In my last article I described how the below-conscious levels of our brain act as a security guard, choosing either to pass incoming information on to our thinking brain or to block it. That below-conscious (instinctive and emotional) brain bases its choice, to a huge extent, on whether the speaker looks, sounds and feels safe and appealing. My first suggestion of six behaviours to get you, the speaker, past the security guard of your listener’s brain is “Stand with energetic, open body language.”
I enjoy watching a program called “The Dog Whisperer” on National Geographic TV. It features a dog behaviour expert named Cesar Millan. I’m impressed at how often Cesar mentions the owner’s body language as a factor in generating the desired response from a dog or ending up with behaviour problems.
Dogs watch human behaviour with an intensity that would surprise most of us. They register every nuance of face and posture, taking cues for their own behaviour (or what they can get away with.) Cesar frequently instructs a dog owner to stand with upright carriage, “claiming their space” as leader of the pack. When the dog sees calm, dominant body carriage, she recognizes that the owner is in command. She can relax and be responsive, because her leader has everything under control. Without those behaviour cues from the human, the dog feels leader-less, an unnatural state for a dog, causing her stress and anxiety. Her uncomfortable mental and emotional state manifests in what the owner describes as misbehaviour and resistance, but from the dog’s point of view, she’s simply coping with stress.
I see the owner-dog situation as a direct parallel to the speaker-listener dynamic. While listeners may not be aware of it, their below-conscious brain registers every nuance of a speaker’s face and body language. These are silent cues that dictate response or resistance.
Consciously or unconsciously, the first thing your listener registers about you is body carriage. Does it show self-value and assurance, or is it unsure, or even, in dog-language, submissive? Your position as the speaker – one-on-one or to a large audience – makes you leader of that particular “pack”, for whatever length of time you are speaking. If your body language doesn’t match your position, you give a conflicting message to your listener’s below-conscious brain, making it feel as stressed as a leader-less dog. It registers an uncomfortable situation and resists. (Make no mistake, wandering attention is a form of resistance.) When you look like a leader, the watch-dog part of your listener’s brain is assured that you have everything under control. It feels safe to relax, respond, and allow the thinking brain to pay attention to what you are saying.
How many of us received instruction in good posture beyond, “Stop slouching!”, “Stand up straight!” or “Shoulders back!”? For me, the term “good posture” has become a bit tainted with the idea of rigidity, as if we were all meant to stand like soldiers on parade. I prefer to think in terms of body carriage rather than posture, lift rather than ramrod straight. In my book, “SPEAK UP!” I give a number of physical exercises to develop upright carriage. Today, let’s create a mental image for your body to fulfil.
Imagine standing inside a vertical rectangle. To claim your leadership space, you want that rectangle to be a large as possible. Rounding your shoulders narrows the rectangle, but squeezing your shoulder blades slightly so that your arms fall along the sides of your body pushes the sides of the rectangle outward. It also raises your chest. Now let the top of your head push the ceiling of the rectangle as high as possible. Do you feel how that pulls in your chin and stretches out the vertebrae of your neck? Shrug your shoulders and move your neck around to keep yourself relaxed and not stiff, but return to that chest-and-head-lifted, large-rectangle feeling. That’s leadership carriage. And in the words of Cesar Millan, “Remember to relax and breathe.”
