but black.”

Great. And he was serious.

A lot of Europeans take color pretty seriously.

I wore bright blue and felt like a lighthouse.

Throughout the book, you will find well-researched, accurate information that reflects the most current knowledge on the topic of body language and nonverbal communication. Everything you read in this book is based on fact and research, not on someone’s guesswork or untested ideas.

My own experiences and observations are also included along the way in an effort to bring you an engaging combination of academic and real-world content. But my observations are only that. And, when something is my observation, I’ll let you know.

How to Use This Book

Just as no two people are exactly alike, there is no single best way to use this book. It contains a wide array of information and applications that may or may not apply to your specific circumstances and needs. That’s okay, though, because even if a particular subject area is not directly applicable to your life right now, chances are it will be at some point. What you learn now will carry with you over time, and you might just be surprised at how and when you are able to apply it.

In general, this is how I recommend you use this book:

1. Read each chapter thoroughly. Make note of anything that particularly stands out for you, whether it reflects your own experience or you simply find it interesting.

2. Pay attention to the takeaway pages at the end of each chapter. These pages capture the key points that are important for you to grasp from that chapter. If you find something in the takeaways that seems unfamiliar or doesn’t make sense to you, review the chapter again to get a better understanding of that particular point.

3. Use the worksheet pages at the end of each chapter. These pages will have questions, activities, or exercises of various sorts to help reinforce the content of that chapter. It may be tempting to pass over the worksheet and move on to the next chapter, but I strongly encourage you not to do that. Take the time to stop and do the worksheet before moving on because it will help you truly learn and apply the information in ways that are more impacting and long lasting.

4. Share what you learn with other people. Talk about what you learn with someone else, such as a friend, relative, peer, or colleague. Ask for their thoughts and perspectives on the various topics and get them to share their own experiences in the real world. It’s a great way to spend a coffee break or lunch hour, and you will both take away new knowledge.

5. Read it with a friend. Partner with another person to read the book and do the activities along the way. (Like a two-person book club.) I have found that the most effective way to do this is for each person to have a copy of the book, and then work through the book one chapter at a time. Read through the chapter and take notes on your own, then get together to discuss the chapter and what you learned. You can do the worksheet together if you like or each do it on your own and then compare results.

6. Have fun! The study of The Secret Language of Business and the application of its principles can be a whole lot of fun if you let it be. Look at people on TV to see examples of some of the topics in this book—it’s an eye-opening experience, to say the least. Have a telephone conversation in front of the mirror so you can watch your own body language. If you’re especially brave, find a friend who is willing to be videotaped having a conversation with you and then let the camera roll while you have a cup of coffee or tea together. Then go back and watch the video together and see what you notice.

A lot of the stuff in this book can get heavy. So I try and get out of my academic tone and into my natural rhythm often.

In the end, how you choose to use this book is entirely up to you. I encourage you to consider some of my suggestions for its use, but the most important thing is for you to use it in a way that creates the maximum benefit and learning for you. That is my primary goal: to help you take the information I’ve gathered and use it to improve all aspects of your life. Use it to give you an edge in life. Use it to master communication at all levels.

Regardless of how you decide to use it, I’d love to hear from you when you’re done. Let me know what worked for you, what didn’t work for you, and what you might like to learn more about. This helps us all to improve, and who knows—you might see something you suggested in a future update of the book!

Best regards, Kevin Hogan, Psy.D.

About the Author

Dr. Kevin Hogan is widely agreed to be one of the nation’s leading body language experts. He has over 20 years of experience in the academic study of body language as well as the practical, real-world application of body language and nonverbal communication. His consulting services are in significant demand. Kevin has worked with government, companies, and organizations as diverse as Fortis MeesPierson, Boeing, Precorp, Microsoft, 3M, Aunt Anne’s, Cargill, Great Clips, the United States Postal Service, and Starbucks to name a few.

He also frequently serves as an expert resource for news and print media sources such as CNN, Fox News, CBS, the New York Times, the BBC, Redbook, Playboy, Selling Power, Sales and Marketing Management, Maxim, Cosmopolitan, and others.

For more information, please visit www.kevinhogan.com.

1

The Secret Language of Business

Cool title.

Best part is that it’s a pretty perfect description of nonverbal communication.

You might notice that I use the phrases “nonverbal communication” and “body language” almost interchangeably in this book at times. So let’s define each of these right away.

