Be careful what you read about body language

I'm a recent convert to Tweetdeck (www.tweetdeck.com) and was encouraged by Social Networking authority 'Mr Jurassic' - Chris Norton of Dead Dinosaur - http://www.deaddinosaur.co.uk/ - to install and manage my 'tweets' more successfully. I've done this and think the application is great - searching for key words and having access to more resources than I care to wish for. Cheers Chris, much appreciated.

It's been very, very interesting reading some of the articles flying around on 'body language' and how your physiology - stance, gestures and movements - are viewed/interpreted by the receiver of your communication. But what is highly innacurate are the generalisations made by some trainers about what they term 'closed styles' including 'aggressive, defensive, nervous and bored'. (See full article here)

I'm going to look at a few points made by the author of the post and make my own comments next to them to justify why they are potentially innacurate and over-generalised.

Closed aggressive body language
Hands on Hips - Might be a comfort thing/preference for that person
Legs too wide - Compared to what and how wide is too wide?
Eyeballing / Staring out - The persons 'attention direction'* is clearly focussed on the other person

Closed defensive
Crossed arms/legs - could be cold in the room
Poor eye contact - The persons 'attention direction'* could be 'scattered'

Closed nervous
Dry throat - might have a cold/throat issue you are unaware of!

Closed bored
Yawning - could be a parent with a 'new born' who is very tired - doesn't mean they are bored!!


It goes to show that the text books and authors of such material, need to account for 'the context' and the individual 'programmes' we run as human beings in communication contexts. These 'meta-programmes' refer to our personal 'strategies' we deploy in situations like face-2-face communication. Examples being how we are motivated, convinced, take action to name a few.

*Attention Direction refers to the amount of 'attention' a person gives during communication. A person may focus wholly on the other, on themselves or to and fro (scattered). On that basis its innacurate to say a person is 'eye balling' in an aggressive way if their AD programme is 'others' focussed. On the other hand, to say someone is defensive when they may have a scattered or 'self' AD programme is again, innacurate.

So. The message here is very clear. Classifying a person as open or closed, aggressive or defensive by their body language can be dangerous. What has to be taken into account is the context and their personality, not just thier physiology!

Goal setting framework

Some people have them, some don't, most do and nearly all have ceased by the end of January........

Whatever you choose to commit to next year, follow through with it!! As well as giving up chocolate, beer, commitment to the gym, what about your business? What are you going to commit to doing next year?

If you want to grow you have to take action. Whether its taking more risks, committing to employing people to assist you, up skilling yourself in certain areas, or anything else, these pointers I've enclosed help with 'goal setting' which I thought you may find useful.

First off - Identify your objective. Yet when you say it, how much of a positive edge does it have? If you can't say it with meaning or passion find another goal!!

Set a time frame for achievement.

Identify the steps you have to take to get it.

Identify other resources/people required to achieve it.

Make sure you can easily achieve the first step to get you going.

Make sure you can you achieve the goal in more than one way? Flexibility is key.

Check that your commitment to this objective fits in with everything else in your current situation.

Check that the goal is ecological (you may want a 2 seater car but you know deep down its impractical for your family and you don't get a decent feeling when you think about the wider consequences involved)

And finally.......Start it.

Happy goal setting and all the best for 2010!

Nick