And every one of positions we place various elements of our body in tells a story—a powerful, nonverbal story.

For example, stand upright, shoulders straight, head up and eyes facing front. Wear a big smile. Notice how you 'feel' emotionally.

Now, slump your shoulders, look at floor and slightly shuffle your feet. Again, take a note of your emotional state.

Notice difference?

Your audience surely will, and react to you and your message accordingly.

A strong, upright, positive body posture not only helps you breath easier (good for helping to calm nerves!) but also transmits a message of authority, confidence, trust and power.

If you find yourself challenged to maintain such a posture, practice in front of a mirror, or better yet join a speaking club like Toastmasters International.

** Posture 2 The second type of 'posture' comes from your internal mental and emotional states.

You can have great body posture but without internal mental and emotional posture your words will sound hollow to your audience.

For example, a sleezy used car salesman at 'Dodgy Brothers Motors' might have great body posture and greet you with a firm handshake, a steady gaze and a friendly smile.

His body will start betraying his real, underlying intentions and you'll start to feel uncomfortable around him, even if you can't figure out why.

But, if a different used car salesman with a genuine desire to help you find right car for you puts your needs before his own, then his words and actions will remain congruent (in harmony) with his underlying intentions and you will trust him, even though you might not be able to identify why.

I have met salesmen and women who don't actually make money they claim to make in their 'fabulous business opportunity', and while their words are practiced and polished, and their body posture is 'perfect', their words ooze like honeyed poison from their lips and I remain unconvinced.

This second type of 'posture' is fundamentally tied to truth and honesty. It is about 'walking talk' and being who you say you are.

It's all about making sure that your words and your intentions are underpinned by truth and honesty. Because all of us, no matter how polished a presenter we might be, are at mercy of our body and its ability to 'tell truth' in spite of what our lips might utter. Nonverbal clues rule!

Written communication ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I could spend a lifetime writing about art of written communication.

There is an art (and also a science) that can be learnt with diligence and practice. To write too formally; to write too informally; to write too briefly; to write too lengthily...

My first suggestion would be to avail yourself of one of following three books, each of which is absolutely brilliant at giving you skills and insights into effective business writing:

The Business Style Handbook: An A-to-Z Guide for Writing on Job with Tips from Communications Experts at Fortune 500 by Helen Cunningham and Brenda Greene

The Elements of Business Writing: A Guide to Writing Clear, Concise Letters, Memos, Reports, Proposals, and Other Business Documents by Gary Blake and Robert W. Bly

Effective Business Writing: Strategies, Suggestions and Examples by Maryann V. Piotrowski

From persuasive memos to complaint letters, sales letters to executive summaries -- these exceedingly useful guides help you to write clearly and in an appropriate format, style and tone. Each book has numerous examples that show how to overcome writer's block, organize messages for maximum impact, achieve an easy-to-read style, find an efficient writing system and much more.

But, if you want my personal recommendation... ...if you want to want to get hold and devour my personal best recommendation, then it's this book by Ken Evoy: Make Your Words Sell. "Stunning" is only way to describe it! To grab your own copy go to http://www.sbi2004.com/myws

In conclusion... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ There are five key elements that can make or break your attempt at successful nonverbal business communication:

Eye contact Gestures Movement Posture, and Written communication

Nonverbal communication in a business setting requires not only recognition of these elements, but confidence in meeting their challenges.

Good luck!

Here's a few thoughts on third method. Generally speaking, humans learn in two ways: by acquiring intellectual understanding and through experience. In our schooling, former predominates, but it is latter which is most powerful in terms of inducing a deep sharing of emotions and ideas; for our experiences, which can be life's teachings, often lead us to profound awareness and purposeful action.

Look back at your schooling. Was it your book learning or your experiences, your interactions with teachers and students, that you remember most? In most cases, your experiences made most telling impressions upon you.

To transfer your motivation to others, use what I call my "defining moment" technique, which I describe fully in my book, DEFINING MOMENT: MOTIVATING PEOPLE TO TAKE ACTION.

In brief, technique is this: Put into sharp focus a particular experience of yours then communicate that focused experience to people by describing physical facts that gave you emotion.

