Episode 152 – Body language – Unlocking the Silent Advantage

The podcast by project managers for project managers.  Is your body language negatively impacting your project teams? Body language expert Jeff Baird shares some handy tips to incorporate into our non-verbal communication. Hear how we can tap into vast amounts of information from body language messages, and how to harness body language to come across as confident and persuasive. Table of Contents 02:42 … Meet Jeff02:57 … Combining the IT Data World and Body Language06:38 … Our Ability to Influence People09:01 … What is our Brain Doing when We Meet Someone?12:02 … How Can We be Deliberate with Our Body Language?14:55 … Power Body Language17:34 … Nonverbal “Hacks” We Can Use21:59 … The “Head Tilt” and the “Smile”23:43 … Body Language and Virtual Meetings28:27 … Improving Phone Presence30:26 … The 3 “Shuns” of Workplace Breakdowns35:42 … Creating a Safe Environment37:50 … Detecting Lies43:33 … Contact Jeff43:50 … Closing JEFF BAIRD:  There’s not good or bad body language.  There’s just how it’s going to be perceived in the eyes of the other person.  And as a side note, there’s two sides to this coin, too.  There’s what we’re doing with our body language and how people are perceiving us and how willing they are to listen to us.  And then there’s all the nonverbal signals that they’re sending back to us, too, that can give us clues as to how they feel.  And so there’s not good or bad body language.  I just want to help people to be congruent so that when they say something their body language is going to match that because oftentimes what happens is if those are not congruent, we’ll tend to believe what we see in body language over what they’re telling us with their words. WENDY GROUNDS:  Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  I’m Wendy Grounds, and joining me is Bill Yates.  We’re so glad you’re joining us.  If you like what you hear, please visit us at Velociteach.com where you can leave a comment on our Manage This Podcast page.  We know you’re also looking for opportunities to acquire PDUs, your Professional Development Units, towards recertifications.  And you can still claim PDUs for all our podcast episodes.  If you take a listen at the end of the show, we’ll give you advice on how to do that. Our guest today is Jeff Baird.  He has been in data analytics for almost 20 years, but over the years he has found that facts and numbers aren’t always enough to be able to persuade and influence, and how we present ourselves and our message really matters.  He studied the science of body language to learn what makes people tick.  Jeff is a keynote speaker, a certified body language trainer – I found out that that was a thing – and a certified Big 5 Personalities trainer.  Jeff has also done a course with us. BILL YATES:  Yes.  Jeff partnered with us to build out a one-hour course in InSite, which is our mobile learning platform.  And the course is called “Attracting Top Talent:  First Contact.”  This is so pertinent today.  It’s difficult to find good people for our teams.  And there’s more emphasis on hiring and recruiting than ever.  Jeff just has terrific advice in this one-hour course about how to attract top talent.  What are the steps that we can take to be more successful as we’re recruiting and interviewing people?  And to be honest with you, too, you can flip it.  I think, from a standpoint of someone who’s looking for a job, this is a great thing to look into, as well.  This course will give you advice.  What is the employer looking for, and what should my expectations be?  So we’re delighted to be talking with him about this area of communication.  And I just think it’s exciting to have him join us, give us tips, and raise our awareness for this area of communication. Meet Jeff WENDY GROUNDS:  Hi, Jeff.  Welcome to Manage This. JEFF BAIRD:  Good morning. WENDY GROUNDS:  We’re so glad that you’re here with us today.  It’s been a long time coming.  We should have done a podcast with you a long time ago. BILL YATES:  I know, this is great to finally have him in the room with us.  Verbally, anyway. Combining the IT Data World and Body Language WENDY GROUNDS:  Verbally in the room with us, yeah.  Just to connect the dots, so your career began in the IT data world?  And then you ended up in body language training.  That’s a big jump.  How did you do that? JEFF BAIRD:  Yeah, so I’ve been in IT for – I’m going to feel old now, but it’s been at least 20 years now.  And most of that time has been in data.  So much of my focus has been in data warehousing business intelligence.  It’s all around trying to provide good information to decision-makers so they can make good decisions on what direction to go with the company or the project.  And what I somewhat reluctantly realized as a data person I’d like to think that it is just that simple, that I could just provide some numbers to somebody, and then they’ll make the right decision. But what I was somewhat reluctantly discovering is that we don’t make decisions based off facts and data as much as I’d like to think.  