“Is body language really necessary?” A frustrated executive asked me that once.  He had his hands full with learning his talk, coping with the technology, and, well, picking out his tie.  His question was really, “Do I have to think consciously about my audience’s body language – and my own – with everything else I have to do to deliver a great speech to that audience?  It’s just too much to worry about!”

My counter-intuitive answer is no.  Let me explain.  You shouldn’t think consciously about other people’s body language or your own, under most circumstances – it’s a very inefficient way to use your conscious mind.  You should think unconsciously about body language, however – in fact, you can’t help it.  Your mind will do that anyway.  You might as well make use of it.

The conscious mind can handle something like 40 bits of information a second.  That’s tiny.  Your unconscious mind, which is far bigger, handles something like 11 million bits of information per second.  That’s more like it.   That’s enough to monitor yourself and your surroundings, check the body language of everyone else in the room, and still keep an eye out for the errant shoe that might be flying in your direction. 

All those books on body language that tell you to steeple your hands together because it’s intimidating, or (men) to hook your thumbs in your belt because it’s irresistible to women, or to point your feet toward someone you like are missing the point, for several reasons.  First of all, we pick up on inconsistent body language with those powerful unconscious brains.  So, if you’re steepling your hands, but the rest of your body is saying, “I’m a schmuck!” guess what message will come through to everyone else’s unconscious mind? 

Second, body language is multi-determined.  That means there can be many reasons for a gesture or a stance.  Adopting a particular one risks signaling a meaning different from the one you mean, especially if you’re thinking unconsciously about something else. 

And finally, thinking consciously about your body language will slow you down, causing your body language to look fake or insincere to your audience’s unconscious mind, which is faster to pick up information than the conscious mind.   

And, of course, because the conscious mind is so limited in its capacity, trying to drive body language with it will cause it to overload quickly, like my executive did.  So instead turn over your body language chores – monitoring your own and everyone else’s — to your unconscious mind, which is up to the task.  In following blogs, I’ll discuss exactly how to do that.