SUBTEXT"For much of the time Mr. Reagan settled back comfortably
... as he warmed to the give and take, his responses came
punctuated with a little shake of the head, a smile, a sign of
emphasis here and there or a hand reached out to gesture." When
the issue of Star Wars came up, "his body language changed
He became totally engaged. He leaned his body into the discussion
moving forward in his chair." When the talk turned to Soviet
violations, "he put... his back straight against the chair."
Take some lessons from a master!SPACE: THE FINAL FRONTIER
We rarely think of space when we think of body language and
the subtext it conveys, but manipulation of space can be an impor-
tant business tool. Take the case of Mark, a canny CEO trying
to engineer a takeover of a rival company.
The other company was headed by Harper, who thought he
knew a lot about the subtext of power. He decided to show Mark
who was the boss from the very beginning. To demonstrate his
independence and importance, Harper told his staff to arrive at
the meeting fifteen minutes after it was scheduled to start.
"Time is a powerful weapon," he told his assistant. "Being
fifteen minutes late will keep them guessing. It'll make Mark
anxious, and I'll be able to exploit that anxiety and throw him
off target from the very start."
It was a clever ploy, but Mark was sharper. He arrived at the
meeting room a few minutes early, surveyed the situation, and
took in the battlefield—a long, oval conference table. Like any
good commander, Mark took advantage of the absence of his enemy
to place himself in the most strategic seat at the end of the table