Like we evaluate and make decisions more off our emotions and our gut feel than sometimes the facts.  And this is something that sales and marketing people have known for years.  But it’s a new realization for people that are in IT. But the data industry’s starting to clue in on this.  I went to some data analytics conferences not too long back, and they were starting to do sessions on how to invoke emotions with your data visualizations and how to do data storytelling.  And there was one presentation in particular that had a slide that said, if a decision-maker is given some data, given some facts, but their gut feel said something different, then 90% of the time they’re going to go with their gut feel.  BILL YATES:  Wow.  Okay. JEFF BAIRD:  That’s a huge number.  And what’s funny is I’ll show that slide to other data professionals, and it’s common for them to say, no, that can’t be right.  BILL YATES:  Yeah. JEFF BAIRD:  Not realizing that I just gave them data, but their gut said something different.  So none of us are immune from it.  And it’s not that we don’t make fact-based decisions.  We want to make informed decisions.  But we can’t dismiss this other part that goes into human decision-making.  We have to understand what’s going into the gut feel if we want to be able to influence and persuade, to lead and guide people, whether it’s a company or a team or a project.  We have to be able to understand that part. And so I started studying that.  I started studying neuroscience and psychology in parallel to my data career in an effort to kind of fix myself, to try to be more effective at my own game.  And one of the areas that affects our psychology and neuroscience and really moves the needle pretty significantly, is body language because so much of our assessment of a person and things associated with them is based on what we see in their nonverbals.  But we make these snap decisions about what we think about a person, how much we trust them, how competent they appear.  And then that affects our willingness to listen to them. And so I started studying that and had an opportunity to apply to be in this pilot program to become a body language trainer.  I didn’t know that was a thing at the time.  But I threw my hat in the ring, not really expecting to get accepted to it because they were taking applicants from around the world, and they were only going to take 10 people.  But I got the word back that I got accepted to it and went to about four to five months of training to become a certified body language trainer. And so I’ve been doing that kind of in parallel to my data career.  I’m still in data.  I’m currently a Director of Data and Analytics Engineering.  But complementing it hopefully with this other piece so that I can be more effective in my own career and as I’m leading teams and as we’re trying to help influence the direction that companies go. BILL YATES:  So you’re really engaging the right and left sides of your brain with what you do day to day. JEFF BAIRD:  Yeah. BILL YATES:  That’s intriguing. JEFF BAIRD:  At least trying.  I’m still a work in progress, but trying to find that balance in my life.  Balance is important; right? Our Ability to Influence People WENDY GROUNDS:  Yeah.  I like that it complements with your career.  So you’re still in this IT data world.  You’re still working in that environment.  But you’re complementing it, so you’re able to speak from both sides.  So this leads us to understanding people.  It’s an important life skill.  A lot of us are not as good at it as we think we should be or as we could  be.  We’re just not taught how to influence people, how to get people to listen to ideas.  What traits affect our ability to do that?  How can we best approach people? JEFF BAIRD:  I like to think of what my goal is with the interaction.  There’s not good or bad body language.  There’s just how it’s going to be perceived in the eyes of the other person.  And as a side note, there’s two sides to this coin, too.  There’s what we’re doing with our body language and how people are perceiving us and how willing they are to listen to us.  And then there’s all the nonverbal signals that they’re sending back to us, too, that can give us clues as to how they feel.  And so there’s not good or bad body language.  I just want to help people to be congruent so that when they say something their body language is going to match that because oftentimes what happens is if those are not congruent, we’ll tend to believe what we see in body language over what they’re telling us with their words. So if I come home from work and my wife’s having a bad day, she may verbally tell me everything’s fine.  But if I’m seeing that it’s not, if the nonverbals are sitting there telling a different story,