The face—and body—truly are windows to the soul for those who know what they are seeing. “We are all open books,” Susan Constantine told The Epoch Times. “Without a word being said, our body language and facial expressions speak volumes.”
“Everyone should be hyper-aware of who they’re speaking with, because it helps them become a better communicator,” she said. The training also allows everyone to be aware of and control their own body language and facial expressions, to avoid inadvertently sending the wrong message.
All humans communicate nonverbally. “We communicate through our facial expressions, our body language, and our moods,” she said. “When we do talk, we communicate beyond words with our tonality—how we say the words we speak. When two people are communicating back and forth, they send over 2,000 messages in one hour. Every twinge of an eyebrow, to a smirk, to a tone—sends a message.
Read Them Like a Book
The best way to read people, Constantine said, is to recognize and understand a person’s natural baseline.“If I sat down to talk with you, I‘d be scanning you from head to toe,“ she said. ”I’d be asking some simple questions about your job and your interests. I’d be taking note of your hand gestures, your movements, how you sit in the chair. Are your shoulders slumped, or are you leaning forward or back? Do you smirk, or do you raise your eyebrows—making little eyebrow flashes?
“After you’ve established a baseline, ask a more probative question, looking for any deviations.” This will show how the person responds under stress.
“You’ll see a deviation within seven seconds if they are being less than forthright,” she said. “You might see a fear response, they might shift in their chair, they might scratch their face, they might cross their arms, they may turn their body away from you, they may fiddle with things on their desk. You’re looking for anything that deviates from the normal pattern.”
By analyzing indicators, anyone can determine if a person is engaged in the conversation, closed off, or being deceptive, almost immediately.
“There are several channels to watch: face, body, words/voice, eye movement, and facial expressions,” she said. “Next, you need to watch for indicators from those channels. Look for two or three indicators such as a change in voice tone, facial expression, eye contact or lack thereof, or an off-sync body motion. You need to include both verbal and nonverbal indicators from at least two channels.
Look and Listen
Everyone can learn how to read others. “I call it looking and listening. Most people either pay attention to what they see or to what they hear, but the key is to actively look and listen at the same time,” she said. “It’s like taking your right brain and left brain and using them together, which is a hard thing to do.”The idea behind this technique is that you’re looking for things that fall in sync. The person’s body language should be in sync, with no tics or other out-of-sync signals like a smirk or slumped shoulders. Add in verbal cues that are out of sync with body language, like when someone’s pausing, or hesitating, or stammering, and they start saying, “Well, you know.” Those are all examples of a “disconnect.”
Look for disconnects as well as for “connects.” When there’s a disconnect, that’s probably a hotspot where the person is withholding information or there’s something else behind it, so the interviewer needs to pry a little bit more. Conversely, a connect shows there is honest engagement with the other person.
Monitor Your Own Signals
In addition to learning how to read body language and expressions, Constantine suggests everyone monitor what signals they are sending, in order to be a better communicator.“Reading people is really essential, because we want to know if we’re engaging or not, if we are making a great impression,” she said. “Once we know how to read the body language and microexpressions of others, we can manage our own to become more successful, confident, and approachable. First impressions matter, but so do second and third impressions.”
Check Your Body Language
One way someone can be a better communicator, according to Constantine, is to know that the body is broken into what she calls truth zones.“When we’re being truthful, we tend to gesture within the zone between our shoulders and our hips,” she said. “If you imagine a rectangular frame placed in front of you, and you are holding a basketball in front of you, you can’t go any further. That is what we call the presentation zone.
“On the other hand, when people lose control or are being deceitful, their hands flail wildly all over the place. I find this is very common across cultures. So when you’re talking with someone, and you want to appear more confident and powerful, keep your hands within your truth zone.”
In addition, make good eye contact to connect with others. “You can tell when it happens; it becomes clear the other person is genuinely interested,” she said. “Their eyes will tend to soften, and they may tilt their head because they want to hear more.”
Teleconferencing Tips
Video conferencing requires a level of self-awareness. “When you want people to take you seriously, maintain a more neutral expression,” Constantine said. “This means you have control of your facial expressions, so they are not over-exaggerated.“Keep your hands away from your face and below your chin. If you tend to wave your hands around a lot, you’ll appear less credible.”
On a Zoom call when first meeting a group, she advised to smile politely. “Sometimes a little humor kind of goes a long way, but without being too giddy.”
When moving on to discussing business, change your expression to a neutral one. “You don’t show a lot of expression in your face—it’s not that you’re deadpan, but you want to show a difference from that smiley face to more of a businesslike, interested expression,” she said.
Then, finish up with a smile, just as you did when first opening up the conversation. “This anchors them back to that friendly side of you,” she said.
A word of warning: “Be careful you are not making chopping hand gestures, unless they coincide with ‘this needs to stop’ messages, and [in that case,] do it in conjunction with your command.
“Often, what happens is, a person’s personality will come out when they’re speaking, and you can tell the people who are very rigid, very hard. Some people tend to use a lot of very hard, punctuated gestures with fingers together, or palms down, making pumping gestures that indicate that person is very difficult to deal with.”
If you want to be an effective communicator in business or your personal life, you have to have a more approachable appearance. Constantine told The Epoch Times that when she worked with musician Courtney Love to prepare her for a trial, Love was “hissing at the judges, and just not being pleasant.”
“I had to work with her to develop a more approachable appearance,” she said. “You can still be expressive, but just take it down a couple notches so that you’re not over-expressive with somebody that’s really under-expressive.”
By being keenly aware of the other person’s behavior, it’s possible to judge his or her honesty, and this advice can be extended to your own gestures and demeanor.
