George Muntau - How to Analyze People

If theres a single most important skill you can pick up in todays globally connected and technically savvy world, its the ability to analyze people. How do you determine a good fit for your organization while interviewing potential hires? How do you approach strangers? How about a crush or potential date? How do you build a stunning rapport with clients by diving into their head?

Learning to read other people gives you a definite edge in terms of predicting behavior, modeling your actions to build a favorable rapport with people, forging more fulfilling personal relationships and excelling at building professional relationships. No, I am not suggesting you switch careers to be an FBI agent. However, it doesnt hurt to possess their sharp people analyzing acumen, does it?

Some people unwittingly emanate signals that make them stand out as soft targets; others give out way too many aggressive signals for their own good. Being aware of your verbal and non-verbal communication patterns keep in greater control of conveying the intended things to people, and avoid any potential misunderstandings or conflicts.

The ability to analyze people impacts your relationship with them. When you develop a greater understanding of how someone feels or tailor your message/ communication pattern to make sure it is received as intended. Learning about reading and analyzing people helps you understand what clues you should be watching out for a while communicating with people. What are the things you should be carefully listening to? What are the typical signs that indicate how someone thinks or feels? How can you spot when someone is lying? How can you sense deception and dishonesty?

Glossies and periodicals such as Cosmo, GQ, and Psychology Today have a huge number of pages devoted to pop quizzes and pop psychology features such as Ten Ways to Tell If a Man is Really into You or Tell Tale Signs Your Kids Are Lying to You: Watch Out for Their Feet Position to Know the Truth. Pop psychology has partially ruined the analyzing people game, by converting it into a non-serious, entertaining pursuit, which would be good if it wasnt so inaccurate.

In a more practical sense, this isnt how it works. You cant tell if a man is into you or not based on the shape of his eyebrows when he looks at you. Similarly, lying children cant be called out by looking at the direction of their feet. This makes for spicy, fun reading no doubt, but its applications are skewed. These publications and several other viral content sites are responsible for people leaping to unfortunate and unwarranted conclusions.

There are far more effective ways to tell how a person is thinking or feeling than eyebrows, the direction of ones feet and the color of ones eye.

Reading people is a vast and fascinating subject that has had realms of research pages dedicated to it. I attempt to condense all the important research, practical, actionable tips, and psychological techniques to come up with a concise guide to analyzing people. Think of this as the best of the best tips that will help you wade your way through reading peoples minds and analyzing them for theirs and your benefit. From our personal lives to professional circles, the art of analyzing people is all-pervasive.

You really dont have to be a top-line interrogator to understand what is happening in someones mind. There are signals, and if youre perceptive and trained to read these signals, youll do well. People are almost always giving away important clues related to their thoughts, feelings, attitude, and actions. You simply need to know what to watch out for.

When you know exactly how someone feels, it is easier to empathize with him/her. It always gives you the power to negotiate better, build a more favorable rapport with someone and present the image you want to. Wouldnt you like to analyze people with the astuteness of Sherlock Holmes? Research has pointed to the fact that reading things like a persons body language can help you predict the outcome of a negotiation accurately about 87% of all times. Hows that for an edge when it comes to sealing deals?

Even if you didnt realize it, all creatures are wired to reach each others body language. Has it ever happened that youve experienced people completely or feel like you know them even though youve met them for the first time? Ever experienced love at first sight? Or had a nasty gut feeling about someone that turned out to be unfortunately true?

Our internal instinct or gut feeling often resonates within us based on the clues and signals it picks up from other people. Sometimes, observing people in pain or discomfort triggers a sort of pain in our head, which helps us vicariously experience what the other person is experiencing. Learning to analyze people helps you come close to experiencing what they are experiencing; thereby helping you make better judgments and decisions.

At a more subtle and complex level, we are all designed to be social and empathetic. However, only a few of us possess the knack of reading people and connecting with them at a seamlessly automatic and subconscious level. Specific parts of our brain automatically echo what the other person does or feels. For instance, have you noticed how someone you barely know smiles at you, your smile muscles activate almost involuntarily? On the contrary, when someone frowns, your frown muscles get activated too.

The human brain is automatically wired to pick up subtle clues that even our conscious mind may fail to register. For instance, when a person around is extremely angry and hides his feelings, we experience an almost instinctive feeling of discomfort around the person. He may not even look angry on the surface, but internally the body is reacting in the form of increased blood pressure or higher heartbeat rate. This is somehow picked up by our subconscious mind, which induces a sort of gut feeling that something about the person isnt right.