Now, here's secret to defining moment. That experience of yours must provide a lesson and that lesson is a solution to needs of people. Otherwise, they'll think you're just talking about yourself.

For defining moment to work (i.e., for it to transfer your motivation to them), experience must be about them. The experience happened to you, of course. But that experience becomes their experience when lesson it communicates is a solution to their needs.

(3) CAN YOU HAVE THE AUDIENCE TAKE RIGHT ACTION? Results don't happen unless people take action. After all, it's not what you say that's important in your leadership communications, it's what people do after you have had your say.

Yet vast majority of leaders don't have a clue as to what action truly is.

They get people taking wrong action at wrong time in wrong way for wrong results.

A key reason for this failure is they don't know how to deliver all-important "leadership talk Call-to-action".

"Call" comes from an Old English word meaning "to shout." A Call-to-Action is a "shout for action." Implicit in concept is urgency and forcefulness. But most leaders don't deliver most effective Calls-to-action because they make three errors regarding it.

First, they err by mistaking Call-to-Action as an order. Within context of The Leadership Talk, a Call-to-action is not an order. Leave order for order leader.

Second, leaders err by mistaking Call as theirs to give. The best Call-to-action is not leader's to give. It's people's to give. It's people's to give to themselves. A true Call-to-action prompts people to motivate themselves to take action.

The most effective Call-to-action then is not from leader to people but from people to people themselves!

Third, they error by not priming their Call. There are two parts to Call-to-Action, primer and Call itself. Most leaders omit all-important primer.

The primer sets up Call, which is to prompt people to motivate themselves to take action. You yourself control primer. The people control Call.

The primer/Call is critical because every leadership communication situation is in essence a problem situation. There is problem leader has. And there is problem people have. In many cases, they are two different problems. But leaders get into trouble regarding Call-to-action when they think it's only one problem, mainly theirs.

For instance, a leader might be talking about organization needing to be more productive. So, leader talks PRODUCTIVITY.

On other hand, people, hearing PRODUCTIVITY, think, YOU'RE GOING TO GIVE ME MORE WORK!

If leader thinks that productivity is people's problem and ignores "more work" aspect, h/she's Call-to-action will probably be a bust, resulting in people avoiding committed action.

Let's apply primer/Call dynamic to productivity case. The leader talks PRODUCTIVITY: but this time uses a PRIMER. The primer's purpose is to establish a "critical confluence" – union of your problem with problem of people.

In this case, leader creates a critical confluence by couching productivity within framework of MORE MEANINGFUL WORK.

The primer may be: LET'S GET TOGETHER AND SEE IF YOU CAN COME UP WITH AN ACTION PLAN THAT WILL ENSURE THAT THE PRODUCTIVITY GAINS YOU IDENTIFY AND EXECUTE WILL ENABLE YOU TO WORK AT WHAT'S REALLY MEANINGFUL TO YOU.

Note what we've done: The primer is LET'S GET TOGETHER AND SEE IF YOU CAN COME UP WITH AN ACTION PLAN.

The actual Call is from people to themselves: LET'S INCREASE PRODUCTIVITY BY WORKING AT WHAT'S MEANINGFUL.

With that Call, leader moves from just getting average results (YOU MUST BE MORE PRODUCTIVE: i.e., you're going to solve MY problem) to getting great results (YOU COME UP WITH WAYS TO TIE PRODUCTIVITY INTO MEANINGFUL WORK: i.e., you're also going to solve your problem.) So, here's what leadership talk Call-to-action is truly about: It's not an order; it's best manifested when people give themselves Call; and it is always primed by your creating "critical confluence" -- they'll be solving their problem as well as yours.

The vast majority of leaders I've worked with are hampering their careers for one simple reason: They're giving presentations and speeches -- not leadership talks.

You have a great opportunity to turbo charge your career by recognizing power of leadership talks. Before you give a leadership talk, ask three basic questions. Do you know what people need? Can you bring deep belief to what you're saying? Can you have people take right take action?

If you say "no" to any one of those questions you cannot give a leadership talk. But questions aren't meant to be stumbling blocks to your leadership but stepping stones. If you answer "no", work on questions until you can say, "yes". In that way, you'll start getting right results in right way on a consistent basis.

2004 © The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. All rights reserved.