So, if focusing on particular gestures isn’t reliable, what can you use to decode body language?

Your unconscious mind. It’s already hard at work, practically 24/7, reading the body language of everyone who comes into your field of ken. What it looks for is intent. It checks people to see if they’re powerful or subservient, friend or foe, on your team or somebody else’s, and liable to tell the truth or lie—basic, simple intents like that. Intents that are very important for how you might interact with them as a speaker.

For the most part, you’re only vaguely aware consciously of all this unconscious mental activity. You typically only notice the really powerful emotions people bring into the room with them—fury, wild excitement, huge relief—in your conscious mind. Or, you may be more closely attuned to a wider variety of emotions from people you’re particularly close to. For example, if a parent is prone to sudden and alarming fits of rage, you may be on the lookout for that, so those warnings may leap to your conscious mind more easily.

Or again, if you’re particularly interested in getting something out of another person—a favor, a deal, permission—then you may pay closer attention to his or her mood. In effect, you ask yourself, what are my chances to get that raise from the boss today? Or, What are my chances to get Jane to agree to moving that deadline? Otherwise, you leave your awareness of other people’s moods to your unconscious mind. Then, you’ll most likely pick up a vague feeling about mood, or you may think to yourself after a conversation, the boss seemed a little out of sorts.

Most of the time, then, your conscious awareness of your unconscious data gathering is limited and often comes after the fact. It has to be that way, actually, because the problem with the unconscious mind is that it gathers far too much information, rather than too little. It’s noticing everything, and there’s far too much data coming in, so you have to ignore the stream of information with your conscious mind or you’d rapidly be overwhelmed with mostly unimportant information.

Think about all the tiny adjustments people make every second to the way they gesture, sit, stand, and walk. Each of those thousands of adjustments carries meaning about the intent of the people in question. I’m tired of sitting here. I’m thirsty; where’s that water? She’s pretty. He’s good-looking. What a bore! It’s warm in here. I wonder when this is over. And so on. Our physical bodies exist to carry out our intents, attitudes, and emotions. It’s not that we don’t get any information about other people. The problem is that we get too much. Your unconscious mind is constantly taking it all in, noticing that twitch, that stretch, that blink, and so on. Your conscious mind can’t possibly keep up and still do all the things it has to do. And most of that data isn’t terribly useful or interesting.

Because you haven’t been trained, that information just adds to general impressions about other people you have developed and may think about consciously from time to time. He’s making me uneasy. I don’t believe her. I don’t trust him.

How much more useful would it be if you could tap into that unconscious expertise when you wanted and needed to, in real time, to gauge the intents and attitudes of the people around you in specific ways? How much more useful would it be if you could anticipate their thoughts by realizing their decisions even before they were consciously aware of them themselves? How much more useful would it be if you could quickly ascertain important insights like that person is lying to me? Or, that audience is in deep need of a humor break!

Next time: we get down to brass tacks and explain the system.

This blog series is adapted from my new book, Power Cues:  The Subtle Science of Leading Groups, Persuading Others, and Maximizing Your Personal Impact, published May 13, 2014 by Harvard. You can order it here.