How would you like to know when people really don’t mean what they say? How would you like to know exactly what they mean when they say it? How would you like to read peoples’ mind? Well not really, but today I’m going to talk about the skills in understanding and reading people.
We actually all do this unconsciously. What I like to talk to you about is how you can do it consciously. Have you ever told yourself that there is something about that guy that I don’t believe, or, she said: she is telling the truth, but I have a hard time believing it?
Well, that is your unconscious telling you what’s going on when you communicating with someone. What I like to show you is to make those unconscious skills conscious.
Some of the strategy I’m about to reveal to you is clouded in mystery, because they were discovered by psychologists at military university laboratories.
Also, psychologists who understand these skills tend to complicate them.
What I’m about to reveal to you is not that difficult. As a matter of fact, it’s very easy. The truth is you already know how to do this. Here’s how it works.
What I’m going to show you is – you observe yourself doing it and be more conscious when others do it.
There are three things I’m going to talk to you today – The Eyes, The Hips, and The Skin.
All three of them give you unconscious signals when someone communicating with you.
Remember, when somebody is communicating, they are communicating more than the word that they are communicating.
There’s body language, tone of voice and many other things.
Today I’m going to talk to you about The Eyes, The Hips, and The Skin.
Number one The Eyes. The Eyes indicate Visual, Auditory and Kinesthetic access.
What it means, is that people access inside of their brain Visually, Auditory or Kinesthetically touch or emotion. How does it help you to know that? Well, if somebody is accessing an emotional state, it’s best for you to communicate with them with emotional words. That way they understand you better.
For example if someone is in an emotional state and they are looking down – down indicates Emotion, Up indicates visual, Side to Side indicates Auditory.
So somebody looking down, you want to say: hay let’s get a grasp on this. Let’s put the pieces together and move on. They are probably going to more understand you than if you say – Look I see what you need, let’s look at the brighter picture and move on. You understand? Somebody who is in an emotional state is not going to catch visual words. This is incredibly important. And sometimes the one thing that causes problem in any kind of communication. The eyes are critical to watch. Up is Visual, Down is Emotional and Side to Side is Auditory.
Number two are the Hips. The Hips indicate confidence. Most people think it’s the shoulder, but it’s actually the hips. The hips rolled forward causes the shoulder move back and the chest to move out. The hips rolled in causes the shoulder to round and the chest move in.
Now, noticing somebody at their confidence level tells you a lot about them.
If you ask somebody for example: Tell me about your management skills and their hips are rolled in and they are talking to you with their hips rolled in, that’s not the person you want to hire as part of your management team. If however you say to that same person tell me about your leadership skills and they roll their hips up and forward. That’s their personal power, that’s their confidence coming forward. It’s really important to watch how the hips move when you hiring when you are learning when you listening to see where people have their confidence. Even if they tell you they are confident manager and their hips are rolled forward, you’ll know.
Number three is the Skin. The Skin indicates Boundaries – Emotional, Physical and even Conversational Boundaries. When they are crossed, people tend to itch or touch themselves.
You might see people touching their shoulders, scratching themselves, even touching their nose or rubbing their mouth. These indicate they are uncomfortable. Uncomfortable with what? That’s right – with the conversation, with what they are hearing. Uncomfortable with what they are hearing. How they are feeling. It’s very indicative of what’s going on inside their mind. Now, we don’t always notice this consciously, but unconsciously we sometimes pick that up.
Leaders please pay close attention. If you are talking to a manager and you are asking them why they haven’t perform so well, or maybe you are getting into a subject that is personal, if you see them start to scratch or touch or itch, you know you are cutting into some boundaries. What you need to do? You need to step back build some more rapport, make them more comfortable with you so they are able to communicate.
Remember communication is everything in leadership. If you can not communicate with your management with your team you are not going to get across the points that you want.
These are just three of the ways that we communicate unconsciously. And you can observe other people communicating unconsciously. The Eyes, the Hips, and the Skin. I like you to pay attention how people use those three in their communication and also see if you can pay attention to how you use those three in your communication. Enjoy yourself today. Read people. Watch yourself how you communicate.
