Body Language Can Help or Hurt Collaboration
What Your Body Language Says About Your Collaborative Skills
A good team is built on trust, collaboration, and mutual respect. Is your body language giving mixed messages about your commitment to those values?
Here are some of the most common negative body language signs which tend to erode work relationships and create a breakdown in communications:
- At meetings, you’re usually the last person to arrive. You tend to doodle when you’re bored or uninterested in the topic — you’re not participating
- When meeting with an employee, your eyes keep checking your watch
- When someone comes to your office to discuss issues or ideas, instead of letting voice mail messaging take over, you interrupt the discussion and take every phone call
- You’re abrupt and avoid eye contact when you don’t want to consider someone’s ideas. It says you are disinterested.
- You look impatient when a co-worker “drops by” unexpectedly. Yet some great plans and projects have been generated by just such office chat. Most people function at peak levels when the atmosphere is warm and sociable.
- Crossed arms indicates a defensive posture
Be More Effective by Applying the RIGHT body language:
- Arrive as promptly as possible at meetings. Take notes so you can follow up on tasks and projects. Ask for clarification on comments
- Respect co-workers’ time as well as your own. If you’re meeting a deadline or otherwise tied up, show your willingness to set a time later that day or the next. Get the point across that you really want to meet once you’ve gotten your tasks done. Then give your complete attention during that meeting.
- Make constant eye contact. Be open and involved. If you have a time limit [maybe another meeting coming up], state it up front:”It’s 10:00 now. I have a meeting at 11:00 — if we need more time than that, we can continue at x:xx or we can meet tomorrow when I’m free and hopefully so are you.”
That about sums it up: Use body language to express trust, collaboration, and mutual respect. Read more about the importance of body language in Carol Kinsey Goman’s book. (Carol Kinsey Goman, Ph.D., is an executive coach and international keynote speaker and seminar leader for corporations, associations and government agencies.)
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