Have you heard the old adage that people can see a smile over the telephone? I am not talking about Skype, I’m talking about the attitude we project through our tone of voice and choice of words on the phone.
I take the subject of body language very seriously and have been studying it for a couple decades. My second book was on the topic of body language when we write electronic notes such as e-mail or texting. I believe there’s a form of body language in all forms of communication, and we need to be aware of subtle signals that are being sent whenever we’re interfacing with another person in any mode of communication.
The other day, I had an important business phone call that I was making from my home office, and I found myself changing into a more upscale business attire and brushing my teeth and gargling before making the call. It seems really odd to get prepared as if we were going to be meeting someone face to face just to have a phone call. I think what happens when we take the time and energy to be presentable physically, even though the person cannot see or smell us, we approach the conversation with a slightly different point of view or attitude that can be interpreted on a subliminal level.
Since I work out of my home office on many days, it would be easy to just keep my informal appearance when making calls, and I have to admit most times I do that. For a call with a new acquaintance or call that has really important implications for a business deal, I often find myself sprucing up my appearance just so that I get that extra edge and more professional feeling. I believe that diligence somehow projects into my tone of voice.
Of course, I cannot see through the phone lines to identify if the other party has his hair combed, but I am probably picking up some information about his feelings about himself and his appearance as we are chatting. It is an interesting study, and I don’t know if anyone has done an organized research study on this aspect of communication. Clearly, we can discern if a person is mildly upset, proud, depressed, anxious, joyful, or any other mood by listening to the words and tone of voice. Shouldn’t we also be able to tell how the person is feeling about his own physical appearance?
I suspect the accuracy of reading this kind of vicarious body language is not nearly as high as when we can actually see the other person. Obviously, there are far more visual cues that are available for reading emotions, so it becomes a real challenge to listen with enough depth to pick up a thread of attitude that the other person may be trying to hide from us. With a lot of practice in fact-to-face communication, we may be able to pick up several visual cues from a person’s body language and be right most of the time (like maybe 85% of the time). We probably would never get that good at reading body language over the phone, but it is likely we could do better than random chance (like maybe 65%).
The next time you are on the phone with someone, try to guess more about what is going on with the other person than just the words that are being used. I believe the ability to read remote body language is a learned skill. We need to continually be alert to signals, and if we catch a thread of incongruency between the words and the body language, we can probe a little deeper to find out if our guess is correct.
By being alert for these subtle signals and testing the validity when possible, we have the ability to sharpen our skill at reading remote body language over the phone. Conversely, if we prepare ourselves mentally and physically before an important phone call, we will usually project a more professional image and communicate our ideas with greater clarity.
Posted by trustambassador 
In your opinion, what is the meaning of trust? Most of us use the word trust several times a day. It is actually one of the more common words in our lexicon, yet when I ask people in my seminars to define what it means, I often get an awkward silence, then a few definitions come out, like “confidence,” or “integrity,” or “walk the talk.” Eventually, most groups come up with a dozen or more definitions, and they begin to realize that what they pictured as one single phenomenon is actually a myriad of concepts that mean vastly different things in different circumstances.
How much span of control should a particular manager have? Years ago, I was taught that any manager who has more than 6 direct reports cannot do a proper job of supervising the individuals. On the other extreme, with a very flat organization and self directed work teams, it is possible for a manager to be directly responsible for over 100 people.
We all know that the first few minutes when meeting a new person or client are critical to the relationship. Malcolm Gladwell referred to the “thin slices” of meaning we interpret subconsciously when meeting someone new. His contention is that a relationship is basically established after just a few seconds, so it is important to know what to do and what to avoid doing in this critical period.
We are all familiar with the word “toxic” and recognize that toxic substances are known to cause human beings serious injury or death. We are also aware that some individuals have mastered the skill of being toxic to other people. When a toxic person is the leader of an organization, the performance of that unit will typically be less than half what it would be under a leader who builds trust. There is documented evidence (see Trust Across America statistics) that high trust groups outperform low trust groups by a factor of two to five times.
There is a saying that has kicked around for years: “It is the Super Bowl every day.” So many people have used it, I cannot trace who said it first. There is even a Twitter hashtag that uses the phrase as a portal. One author added the concept that in life there are no time outs. In this article, I wanted to expand on these concepts and look inside the locker room.
Imagine you have just been parachuted into a new area or organization where you do not yet know the people. All of us have been in that situation more than once in our lives. You recognize that first impressions are incredibly important and want to start off on the right foot. Of course, you introduce yourself and immediately try to get to know your new working buddies.
Trust and integrity are inextricably linked. I believe before you can trust other people, you must trust yourself. That means you must not be fighting with yourself in any way, which is a pretty tall order. Integrity is about what you do or think when nobody else in the world would know. It is an interesting topic because it is very difficult to determine your own personal level of integrity.
If you do not have at least one active mentor, you are missing a lot. In my experience, having a strong mentor at work made a huge difference in my career. Even in my ripening old age, I am still gaining benefits from the lessons and ideas planted in me by my mentor when I was younger.
We hear that the only sure things in life are death and taxes. If you are a manager, one sure thing is that people will tell you there are not enough employees to do the job. I have yet to find an organization where the workers do not feel stretched beyond their ability.