Max A. Eggert - Body Language for Business: Tips, Tricks, and Skills for Creating Great First Impressions, Controlling Anxiety, Exuding Confidence, and Ensuring Successful Interviews, Meetings, and Relationships

Copyright 2012 by Max A. Eggert

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

ISBN: 978-1-61608-536-0

Printed in the United States of America

This work is dedicated to Joan Elizabeth Eastwood who, no matter how I try and in spite of my very best endeavours, reads me like a book and still forgives and loves me.

Max is an international management psychologist who has the gift of making the complexities of human behavior understandable and relevant to business.

Financial Times

Max A. Eggert is Chief Psychologist with Transcareer, an International Management Psychology Consultancy. He has been interviewed frequently on TV, radio and in the print media both in Europe and Australia. His work and publications have been reviewed both in the professional journals and the specialist media. He has also lectured at premier universities as well as many leading professional conferences.

Max first read theology as a preparation for the priesthood, then through his interest in people undertook degrees in psychology and industrial relations. Several of his books are on the recommended reading lists of London, Sydney, Harvard, Westminster and Sussex Universities.

Married to Jane with four children between them, Max and his family live in Bondi Beach, Australia, and, as an Anglo-Catholic priest, Max's joy and privilege is being on the pastoral team of St Mark's Granville in the Archdiocese of Sydney. When not writing, consulting or counselling, his other consuming passions are riding his thoroughbred, Zeus, walking his dogs, Daisy and Bana, attempting to stop the three cats, Solomon, Sheba and Pierre, from destroying china mementoes and failing to stop Mary, his Eclectus parrot, from using expletives.

Max can be contacted at Max@transcareer.com.au and you can discover more about his work at www.transcareer.com.au

First, to my beautiful wife Jane-Lizbeth, who put up with my absence by banishing me to the study, and driving a hard bargain that no Chardonnay could touch my lips until the day's quota of 1,500 words at least had been written.

Secondly, this work would not have been possible but for the trust, support and encouragement of the London Pearson publishing team providing guidance 12,000 miles away from my home in Bondi Beach. The stars pulling this project together have been Rachel Hayter, who hounded me to make the deadline; Emma Devlin, for sorting out the legals and coordinating the artwork; Helena Caldon, who coped so well with my dyslexia by correcting my creative spelling; Sarah Arnold, who captured my continually changing and picky demands on the nuances of the artwork; with the whole team, including me, kept on track, committed and motivated by Samantha Jackson, all under the watchful eye of Richard Stagg.

Thanks also to the team at Transcareer in Sydney for assisting with considerable academic research and, as always, keeping me humble.

Benedicam Dominum qui tribuit mihi intellectum: insuper et usque ad noctem increpuerunt me renes mei.

We are grateful to the following for permission to reproduce copyright material:

The tips for work text on page 467 from The Perfect Interview, published by Random House Business Books. Reprinted by permission of The Random House Group Ltd; The 75 body-language signs table on page 18791 courtesy of Gabrielle Griffin.

In some instances we have been unable to trace the owners of copyright material, and we would appreciate any information that would enable us to do so.

Academic references are given for three main reasons:

Some of us are naturally sceptical about this subject if someone puts their hands behind their head or if they point their feet in a certain direction then one might justifiably come to the conclusion that an individual is just more comfortable sitting that way. But these actions might also have a more significant meaning, and the academic references outline research that provides repeatable evidence that such actions may indicate more that just an individual's preference or comfort.

A book such as this is really an introduction to the subject of body language, and so it is rather like a stone bouncing on the top of the water of this important topic. However, there is much that lies below the surface and some readers will want to know more, which can be found by pursuing the references.

Finally, I would hate anyone to think that I knew all this information; like any psychologist, I stand on the shoulders of giants.

Sir Isaac Newton's incisive truism in a letter to Robert Hooke (1676).

Man is a multi-sensorial being; occasionally he verbalizes.

Ray Birdwhistell, American anthropologist

Occasionally he verbalizes! Even before you uttered a word you could communicate. Every mother knows her baby's different cries the cry for hunger, the cry of discomfort, the cry of pain and the cry for not getting your own way. Even before you understood a word you understood a smile, a frown and perhaps even a look of anxiety.

As primates we were communicating to each other long before there were words. This was a sophisticated language, too how else could you bring down a mammoth 30 times heavier and perhaps 30 times more powerful than yourself, along with other members of your family/tribe, armed with just long sticks with a stone strapped at one end?

It was Darwin who was one of the first to notice that emotional signs in animals were also mirrored by humans. Joy, fear and pain in apes, in terms of facial characteristics, very similar to ours. It then became a small step to go from that observation to the study of body language in humans.

Even complex messages can be sent and interpreted without a word being spoken. In the armed services there is as minor infringement called dumb insubordination. You have not said a word and yet because of your body language both meant by you and interpreted correctly by your superior you are put on a charge.

Just imagine how boring theatre would be if the actors just stood on the stage and delivered their lines in a monotone and monologue. Even with great playwrights, what makes their work come to life is the body language of the actors and the way their words are delivered. Actors not only use their bodies to show emotion but also employ small subtle movements usually their hands as commas and full stops as they deliver their lines. For emphasis, whole body movements act like a new paragraph, indicating to the audience that a new mood or an important nuance is to be noted.