10 Body Language Myths That Limit Success
From our industry colleague, Carol Kinsey Goman, Ph.D, writing in CommPro:
Body language plays a key role in your career – from your first job interview to the ongoing process of building professional relationships to being perceived as having leadership presence. But not everything you’ve heard about body language is accurate. Don’t limit your success by buying into these ten myths:
- Using body language to make a positive impression is inauthentic.
This is a myth I hear expressed whenever I give a speech or seminar. And it often comes from the same participants (managers, leaders, executives) who understand the value of spending hours creating, reviewing and rehearsing what they are going to say to make a positive impression in an important meeting or negotiation. I ask them to consider this: In any business interaction you are communicating over two channels – verbal and nonverbal – resulting in two distinct conversations going on at the same time. While a well-written speech or well-designed bargaining strategy is obviously important, it’s not the only important message you send. In a thirty-minute business discussion, two people can send over eight hundred different nonverbal signals. And it is no more (or less) inauthentic to prepare for this second conversation than it is to prepare for the first.
- Body language is 93% of communication.
On the other hand, if you think that all you have to do to be an effective communicator is to watch your body language, you’ll underestimate the power of your verbal message. The 93% myth is based on this misquoting of a classic study by Dr. Albert Mehabrian: “The total impact of a message is based on: 7% words used; 38% tone of voice, volume, rate of speech, vocal pitch; 55% facial expressions, hand gestures, postures and other forms of body language.” But Mehabrian never said that. His research was focused solely on the communication of emotions — specifically, liking and disliking.
- Liars don’t make eye contact.
The biggest body language myth about deception is that lairs avoid eye contact. While some liars (especially children) can find it difficult to lie while looking at you, other deceivers, especial the most brazen or habitual, may overcompensate to “prove” that they are not lying by making too much eye contact and holding it too long. If you correlate lack of eye contact with deception, you will misread cues from people who are shy, introverted, or come from cultures where extended eye contact is considered rude or threatening.
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