The fact is that body language is a subdomain of nonverbal communication.

Body language refers to body position, gestures, eye contact, and . . the body!

Nonverbal communication includes those things but also includes how people dress, societal norms on dress and behavior, the jewelry people wear, the tattoos people reveal, the distance people stand from each other, the way people use time, the way people use space . . . even the tone and pitch of people’s voices.

And it is at this level of nonverbal communication that The Secret Language of Business occurs.

The vast majority of all that is communicated is nonverbal. Everything in nonverbal communication has a significant impact on you and me. Most people, however, live very randomly or live intentionally and then send messages they believe to say one thing but are received as something else.

And that is why so few people are influential. Almost no one communicates clearly. Misunderstandings abound.

Why?

People were never taught how to use the environment, their desks, the color of their homes, their jewelry, their necklines, skirt length, low rider pants, tattoos, and so forth to influence.

And when you think about it that is a shame because the words you and I say are darned important, but the nonverbal communication we send and receive is far more important.

Here you go: A woman in an office is hoping for attention—and a promotion—from superiors for the good job she’s doing, so she starts with the sweater with a plunging neckline and so forth.

Attention?

She gets it.

Promotion?

Not a chance.

An accumulation of studies shows that women who are in the field of selling (not including casinos and resorts) have longer appointments with the decision maker if they dress revealingly.

The other result?

They make far fewer sales.

Dress is very influential.

The term body language is overused.

One person might say, “Her body language was very negative throughout the meeting,” while another person might say, “His body language was very aggressive and intimidating.” In both cases, however, body language is only a portion of the communication process that led to a specific conclusion or interpretation about the other person.

And interpretations are just as often incorrect as they are correct.

We speak of body language as if it were a separate, distinct activity, unrelated to other communication characteristics such as words, tone of voice, pacing, volume, and the like. The reality is all of these communication elements work together, and it is extremely difficult (if not impossible) to completely separate them from each other.

Despite the complex interrelationships involved in communication, researchers and scientists have successfully studied its parts and components to produce a much greater understanding of how these parts work individually and how they work together. Body language and other elements of nonverbal communication are components of communication that are readily observable and measurable, so our knowledge about them continues to grow at a steady and rapid pace.

This book sheds light on body language and nonverbal communication. The Secret Language of Business. And there is a great deal of information I am excited to present along the way.

You can use all the factors you learn about to be more influential. You can use everything you learn here to read other people.

Because people’s body movements are typically controlled by the nonconscious mind, the person you are watching may not only not be aware of the message he is sending, he may not even cognitively agree with it!

(You probably want to read that again.)

One of the reasons there is so much trouble in communication in general is because people live on autopilot. We rarely use our conscious will. If we had to use conscious thought for everything we do, we’d never get anything done, and we’d all die in car accidents in the next week.

At the nonconscious level (the part of us that for better and worse “does” but doesn’t “think”) the brain sends impulses for the body to move, be still, look, engage, confront, run, hide, you name it.

And all of this happens before the thinking (cortical) part of the brain has clicked in and knows what the body is doing.

Words come out of your mouth and before you know it, you’ve said something you didn’t mean (though you might have felt what you said).

Sometimes the thinking brain is in alignment with the nonconscious mind, and sometimes the two cause very different behaviors to happen.

In fact, a growing body of research reveals that there is no significant correlation between the personality and behaviors of the nonconscious mind and the personality and behaviors of the conscious mind.

(Say “wow.”)

Thus, when you read someone, you might see one thing while the person is thinking of something totally different.

Finally, if you use this book to help you read the nonconscious mind and use the information as a way to predict nonconscious behavior and nonconscious decisions (those that happen quickly and without cognition) you will do much better at reading people and predicting their behavior.

You’ll be able to influence people with ease.

You’ll be able to know what they will do next more often than you might guess.

But will you know what they are thinking at the level of conscious thought?

That’s not the best use of accurate body language reading.

One quick example.

Have you ever found yourself staring at someone, then after a minute you catch yourself and wonder why you are staring?

The person isn’t attractive, and you aren’t remotely interested.

But there you are burning a hole through this stranger.

In business you can get in big trouble for such behavior.

But try telling the woman that your nonconscious mind was at work and you didn’t mean anything by it.

And of course, in this case, that is the truth!

Your nonconscious mind might have been staring because it perceived her as a threat, or because the woman looked like someone else who had some connection to you (typically emotional and not good) in the past.

