body language - background and history

body language - background and history

Philosophers and scientists have connected human physical behaviour with meaning, mood and personality for thousands of years, but only in living memory has the study of body language become as sophisticated and detailed as it is today.
Body language studies and written works on the subject are very sparse until the mid-1900s.
The first known experts to consider aspects of body language were probably the ancient Greeks, notably Hippocrates and Aristotle, through their interest in human personality and behaviour, and the Romans, notably Cicero, relating gestures to feelings and communications. Much of this early interest was in refining ideas about oration - speech-making - given its significance to leadership and government.

10 ways to build rapport with people

Building rapport and engaging with people-whether it’s in person or online—takes practice. Much of it is based on intuition. It’s about creating a bond, link, connection, and understanding. 

The goal is to connect with others and get them thinking, feeling, reacting, and involved. It doesn’t matter if you’re in sales, own a business, or work for someone else. Rapport building is an art and skill in communication that’s used daily in all of our relationships.
Here are 10 tips to help you get in sync with others and build rapport:

If Politics is Big Business, Then Should Politicians Be Minding Their Manners?

In busi­ness, you should never speak ill of your co-workers, man­agers or com­pe­ti­tion.. You should always do your research on your com­peti­tors and you should under promise and over deliver. By not fol­low­ing these sim­ple rules, you will more than likely not be suc­cess­ful – unless your busi­ness is politics.
Pol­i­tics is big busi­ness and in pol­i­tics all is fair – includ­ing lying. Remem­ber these famous pres­i­den­tial quotes: “Read my lips, no new taxes,” “I did not have sex­ual rela­tions with that woman,” or “We’ll have the nego­ti­a­tions tele­vised on C-SPAN.”
Since pol­i­tics is busi­ness then the Pres­i­dent is like the CEO of Amer­ica and we are the share­hold­ers in the com­pany. As share­hold­ers, shouldn’t we expect our CEO to lead by exam­ple and get us a higher return on our invest­ment – (insert your own econ­omy joke here.)
While the Pres­i­dent was out stump­ing for Martha Coak­ley dur­ing her Mass­a­chu­setts Sen­ate race, he not only embar­rassed him­self but also offended me and count­less other share­hold­ers. Dur­ing a speech, Pres­i­dent Obama said that he did not know the oppo­nent or his record. This is our CEO? How could he go out and sup­port some­one and not know what their oppo­nent stands for or his record? This shows an unac­cept­able lack of prepa­ra­tion and care.
Dur­ing this same speech, Pres­i­dent Obama mocked the oppo­nent, which crossed the line and offended me and count­less oth­ers. It was in response to a cam­paign ad run by the oppo­nent, Scott Brown. His ad fea­tured him dri­ving around in his pickup truck and talk­ing to vot­ers – show­ing off his com­mon man image. Well, the Pres­i­dent said that every­one can run slick ads and every­one can buy a truck.
Mr. Pres­i­dent, I guess you haven’t noticed the econ­omy lately – maybe you’ve been pre­oc­cu­pied with health care. Well, I can­not buy a truck. Between two kids in col­lege, a strug­gling busi­ness and try­ing to keep the roof over our head and food on the table, a truck, new or used, is some­thing my hus­band or I could not qual­ify for. So, no, not any­body can buy a truck and I’m sure I’m not alone in this.
The President’s attempt at humor blew up in his face and should have been averted all together. I under­stand that he is doing his best to sup­port his party, but as the Pres­i­dent he should remain impar­tial towards the opponent.
What does this polit­i­cal rant have to do with eti­quette? Every­thing! Since pol­i­tics is big busi­ness and the Pres­i­dent is our CEO, he needs to adhere to the rules of busi­ness eti­quette and he has failed mis­er­ably. He has spo­ken ill of the com­pe­ti­tion. He has been unpre­pared for a speech and he has offended his shareholders.
Before Pres­i­dent Obama makes another speech or his speech­writer, Jon Favreau, writes another speech, I will be more than happy to meet with them and give them and their staff a refresher course.
Jules Hirst is an eti­quette instruc­tor based in Los Ange­les, who believes it is never too late to make a last­ing impres­sion. She teaches classes for chil­dren, teens and adults. She is Pres­i­dent of For A Jul Pro­duc­tions, a wed­ding and event and eti­quette con­sult­ing firm. Learn more at For A Jul Pro­duc­tions. She also is head of Hearts For The City, a non-profit orga­ni­za­tion teach­ing eti­quette and social skills to under­priv­i­leged chil­dren, fos­ter chil­dren and peo­ple re-entering the workforce.

