Most Replayed Moment: Confidence Can Be Taught! Use These Body Language Cues To Your Advantage!

Steven Bartlett (0:03)

What about posture? Because that's kind of one way to make yourself taller. Are there any clues in someone's posture, and how important is sort of playing with our posture to create a different impression?

Joe Navarro (0:17)

Yeah, absolutely, not just posture, but territory. So I look at posture as when we look confident, shoulders back, our breathing. To me, posture starts with the brain, how calm we are in our breathing. I was again in Valencia at this event, and a lady came up to me and she says, you're getting ready to go on the stage, how can you not be nervous? And I said, well, I am nervous. I'm just hiding it. I'm acting like I'm in control, but I've learned to do that because you don't want to look like a nervous FBI agent. Trust me, you want to look cool, calm and collected. In negotiations, you don't want to look needy, you don't want to look desperate. And at the same time, you don't want to come across as you're indifferent, and sometimes that demeanor, that posture, those gestures, the totality of it has a lot of meaning. Now, you have to keep in mind, a lot of successful businessmen I'm running into are actually on the spectrum, right? So the autism spectrum. And so they don't make as much eye contact. They may have behaviors that are irregular. I have one I deal with who has Asperger's. And so he sometimes jerks. And so there's a lot of discomfort I find from others in reading him. I don't have any problem. I just see it, okay, this is his normal behaviors. And we get around. But you can tell a lot about a person. And when you've invested in things, you're doing your diligence and you're talking to people.

Yeah, you can look at the numbers all day long. But you also are looking at the non-verbals and saying, you know, are they communicating confidence or are they communicating desire or need or any kind of frailty?

Steven Bartlett (2:29)

I was just reflecting on a few of the interviews I've had recently. We've been interviewing for one particular very, very senior role. And there were two final stage candidates. And I was just reflecting as you were saying how one of the final stage candidates was extremely calm and sat back in their chair. And the other one was very much leaning forward. And upon reflection, the second candidate wanted the job a lot more. But the first candidate was probably more experienced, more confident and had higher self-worth. And their ability to be so relaxed in that environment and kind of own the chair in my boardroom was actually, it actually made me kind of want them more. Because they were signalling to me that they had lots of options. They weren't intimidated, they weren't scared, they weren't nervous about this opportunity.

Joe Navarro (3:16)

You know, that's an interesting observation, Steven. And it's very good that you observed the discrepancy. One of the things that I look for is, what is their role going to be? I don't mind that somebody is nervous. I myself, early on, coming from a humble background, was often nervous. I tend to focus on the things that most organizations don't put into their plan to look for. One of them is problem solving. Give me a list of the problems you have solved.

Most people, when they hire, they never ask that question. They tell, you know, I can do Excel, I know Microsoft, that's great. Please tell me what problems you have solved at your last job, and how efficiently did you do it?

Steven Bartlett (4:23)

How do you know if they solved the problem or they were on a team where someone else solved the problem?

Joe Navarro (4:28)

Because one of the things that I look for is, is how many instances they tell and how they describe it, because here's what's interesting. The person who solves the problem goes into the detail and feels the emotion of the person that's telling the story, only conveys it, but doesn't know the emotion that is attached to solving it. So when you, when that little child finally figures out how to, you know, you give them a trick lock where would things have to go this way or this way, and then the little thing opens, when they come back and tell you that, you see the gravity-defying behavior, the arching of the eyebrows, the bright eyes and say, and I solved it. I solved it. I got in there. Yeah, right? The person that's just telling you this story doesn't know the emotion that goes with it. The other thing that I look for is, and they may be nervous or whatever, is how good are they at observing? This is the one question that has actually saved a lot of companies when I say, make sure that from now on you ask, how good are you observing? And they'll say, well, observing what? Everything that matters, people, events, opportunities. If you come to me and say, well, I can code this, okay, that's great, but in the position that you're going to be in, you're going to be managing people. How good are you at observing people? The great thing about companies that seek this is, all right, so when you go and you business, you go see your subsidiary, what are you looking for? What are you observing? Well, when I look at the books, how about the attitude of the people? Are people content? Are they happy or do they all look like they're constipated? I mean, I've been into companies that the minute I walk in, I go, oh, jeez, you got management problems here. The guy goes, did somebody tell you? I said, well, I'd have to be clinically stupid not to recognize that all these people are walking around with their heads hung low, that they make no eye contact, nobody, they pass each other in the subway and they don't talk to each other. You've got management issues here.