Body Language and Networking

Just before the world shut down as a result of Covid, I published a digital book on Networking.

One of the chapters in the book was Body Language, an overlooked aspect of any human interaction even though it represents 90% of our interpersonal communications.

I have a short extract from the chapter here that will hopefully give some insight into some of the skills required for successful business networking.

Body Language

Body language is the part of communication that is unspoken, where our posture, hands, gestures and facial expressions do the work. It is estimated that as much as 90% of communication is non-verbal, so it is certainly worth investing a little time to familiarise yourself with.

With the exception of any video-chat such as Zoom, Teams, Skype or Facetime, this factor is completely missing from all of our interactions that are digital: email, text, social media messaging and so on.? Even though we attempt to enhance our written communications using emoticons and more recently emojis, there is only so much we can do to supplement non-verbal communication when missing out on the face-to-face presence of another person and the benefit that direct interaction brings.

There are entire books written on body language, lots of them.? It is something I have been interested in since I first came across it many decades ago. However, this is not the place for an in-depth discussion of the subject.? I’m aiming to offer a few insights that will help you with your networking, and possibly spark your interest in the subject.? It is fascinating and has definitely helped me in many aspects of my business, any time I have to interact with people, my experience and ongoing study of body language definitely helps me to ‘read’ a situation and to improve my responses.

You will already be familiar with some body language.? I guarantee it.? For example, you know what it means when a person smiles or frowns, nods or shakes their head.? You may realise that you already have a sense of what is going on if the person you are talking to folds their arms, or turns their head away, or looks to the ground, but may never have thought about it in any detail or considered it to be something worth thinking about. But when we are aware of subtle signs, then it becomes possible to enhance our understanding of communication.? To read more accurately the meaning of what is being said beyond the spoken word and to identify whether the verbal message is supported or contradicted by observing how it is delivered.

The chapter goes on to describe signs to observe and how to avoid your own body language leakage when networking.

Are you aware of the importance of body language in networking situations? Do you know the signals that we all display that cannot be seen in video calls?

The book as available from Amazon here: https://amzn.to/3sMCMVm