For the final blog in this series, I'm focusing on commitment.  This is the moment that you close the sale, ink the deal, get the job, get the 'go ahead'.  It's a crucial moment, and it's essential to be able to spot it so that you don't do the wrong thing at the crucial moment. 

What does it look like? 

When people are committed, they lean in to you.  They are open, sometimes subservient, always sincere, and usually well aligned.  It begins with the eyes: they’re open wide, and focused on you. The face is similarly open. Most of all, it will be close to yours. Closing the sale is all about closing the distance. It’s why car sales reps constantly shake your hand. They’re trying their hardest to build commitment, and they know that the mind follows the body.

The torso is open and closer to you than it is if not committed.  There is no opposing chatter from the hands and arms, legs and feet. The person or persons may well be mirroring you if it’s possible in the circumstances.

The act of commitment often is signaled with a change in body language, indicating a decision has been made. Look for it — the yea or nay. At that point, put your unconscious mind into high gear. Ask yourself, Is this person committed? You’ll be able to tell very quickly if you see all the positive affect I’ve described — or its opposite.

Most of all, you’ll feel comfortable. Commitment is a positive statement, and because we’re social creatures, we humans like to achieve it. We’re uncomfortable when it doesn’t exist.  So you can detect it by the general sense of comfort that you get when it happens. That’s your unconscious telling you, Yes, it’s all good. They’re going along with this!

In essence, commitment is a kind of connection, and one that makes us feel good. You’ll know it when you see it, if you work with your subconscious. When it’s not there, people express their discomfort with all sorts of agitation, discordant body language, and attempts to leave.

Of course, some cultures cover these awkward moments with an excess of agreement, positive body language, and superficial attempts at commitment. When Westerners first do business in Asia, for example, they often find themselves misreading the Asian politeness and desire to save face for commitment. This is one instance when unconscious expertise can let you down.  The studies show that the basic body language is initially the same around the world, but it can quickly be covered with culturally determined body language nanoseconds later.  Without a lot of practice, the differences can be hard to spot. 

This is not the place for an extended discussion of cultural differences, but there are a number of excellent references on the subject.  It’s best to take cultures on one by one, when you’re going to visit another country, rather than trying to learn them all at once. Precisely because the body language we send out is deeply conditioned by our upbringings, when it isn’t biological, it’s hard to change.

In the end, basic authenticity is the same around the world.  As I discuss in more depth in Trust Me:  Four Steps to Authenticity and Charisma, we humans are a social, empathetic species, and we crave the basic connection with others that comes from authenticity.  All successful communication begins there.