Our conversation got derailed with one mis-spoken sentence. Her response was quick and sarcastic. I responded defensively. The third person in the conversation made a joke and we were able to resume the conversation. Not ideal, but somehow we managed to have a positive ending.
That night at the dinner table as I was telling the story, I made sure to give full expression in the retelling. Wanting my kids to have the full picture of what happened.
As I gave my response, my daughter brought me up short. “Oh, and did you give her that ugly face too?”
“What ugly face?”
“That ugly face you just did when you told the story.”
I was silent as the truth sunk in. No wonder my colleague responded like she did. My face and body had said such a different story than what I really meant to say. It’s not her fault that we all believe more of what we see than what we hear.
Shamefacedly, I admitted the truth. Yes, I probably had made that ugly face that morning during the conversation. Yikes!
When you think about effective communication, you might sometimes forget how important your facial expressions are. Obviously, when you’re online, texting or tweeting, it’s not an issue. But on the phone or especially in person, you want to make sure your face is giving the same message as your words.
Here are 3 ideas that might help you (and me) match our faces to our words.
Smile. Obviously you can’t smile all the time, but whenever you are listening, it’s helpful for you to have a pleasant expression on your face. For most of us, a slight, mouth closed smile gives that pleasant look that encourages conversation. Also, it’s impossible to smile and frown at the same time. 🙂
Clear your forehead. By this I mean, if you have 2 those vertical lines between your eyebrows, or lots and lots of forehead creases, take a moment when you are in the conversation, or even before, to consciously smooth your forehead. For me, this means I smile (automatically decreases the center lines) and take a deep breath as I run my left hand across my forehead.
Use your eyes. The eyes are such a great communication tool! Have you noticed that when you’re really engaged in a conversation, you’re giving good eye contact. Not staring, but just following the conversation with your eyes. You look at the other person for a few seconds and then look briefly away. And when you smile, your smile reaches your eyes. I know because an engaged smile includes eyes crinkled at the corners.
So I’m hoping that we’ll remember these simple behaviors. That way, we can be sure our face matches our message.
Question: What kind of expressions do you find “pop out” when you least expect it? What are your compensation strategies? Please leave me a comment below.