How to Look Approachable

I am a body language expert this article is from my Book SNAP Making the Most of First Impressions Body Language and Charisma. 

Give an eyebrow flash when you see someone you want to interact with. We raise the brow and fully stretch open the orbit of the eye when we see someone we know and like. It’s actually a signal to others that we feel they are safe; we like them and we want them to approach.

Stand to give room. One of the keys to approachability the key is to make yourself approachable is to stand in a way that shows you have room for others to approach. Men typically stand with their feet 10 to 12 inches apart indicating they have power and control over their space. So stand with your feet a couple of inches closer together.

Open up your body windows. Years ago I labeled certain parts of the body windows in the research on nonverbal communication because in my research I noticed that people open and closed certain parts of their bodies as they interacted. We know the old advice, don’t cross your arms so you look open and approachable. It’s a more complex phenomenon. You have WINDOWS at your feet, your knees, your stomach, heart, throat, mouth, eyes, and the palms of your hands and you open and close them depending on how you feel, who you are with, and what you are discussing. If you feel safe, to be approachable, ideally you should keep your windows open. For example, we tend to trust and approach people who have open exposed palms. This window is particularly important as the limbic system sees a hand in a fist or possibly a weapon as potentially dangerous so we stay back. The heart window is also important as shielding the heart indicates you are not open to approach or conversation. You are shielded from the interaction.  I can give you more details about this or other body windows. if you wish.)

Relax your body as body tension makes you look apprehensive and not open to approach.

Maintain good look/look away eye contact.

Nod, and head tilt to signal you're listening to what the other person has to say

Stand and sit side by side with men. Adapt the position you take when sitting or standing with someone. Though we typically think that sitting or standing face-to-face is the best way to greet and interact with someone, the real skinny is that it depends on your gender. Five Reasons to Stand or Sit Side by Side When Talking to Men

1. It makes you seem friendlier.
2. It allows them to open up their body windows.
3. It makes them share and self-disclose more.
4. It creates more agreement between the two of you.
5. It lets you more readily establish rapport.

 

 

Take Care,

 

Patti

Patti Wood, MA - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at www.PattiWood.net. Check out Patti's website for her new book "SNAP, Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language and Charisma" at www.snapfirstimpressions.com.
     

Which is More Challenging, Handling Angry Customers Face to Face or Over the Phone?

Both are difficult, and now there are certainly issues of personal safety that come into play in face to face in customer service interactions, but in my experience designing and conducting customer service training for a broad range of businesses is that phone interactions are more difficult.

First, the customer may have been frustrated or angered for a longer length of time before they get on the call, often escalating their emotional state.

They may have had to wait or be transferred before getting on the call with the right rep so again their negative emotions can escalate. There is an entire body of research on hold time and transferred calls' effect on customer service.

They may feel safer and shielded by physical distance anonymity, they are not right there in front of you, so even a little old lady customer who never yells or cusses in public could become a ranting maniac.

You don’t have all their body language cues to read so you can understand them and help them and relate to them personally more easily on a human level. You can exchange up to 10,000 cues with one person in a face-to-face interaction and you miss out on that rich information on the phone. It can be harder for you to relate to them if you are just going from a bad complaining customer to a bad complaining customer.

 In addition, they can’t see all your nonverbal cues and may react to you as a nebulous faceless “other” the company that, “Did them wrong” the enemy instead of a living breathing real human being.

You also don’t have access to many “de-escalating” techniques, such as nonverbal listening cues, like head tilts and head nods, look/look away constant eye contact, open body windows (like open heart, open palms, relaxing posture moves, side by side engagement, the list goes on and one. On the phone, you can do vocal matching and mirroring, which is very powerful, but you have to learn all the intricacies of matching and mirroring so it is authentic. 

Patti Wood, MA - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at www.PattiWood.net. Check out Patti's website for her new book "SNAP, Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language and Charisma" at www.snapfirstimpressions.com.
     

How Does Being With Dishonest People Effect You Physically and Mentality? How Do You Feel Around People With Integrity?

One of the most significant aspects of integrity, of doing the right thing and being with other people who have integrity is that it calms your central nervous system. I am an expert in nonverbal communication. When you are in the presence of an honest person who has integrity your body calms and unfolds, breathing deepens moving from high in the chest to the belly.