Business Etiquette

State of Rebuk

Effec­tive lead­er­ship usu­ally trans­lates into suc­cess. Start­ing with a clear vision, the leader needs to make this vision known and drive his peo­ple to com­plete the vision. Along the way mis­takes are bound to be made. A good leader can han­dle these sit­u­a­tions and use them to strengthen the team. Humil­i­at­ing a worker in front of all of his col­leagues is the WRONG approach, but one recently used by Pres­i­dent Obama dur­ing his State of the Union speech.
By express­ing his dis­plea­sure with the Supreme Court’s rul­ing in Cit­i­zens United v. Fed­eral Elec­tion Com­mis­sion, Pres­i­dent Obama vio­lated polit­i­cal eti­quette and scolded the jus­tices of the Supreme Court while they sat in front of him. Not only were the jus­tices scolded, but it was done in front of the entire leg­isla­tive branch of the gov­ern­ment and a national tele­vi­sion audience.
The pres­i­dent and the jus­tices do not have the tra­di­tional employer-employee rela­tion­ship because the Con­sti­tu­tion con­tains sep­a­ra­tion of pow­ers safe­guards to pro­tect our demo­c­ra­tic process. How­ever, scold­ing them in such a pub­lic forum while they were in atten­dance was an action of an inef­fec­tive leader. Pres­i­dent Obama does not have to agree with their deci­sion, but he does have to respect it and his arro­gant com­ments clearly show he does not. An effec­tive leader would pull the employee aside and han­dle this sit­u­a­tion qui­etly. Since the pres­i­dent can­not do this, a bet­ter forum for his com­ments would have been a press con­fer­ence where he could have voiced his dis­plea­sure while not embar­rass­ing anyone.
On the other hand, no employee likes to be pub­licly scolded, but when it hap­pens the employee should not attempt to show up their boss. While Pres­i­dent Obama was dis­cussing the deci­sion, Jus­tice Samuel Alito was seen shak­ing his head and mouthing the words “not true.” Once the Supreme Court has ruled on a case, the jus­tices’ work is done and it is up to the peo­ple and the leg­is­la­ture to deal with the rul­ing. Jus­tice Alito also vio­lated polit­i­cal eti­quette by fail­ing to main­tain the aura of impar­tial­ity and under­stand­ing that peo­ple are enti­tled to debate their decisions.
After an ardu­ous first year in office, Pres­i­dent Obama failed to dis­play the qual­i­ties of an effec­tive leader dur­ing his State of the Union speech. As the leader of the United States, Pres­i­dent Obama should know bet­ter and proved it may well be three long years until we can have effec­tive leadership.

Thou Should Respect Thy Co-Worker

Much has been said about the recent Specter-Bachmann show­down. Dur­ing a radio show, Rep. Bach­mann inter­rupted Sen. Specter on numer­ous occa­sions and con­tin­ued to do so after he asked her to stop. This lead to Sen. Specter telling Rep. Bach­mann, “I’m going to treat you like a lady, so act like one.“ Not sur­pris­ingly, the right is say­ing Sen.. Specter was rude and con­de­scend­ing, while the left are say­ing Sen. Specter did noth­ing wrong. 

Sen. Specter was wrong. He degraded Rep. Bach­mann. Men and women are to be treated as equals and this is espe­cially true in busi­ness and pol­i­tics. One col­league should not speak to another col­league in this man­ner. This behav­ior would not be accept­able in the board room, so it is not accept­able in politics.
Peo­ple have said that Sen. Specter did not mean any­thing by this remark and since he is 79 years old, he should be given a pass. Age is no excuse.
Sen. Specter was cor­rect when he com­pared the events that were tran­spir­ing to a tele­vi­sion talk show. These shows have peo­ple talk­ing over one another to get there point across and are a direct reflec­tion on our cur­rent soci­ety. It boils down to a lack of respect. We lack respect for one another. If we could learn to respect one another and let each per­son fin­ish their point before com­ment­ing on it, we would not run into sit­u­a­tions like this.       

Much has been said about the recent Specter-Bachmann show­down. Dur­ing a radio show, Rep. Bach­mann inter­rupted Sen. Specter on numer­ous occa­sions and con­tin­ued to do so after he asked her to stop. This lead to Sen. Specter telling Rep. Bach­mann, “I’m going to treat you like a lady, so act like one.“ Not sur­pris­ingly, the right is say­ing Sen.. Specter was rude and con­de­scend­ing, while the left are say­ing Sen. Specter did noth­ing wrong. 

Sen. Specter was wrong. He degraded Rep. Bach­mann. Men and women are to be treated as equals and this is espe­cially true in busi­ness and pol­i­tics. One col­league should not speak to another col­league in this man­ner. This behav­ior would not be accept­able in the board room, so it is not accept­able in politics.

Peo­ple have said that Sen. Specter did not mean any­thing by this remark and since he is 79 years old, he should be given a pass. Age is no excuse.

Sen. Specter was cor­rect when he com­pared the events that were tran­spir­ing to a tele­vi­sion talk show. These shows have peo­ple talk­ing over one another to get there point across and are a direct reflec­tion on our cur­rent soci­ety. It boils down to a lack of respect. We lack respect for one another. If we could learn to respect one another and let each per­son fin­ish their point before com­ment­ing on it, we would not run into sit­u­a­tions like this.     Â