Improve Your Communication Skills, 2nd Edition

Persuasive body language 
Your face, your limbs and your body posture will all contribute to 
the total effect your ideas have on the listener. To start with, try 
not to frown. Keep your facial muscles moving and pay attention 
to keeping your neck muscles relaxed. Use your hands to paint 
pictures, to help you find the right words and express yourself 
fully. 
Professional persuaders observe their listeners’ behaviour 
and quietly mirror it. If you are relaxed with the other person, 
such mirroring will tend to happen naturally: you may find you 
are crossing your legs in similar ways or moving your arms in 
roughly the same way. Try consciously to adapt your own posture 
and movement to that of the person listening to you. Do more: 
take the lead. Don’t sit back or close your body off when you are 
seeking to persuade; bring yourself forward, open yourself up 
and present yourself along with your ideas. 
( c) 2011 Kogan Page L imited, All Rights Reserved.

---

Every manager holds interviews. To be able to hold a structured 
interview with someone to achieve a clear goal is a fundamental 
managerial skill. 
When is an interview not an 
interview? 
The word ‘interview’ simply means ‘looking between us’: an 
interview is an exchange of views. Any conversation – conducted 
well – is such an exchange. Interviews differ from other 
conversations in that they: 
• are held for a very specific reason; 
• aim at a particular outcome; 
• are more carefully and consciously structured; 
• must usually cover predetermined matters of concern; 
• are called and led by one person – the interviewer; 
• are usually recorded. 
6
Interviews: holding a
formal conversation
( c) 2011 Kogan Page L imited, All Rights Reserved.

---