When you’re in a conversation, a presentation, an interview or a meeting, how often are you truly paying attention to your audience — and how often are you thinking about the next thing you’ll say?

When we worry too much about our own words, we miss valuable signals our audiences are conveying with their bodies, faces and eyes.

The ability to tune into non-verbal cues is a critical tool for police detectives. It’s also an invaluable skill for any leader — and one that’s too often neglected.

Actor, trainer, improviser, and longtime Stand & Deliver faculty member William Hall helps us understand how we can apply a police detective’s eye to everyday conversations. 

William has worked for years with detectives-in-training in the San Francisco Bay Area, role-playing witnesses and “persons of interest” in simulated interviews, and then offering feedback to the officers on the subtleties of his character’s physicality and facial expression.

Often, during the debriefs, William will ask an officer if he’d picked up on a slight physical tic or shift — William’s position in the chair, for example, or the way he’d crossed his legs.

William says that when officers admit they did not notice this kind of non-verbal data, they’ll usually explain that they were thinking ahead to their next question. For a detective, focusing on his own interrogation strategy at the expense of noticing and adapting to a suspect’s body language can mean missing critical data about whether someone is telling the truth.

While you may not be engaged in high-stakes lie-detection, your ability to pick up on physical cues can have a serious impact on your connection and engagement with others.

“In order to communicate well, we have to maintain our curiosity about our listeners,” William says.

Here are three tips for noticing and responding to non-verbal cues during a conversation:

1.  The Slouch. “One sign of disengagement is the slouched posture,” says William. “If I’m talking to someone and they’ve sunk back into their chair, I’ll often ask, ‘Do you mind if we get up and walk?’ Changing the physicality can change the tone of the conversation.”

2. Happy Feet. “The further the body part is from your chest, the more difficult it is to control. If someone’s hands or feet are jittery, it may be a sign that the person is not completely in the conversation with you,” says William. “If you notice your listener’s body is out of synch with yours, take a moment to check in, verbally. Ask if the conversation is resonating; check to see what you’re saying sounds relevant.”

3. The Crossed-Leg Defense. “When someone crosses their legs away from you, it can be a sign of disconnection or defense,” says William. “Their thigh becomes a big wall separating you from their body.” 

How to respond? Again, you can check in with the person, verbally. (“Am I answering your question? Is this making sense?”) But you can also monitor yourself:  “Sometimes we psych ourselves up about merely getting through a conversation, especially a difficult one,” says William. “This drive can override to our ability to be present and be in the room.”

The Stand & Deliver team hosted a dinner in San Francisco last night to honor George Kohlrieser, a guiding influence and inspiration in the work we do.

George is on the faculty of IMD in Switzerland, where he is the program director of the High Performance Leadership program.

He’s also a veteran hostage negotiator, and last night he shared with us the story of the first time he was himself taken hostage, while he was working as a psychologist for the Dayton, Ohio Police Department. Here’s how George recounts the story in his book, Hostage at the Table:

While I talked with this man in a [hospital] treatment room, he suddenly grabbed a large pair of scissors and took a nurse and me hostage, saying he would kill both of us. For two hours we pursued a dialogue focused on him, his life-threatening injuries, and the care required to keep him alive. The turning point in the crisis came when I asked, “Do you want to live, or do you want to die?” “I don’t care,” was his answer. I then asked, “What about your children losing their father?” He visibly changed mental states and began to talk about his children rather than his anger at his girlfriend and the police. In the end, he agreed to put the scissors down voluntarily and allowed the nurse and a surgical team to treat him. In an even more surprising moment after putting the scissors down, this very violent man then approached me, with tears in his eyes, gave me a hug, and said, “Thank you, George. I forgot how much I love my kids.” His words of gratitude wired my brain forever to believe in the power of emotional bonding, dialogue, and negotiation with even the most dangerous person. I also surprised myself with the power I had to regulate my own emotion from sudden terror to calm, focused resolve.

George’s work in emotional bonding and directing the “mind’s eye,” among many other concepts, are critical to the work we’ve done with leaders and their teams around the globe during the past 10 years.

If you’re interested in engaging and influencing others, we highly recommend you check out George’s work. Last night we learned that George is well underway with his second book, about the concept of the “secure base.” We’re eagerly anticipating the publication of these words of wisdom from our mentor and friend.

The global economic fears of the past week have sent many organizations and individuals into crisis mode. It’s in times like this that leaders show their true colors — they either retreat and avoid, or they rise to the occasion and act like what George Kohlrieser calls “secure bases” for others.

How will you convey confidence and inspire trust in times of crisis?

Let me share a blueprint that may be helpful.

I recently received an email from a client — the head of sales at a major global bank — asking me to re-send him a template for crisis communication that I’d developed for his team during the subprime meltdowns a few years ago.

My template is loosely based on psychologist Abraham Maslow‘s pyramid of human needs, which proposes that you must fill people’s most basic level of need before you can move on to satisfying more complex needs. During a time of crisis or great change, people’s fears rush to the surface. That’s the time when their needs are most acute. So in this formula you meet the listener’s needs for security, connection and contribution – in that order.

Here are the six steps I shared with the client. I offer them here in the hope that they might provide you a roadmap for leading in times of crisis:

1. “Here is what we know for sure.” Offer certainty. Be honest with them about the things of which you are absolutely sure.

2. “Here’s what we don’t know.” Acknowledge uncertainty, which demonstrates that you’re open, honest and grounded in reality.

3. “This is what I think.” Show connection and authority. You’re allowed to tell us your opinion. People want to know what their leaders really believe.)

4. “Here’s what you can do.” People need to contribute; they need to feel that they’re making a difference. There’s nothing worse, in a dangerous situation, than having to sit around and be idle. Having a job makes them feel instrumental in their own destiny and helps to quell panic.

5. “This is my commitment to you.” (Act as a secure base. Making and keeping commitments is one of the main functions of a leader—it creates an environment of trust.)

6. “Here’s why this is worthwhile.” (Fulfill people’s need for growth. Define a larger purpose that makes the pain worth enduring.)

This list focuses on the positive steps you can take as a leader in times of crisis. But don’t forget to take heed of the common pitfalls, too. For communication missteps, I highly recommend this New York Times piece from last year, “In Case of Emergency: What Not to Do,” which offers some valuable lessons for avoiding the “death spiral of lost credibility.”