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Tag: Communication Page 1 of 2

The Secret to Boosting Productivity: Complete Your Cycles of Action

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On August 13, 2025

In Leadership & Influence

Most people underestimate the power of communication — and how it can spiral us up or drag us down.

It’s not just about the words we speak or hear. Communication is the exchange of ideas, knowledge, emotion, attention, and interest.

But here’s the problem:

We start things… and don’t finish them.

These incomplete cycles of action quietly drain our energy, scatter our focus, and keep us from being fully present.

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woman wearing white sleeveless top and black pencil skirt facing woman wearing pink sleeveless top and black pencil skirt leaning on wall

Dominance, Trustworthiness, and Competence in Body Motion During Speeches

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On October 18, 2022

In Leadership & Influence

Highlights

  • Body movements of politicians giving speeches were turned into stick-figure videos.
  • Stimuli were rated on dominance, trustworthiness, and competence.
  • Simple nonverbal cues were linked to perceptions of dominance and trustworthiness.
  • Male speakers from opposition parties received the highest ratings on dominance.
  • Body motion has ecological validity and is a nonverbal cue of social relevance.

People read dominance, trustworthiness, and competence into the faces of politicians but do they also perceive such social qualities in other nonverbal cues? We transferred the body movements of politicians giving a speech onto animated stick figures and presented these stimuli to participants in a rating experiment.

Analyses revealed single-body postures of maximal expansiveness as strong predictors of perceived dominance. Also, stick figures producing expansive movements and many movements throughout the encoded sequences were judged high on dominance and low on trustworthiness.

In a second step, we divided our sample into speakers from the opposition parties and speakers that were part of the government, and male and female speakers. Male speakers from the opposition were rated higher on dominance but lower on trustworthiness than speakers from all other groups.

In conclusion, people use simple cues to make equally simple social categorizations. Moreover, the party status of male politicians seems to become visible in their body motions.

References:

woman pointing at sky on seashore

ZONE Tips > Hand Gestures Increase Influence

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On October 18, 2022

In Leadership & Influence

A team of researchers from the Netherlands found that hand gestures, when used strategically, influence how certain words are heard. 

Participants were 20% more likely to hear and interpret the words being spoken when accompanied by a matching hand gesture and 40% as likely to hear the wrong word when the gestures did not match. 

Previous research has suggested that certain hand gestures can signal extraversion and dominance and that speaking with gestures, in general, tends to lead to being evaluated as warm, agreeable, and energetic.

– Molly Hanson

Expressing yourself with your voice, body, and hands can help you to get into the zone. Animating your communication helps you feel your message and transfer this same feeling to your audience.

Sadly, most people speak in a monotone and use little to no gestures. Boring!

Let’s get into the zone and express ourselves!

References:

  1. Beat gestures influence which speech sounds you hear.
  2. How hand gestures alter the perception of your speech.

Great is in the Detail

By

On May 27, 2020

In Business & Entrepreneurship

Think Different

By

On March 1, 2020

In Business & Entrepreneurship

Communicate to Solve Problems!

By

On February 4, 2020

In Relationships & Family

10 Keys To Power Communication

By

On January 16, 2018

In Leadership & Influence

I started my first business in 1994. I was young, inexperienced and had no idea just how dramatic the roller-coaster of business would be. What I lacked in experience, I made up for with hard work, enthusiasm, grit, and determination. My partners certainly had their hands full because I was also stubborn, perhaps a little hardheaded.

The business expanded rapidly, and we generated $3.3 million (in 2017 dollars) in our first 8 months.

We hired lots of salespeople and created a sales manual for them to have tools, tips, and guidelines at their fingertips. In this article, you will find an excerpt directly out of our original manual. It is as relevant today as it was back in 1994!

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World’s Apart: How To Build Bridges, Not Walls

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On April 27, 2017

In Leadership & Influence

Finding areas of disagreement is easy. We all have them. Have you ever tried to convince someone of the merits of your position and argued over it for hours, only to find that you both became more entrenched in your point-of-view?

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ZONE TIPS > Resolving Upsets

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On November 22, 2014

In Relationships & Family

With the frequency of communication via text message and email increasing, it is common to develop misunderstandings and end up with one or both parties upset. The result is a loss of affinity, less collaboration, and a feeling of disconnection.

There are four primary ways people respond to this type of upset:

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Communication

By

On January 24, 2009

In Leadership & Influence

As you communicate more, your Lifeforce increases. Communication is the method through which Lifeforce is channeled and directed in a particular direction for a particular purpose.

Self-expression is about our ability to express ourselves through our clothing, personal grooming, language, tone of voice, laughter, playfulness, articulation, music, dance, art, exercise, etc. Being able to express how we feel is central to our ability to communicate and relate to other people.

As a leader, if we can’t express how we feel, then we can’t move people to action (without threats or demands).

Personal Power is the ability to express and move people – without authority or force.

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