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.”