Research shows that our limbic responds to danger by going into Freeze, Flight, Fight, Fall/Faint or Friend response. When we are stressed, doing something wrong or dangerous, or when we are in the presence of someone who is out of integrity, who is lying, doing something wrong, and or is dangerous and or pathological our limbic response to the danger. Our blood pressure rises, our heartbeat increases, our cortisol levels may rise, we may flush to the surface of the skin, or blood may rush from the face and to our extremities, leg, and hands so we can run and or fight.

Surrendering is realizing you can’t control everything. But you can let go of people that are out of integrity in your life. You surrender to the fact they won’t change; they won’t suddenly be who you want them to be. If they are close to you, you surrender to the loss, surrender to the fantasy of how you would like the relationship to be or even how it use to be.

And if you must interact with them the best way to stay safe and stress-free is to surrender your emotional response to them. Go grey rock. Stay calm and centered. Don’t let them trigger you. Let go of emotional responses or reactions. If your limbic system still gives you a message of danger listen and respond, but if it’s just gameplaying don’t play. 

Patti Wood, MA - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at www.PattiWood.net. Check out Patti's website for her new book "SNAP, Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language and Charisma" at www.snapfirstimpressions.com.
     

Why Do People Yawn When Other People Yawn? Emotional Contagion. By Body Language Expert Patti Wood

Have you ever noticed that we yawn when someone else yawns?  Occasionally we yawn when someone else yawns, as a response to shared exhaustion, but most often a matching yawn is due to a phenomenon called emotional contagion.

It's part of the phenomenon of Isopraxism, the pull towards the same energy that occurs in nature. Isopraxism explains why birds fly together in formation, fish swim together in schools, and why we see the wave coming around the football stadium and say we are not going to do it, but we get pulled into the wave. We pull towards the same energy to save energy. In human relationships, we tend to match people we like and feel comfortable being around.

For years the research on yawning said that matching was not the cause of mutual yawning, but I disagreed. Now recent research supports the matching hypothesis. Though the original yawner may yawn because they are tired and or lack oxygen, the matcher yawns back out of kindness. Steven Platek, a research professor in biomedical science at Drexel University in Philadelphia did research empathy. He found highly empathetic people could not help but match someone's yawn.

You may notice this in Gorillas and great apes match their fellow Gorillas and ape body language. Not quite a case of monkey see monkey do, more like gorilla see gorilla do.

So next time someone matches your yawn, you will know they are a nice empathetic person. You might want to fake a yawn today, just to see how much people care!

Patti Wood, MA - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at www.PattiWood.net. Check out Patti's website for her new book "SNAP, Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language and Charisma" at www.snapfirstimpressions.com.
     

What is a PERP WALK. Who Popularized the Perp Walk? Trump, Giuliani and the origin of the Perp Walk.

As a body language expert I have been analyzing perp walks for the media for many years. The perp walk or frog march is a practice of law enforcement of taking an arrested person through a public space, creating an opportunity for public scrutiny and these days the media to take photos and videos of the event. Historically it was done to show the public that justice was being done, that an arrest had been made and that the public could trust that the public officials were doing their jobs well and they would be safe from the bad guys. It's interesting that Perp walks are often associated with big cases in New York City because U.S. Attorney Rudolph Giuliani, wanted to be known as tough on crime, and he loved publicity so when suspects charged with felonies in New York he always had them perp-walked and typically did news interviews about the case. 

Here is more about it from Wikipedia. 

In the United States, once a person has been charged with a crime, the government may request that a judge either issue a summons for that person or an arrest warrant, which can lead to a perp walk. The choice of which to request is largely at the discretion of the prosecutor, with judges often deferring to it.^[4]

Since the arrest power is meant to ensure the defendant's presence in court, lawyers defending the white-collar criminals who have been perp-walked since the late 1980s have complained it is unnecessary and superfluous in their clients' cases, even if it does give the appearance of preferential treatment for wealthy defendants.^[4] Lea Fastow, the wife of former Enron executive Andrew Fastow, cited the perp walk she was made to take even though she had expressed her willingness to surrender to a summons in an unsuccessful motion for a change of venue.^[5] Some, like Martha Stewart, have still managed to avoid being perp-walked by responding to summonses, or surrendering in the courtroom as soon as the indictment is presented in open court.^[4]

Patti Wood, MA - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at www.PattiWood.net. Check out Patti's website for her new book "SNAP, Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language and Charisma" at www.snapfirstimpressions.com.