Seeing is believing
I had to share this stunning video from BBC 2 with you.
People often ask us why learning body language skills for business is so important. Our answer is simple - imagine that you are in a meeting, a pitch or a presentation. If you say that you are "passionate" about an idea, but you don't look or sound passionate, people simply won't believe you. This seems obvious, but now you can watch the amazing video that proves this...
This is 'The McGurk Effect'. If you take a look at the video created by BBC 2 you will see exactly how powerful this can be. The man in the video is saying 'Baa, baa, baa' but when his lips change to 'Vaa, vaa, vaa' you'll think you are hearing a different sound. In actual fact the sound is the same as before, only the visual element has changed (close your eyes and listen - you'll be amazed!).
What this shows is that when there is a difference between what you see and hear, the brain believes what it sees to be accurate. Seeing is believing.
Why could this be a problem for you or your team? There is a major challenge many businesses face: Open-plan offices!
Open-plan offices have had a huge impact on communication skills in business over recent years. Think about this for a moment - you can't have an expressive or emotive phone-call any more without worrying about disturbing your colleagues. Therefore people mute their voices and restrict their movements.
If you then take this same way of communicating into an important meeting, pitch or presentation it will be impossible for you to engage, influence or make an impact on the people around you. Your words may say that you believe in your idea, but your body and voice would show a lack of commitment.
People are out of practice at face-to-face communication, especially with the surge of using email, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Now more than ever we need to work harder at our face-to-face interactions if we want to persuade, influence or inspire people.
What if you could change the thoughts and feelings of everyone in your next meeting, so that they felt motivated to act on your ideas? What if you could engage them logically as well as emotionally, so that they felt completely compelled by your message, so much so that they took immediate action?
In order to achieve this, the next time you need people to listen to you, stop spending all your time worrying about what to say. Instead think 'How do you want these people to FEEL?' And therefore HOW should you deliver your message visually and vocally in order for them to feel that way? When you have decided what you want people to feel it is much easier to decide what you need to say to achieve your goal.
If you just focus on what you say, without thinking about how you deliver it, you could end up saying, 'Baa baa baa,' but all they will hear is 'Vaa vaa vaa'.
