"Woman plus..."The Art Of Business Communication

The Art Of Business Communication

After the discoveries made by the founding father of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud and by his successors Shandor Ferenzi, Wilhelm Reich, Alexander Lowen and others, nobody puts into question that sexuality penetrates all the spheres of our life. It renders colour to any kind of communication between men and women, and business relations are no exception. Sexuality is fine, no doubt: it gives people a powerful stimulus in life and makes them brim over with energy; in business relations, however, sexuality can be distracting. Moreover, many women feel themselves humiliated as they realize that the men colleagues, instead of showing respect to their personality, their business and professional merits, see them - exclusively! - as "sex objects". But maybe such an attitude is provoked by the women themselves? Maybe, to tune the partner to a business key, you must just modify your behaviour a little and the style of your clothes? And in general, what should you do to make others see you as a PERSON?

It is these questions that we have put to psychologist Ekaterina Yurievna Sobchik. Ekaterina Sobchik To make others see you as a person, you should, first of all, actually be a personality. An individual, possessing the integrity, an intellect and his own style, and occupying an individual stand, is bound to be seen as a personality. The fact that a man reacts to your sexual attraction is quite natural (by the way, the sexual attraction exerts a positive impact not only on men but on the members of the feminine gender as well). As a rule, men's estimate of the absolutely asexual women is very low. And if your partner is a woman, an excess of the sexual challenge elements in your clothes or behaviour will, in all probability, call forth a negative response. Formal relations always presuppose a large measure of the restraint. There is a number of rules, by sticking to which you can tune your partner (irrespective of his/her gender) to a business-like style of communication. Let us begin with the appearance.

Clothes

Many women are perfectly aware of the clothes they should wear for the business meetings and for the talks, and still, a few more words will be of use here. There is a rather clearly cut concept - the business-like style of the clothes. This stands for a strict, conservative style, which is in fact one in the category of the international standards. In the business clothes, preference is given to the classical models of dress, which should be of a high quality and with a subdued colour gamma; the footwear should also be of a classical style. You should better avoid bright, eye-striking colour combinations in your business costume, though, if you are a brave woman, you may even wear a red (not of a venomous bright hue, of course) dress. The clothes should not be all black, like in a deep mourning, or all of the light-minded white.

The cosmetics must be applied sparingly, and there should be a minimum of the jewellery.

This, however, is not to say that you should reject everything feminine in your appearance. Your colleague or partner must still see you as a woman (the communication with men and with women is governed by different rules, but this does not at all mean that you are conceived as exceptionally a sexual object), and for this, he needs certain external clues. You must only bear in mind that a business-like style of communication presupposes a minimum hint at the sexual provocation in the clothes. You should not wear a low-cut dress, or a too short, tight, transparent or shining skirt to the business talks, since these elements in the clothes can attract a too close sexual attention. Thus, for example, who can tear off his (or her) eyes from the long, shapely legs, looking out of a too short skirt? Not only men, but women as well, will all the time shoot a stray glance at them. In the given case, your too short skirt will not only divert attention from the work at hand, but will emphasize your rather low social status. An innocent wish to demonstrate you fine legs may make the interlocuters put in doubt your buseness talents: for, maybe, your legs are your only asset?

Pose

Your pose during the business talks should be natural enough and at the same time restrained and smart. A woman, doubled up on the end of the chair, clutching desparately with her both hands at her handbag, is demonstrating her tension, confusion and lack of self-confidence. A too slack pose, on the other hand, may be interpreted as a sign of your unceremoniusness. You should better sit straight and jecticulate without any restraint within the scope of the so-called intimate zone of a radius of some 45 cm around your body. The handbag should better be put at your side, not on your lap.

Glances

You must be looking straight into your interlocutor's face in a friendly and attentive manner, showing that you are interested in what he is saying. If your relations with your interlocutor are purely business-like, you should look at the upper part of his face, above his eyebrows and, to show your unflagging attention, you should from time to time look into his eyes (a long fixed stare may cause discomfort in your interlocutor). If the communication grows emotional, your glance must automatically shift from the eyes to the lower part of the interlocutor's face - this will have an instant effect. If your plans amount to just a formal communication, try to shift your glance higher.

Voice

To speak well is a serious problem. If the pitch of your voice is high, you should try not to let it sound shrill, because in this case, the only desire on the part of your interlocutor may be to shut up his eyes and to put cotton into his ears. A high tembre of the voice is both irritating and fatiguing, as it is associated with tension or with dependence. For this reason, you must try to speak from your bosom, in a subdued tone, and to make the pitch of your voice as low as you can.

Speech Tempo

Every person speaks in his own characteristic tempo. But even in one and the same person, the tempo of speech will change, depending on the situation, the emotions and an interest to the object of communication. A measured tempo of speech, with short intervals to show that you are pondering over what you have heard before making an answer, is the best of all. You will immediately create an impression of being a reasonable person.

It is no good to speak too quickly, flooding yout interlocutor with the streams of information. He may be slow in comprehending how great a project you describe, and he is bound to interrupt you and to request that you repeat it all over again. You will thus lose time and, which is the most important thing - you will produce an impression of being a small and dependent peg, who is trying to say as much as possible before he is shooed off. A too rapid tempo of speech is invariably associated with a person's dependent position.

Handshaking

People use to shake hands in the business-like communication. The handshaking, however, is a traditionally male jesture. They used to kiss a woman's hand in the past. Most of women are still experiencing a slight sense of discomfort, when their hand is shaken, because the woman does not know in advance, whether her hand will be just energetically shaken like that of a mate by the party, or kissed. To avoid the confusion and the embarrassment, you should put out your hand neither on the vertical plane (as for the handshaking), nor on the horizontal one (like for a kiss); you sjould rather choose an intermediate position - at an angle to the plane, thus showing that you don't mind whether your hand is going to be shaken or kissed. If you think that the handshaking is inappropriate, you may just say the greetings in words, with your hands busy with a purse or the handbag. And if you think it to be admissible, you should better initiate it youself and be the first to put out your hand.

Behaviour

Never be in a hurry, for this produces a bad impression in any case. If, as you come to a business meeting, you timidly slip into the office, mumble a hurried hello, and fussily give about the important papers, letting some of them fall to the floor, there is no mistake that you will be a loser. It would be much better to enter the office in state, to greet those present without any hurry and to ask what seat you should take. All this must be performed without any fuss or excessive vivacity in your movements, jestures and facial expression. In a word, you must behave as if you are a smart, beautiful woman, who can afford not to be in a hurry. You should calmly sit down, slowly take up the objects you happen to need, as if they were alive, and speak in a complacent voice. This will surely produce a good impression on your interlocutor.

Gesticulation

Here, like in all the other cases, your should find the golden mean. Your gestures should be consonant with the subject of the conversation and should approximately suit it. The more formal the communication, the less gestures you can afford. The gestures should not be too wide, but at the same time, their complete absence is usually seen as tension.

Most of the people do not even suspect, how highly important gesticulation is in a conversation. A gesture may tell much more about ourselves than we should like to reveal. Gestures too often serve to expose us and, if some of them are used unreasonably, they may even produce a negative result. Therefore, to win your interlocutor's sympathy, you should apply the gestures, enabling him to see your palms - a token of your openness. And you should avoid negative, pressurizing gestures. If you are cutting the air with your hand, you may arouse an uneasy sense of anxiety in your interlocutor that you can in no time go over to rude actions towards all those present (and towards him among the others as well). So, if you do not intend to pressurize your interlocutor and to end the talk by slamming him down like a fly, do not press upon the table with your hands, palm down. Do not clench your fists during the talk and do not poke your finger into the interlocutor's face, like a mentor, trying to drive in your point. And, the last but not the least, do not make forbidding gestures with your hands, as if trying to cry out: "Wait a minute! I haven't said everything I wanted!", thus showing that you are prepared to go on with your splendid monologue, while he should humbly stand about in raptures, listening. This gesture may cause a feeling in your interlocutor that you actually do not want to talk with him, and the distance between you will increase.

Distance

Let us now say a few words about the distance, established between the people in any business talk. Every person must find the distance, suitable for the given case, depending on his personal emotionality. The emotional people seem closer and more comprehensive, while the tense and restrained ones keep the interlocutor at a bigger distance. There is a moment, however, when the distance between people comes to an absolute zero, which is manifest in a vivid facial expression, a movement of the eyebrows, the squinted eyes, the smiles, the intimate intonations and the slack poses. As soon as an interlocutor chooses to again increase the distance, he momentarily grows tense, his face turns into an impenetrable mask and his tone becomes impartial, like that of a radio or a TV dictor. Now you can no longer talk with him like with a human being. If you want to increase the distance, you should just start calling your interlocutor, more often than necessary, by his name and patronymic. By the way, you should in any case from time to time call your interlocutor by the name during the conversation. If you have not once called your interlocutor by his name during a two-hour talk, he may think that you haven't got any notion at all of who he is.

The use of the old-fashioned, outdated word structures, like, for example, "Esteemed Sir", or "I hope you haven't got any objections to..." is bound to cause embarrassment and increase the distance, for it demonstrates a cold attitude. When the distance between people grows inordinately large, no communication can be continued.

Therefore, you must always take into account numerous nuances in the communication, an apt use of which will help you find an optimal style in the communication, acceptable for both the interlocutors.

Keep the Situation under Control

Just imagine that you come to the talks and are offered a lower seat than your interlocutor's, or one facing the window, so that you can only distinguish a dark silhouette against the bright background. If you find this uncomfortable, do not be shy to say that you would like to change your seat, for example, at the pretext that the light beats in your eye. You must invariably keep the situation under your control.

We hope that the above advice will help you elaborate a style of behaviour, which would be restrained and devoid of any fuss and of the attempts to put to the fore all your merits. This style will enable you, on the one hand, to observe a certain distance and, on the other, to demonstrate your interest and friendliness. You must remember that the more genuine virtues a person possesses, the more natural his behaviour and the less his need to try and play the part of somebody else.