Whatever the case (you can’t be certain as to why the nonconscious mind directs the body to do something, you can only observe the result), you learned something and so did she, and they were not necessarily the same things.

More often than not The Secret Language of Business is about influencing the nonconscious mind and the behavior it directs.

That said, it’s mighty important to influence the thinking brain, too.

As you read this book, always be aware of these two crucial distinctions.

People’s thoughts and behaviors aren’t related anywhere near as often as you’d like to believe.

As a rule, the conscious mind is more influenced by words and the nonconscious mind is more influenced by everything else (nonverbal communication, including body language).

To learn more about the nonconscious mind and the illusion of conscious will, there is a lengthy discussion at www.kevinhogan.com/nonconsciousmind.htm.

The Study of Nonverbal Communication

The observation and discussion of body language has been around in one form or another since the days of ancient Rome and Greece. Body language and nonverbal behavior is referenced in many varied disciplines, such as anthropology, dance, psychiatry, and sociology. Even Charles Darwin tackled the subject of facial expressions in 1872; many of his theories have since been proven by modern researchers.

Body language as a formal area of study first emerged in the post-World War II years. The 1950s saw the first few in-depth examinations of nonverbal communication and the 1960s saw an exponential growth in the number and type of formal studies. The discipline continued to grow and change in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, with more growth and discovery happening in the current decade as well.

In the earliest years, researchers focused on body language as specific, separate actions with a single meaning. This gave way over the years to an understanding of body language as a complex aspect of communication where specific actions often have many different meanings depending on context, environment, culture, individual personalities, and so forth.

Why should you care about the formal study of body language? Because the information revealed through scientific activities is enormously important to every aspect of your everyday life. There is no escaping the power and influence of body language; research and study simply identify and define it in ways that you can apply in the real world.

The problem until now has been a lack of resources to help you understand the scientific side of body language and translate it into practical applications for your life. This book is designed to fill that gap so you can look at nonverbal communication in an entirely new—and practical—way and then learn how to use that knowledge in an influential manner.

Before we get there, though, there are some basics to cover.

Nonverbal versus Verbal Communication

The definitions of nonverbal and verbal communication are of course argued from time to time as researchers gather more information and try to form the most precise descriptions possible. For the purposes of this book, though, I’ll stick with the most basic, generally accepted definitions.

Nonverbal communication: The process of sending and receiving messages without using words. Examples include body language, facial expression, gesture, movement, touch, distance, eye contact, and so on.

Verbal communication: The process of sending and receiving messages using words. Examples include spoken words, written words, and sign language.

Wait a minute. Verbal communication includes the words you write down on a piece of paper? You probably learned somewhere along the line that verbal communication is only the spoken word, but the strict interpretation of verbal communication focuses on words in general—spoken, written, and signed.

Experts sometimes disagree about how to classify communication such as sign language and tone of voice. Sign language uses gestures, which is nonverbal, but those gestures are actually words, which is verbal. Tone of voice is a spoken sound, which is verbal, but it is not a word so it is nonverbal.

It’s easy to see how and why there are so many different interpretations, definitions, and nuances when it comes to discussing nonverbal and verbal communication. I’ll leave it to the academic and scientific experts to figure out the finer points and move on to the more practical aspects of body language. My goal is to help you understand The Secret Language of Business.

Does one of these sentences include nonverbal communication?

1. It doesn’t make any difference whether we categorize written material as verbal or nonverbal communication.

2. It DOESN’T make ANY DIFFERENCE whether we categorize written material as verbal or nonverbal communication!

Answer?

I don’t know . . .

How Body Language Influences Communication

In an earlier section, I stated that nonverbal and verbal elements of communication couldn’t be completely separated and isolated from the overall communication process. This is one of the most interesting (and at times frustrating) aspects of studying communication, because the potential variations and interactions are so numerous and so diverse that it can be hard to categorize them in a meaningful, definite way.

When you think solely about body language and how it influences communication, though, some basic features and functions emerge. These fall into the following general categories as identified by Mark Knapp in his book Nonverbal Communication in Human Interaction:

• Repeating

• Conflicting

• Complementing

• Substituting

• Accenting/Moderating

• Regulating

Those are forbidding-sounding categories that come straight from the scientific and academic world. Let’s give them some better real-world meaning with a few examples.

Repeating: