137. When Words Aren’t Enough: How to Excel at Nonverbal Communication

If communication is like painting, words are the primary colors. But to convey deeper meaning, we need a broader color palette, which Dana Carney says requires the mastery of nonverbal communication.

We often focus on the words that we say when honing our communication, but according to Carney, there are many instances “where nonverbals start to be more meaningful than verbals.” A professor at Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and the George Quist Chair in Business Ethics, Carney researches the nonverbal ways in which we communicate our biases, our preferences, our power, and our status.

As Carney explores in her forthcoming book, The Five Nonverbal Rules of Power, there are several key areas of nonverbal behavior that we need to grasp in order to fully tap our potential as communicators. In this episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart, she and host Matt Abrahams discuss how to read the nonverbal communication of others — and how to gain control of the nonverbals we express to the world.

Episode Reference Links:

• Dana Carney
• Ep.12 It’s Not What You Say, It’s How You Say It: How to Communicate Power
• Ep.16 How to Craft Your Body Language When Confronting Objections 

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