BODY LANGUAGE: GESTURES, POSTURE, AND SPACEfacing the door. He knew that this would remain the dominant
position only if he could prevent Harper from taking the seat at
the other end of the table. So he placed Jane, his executive VP,
at the other end of the table and flanked her with two of his
staff- He then placed two more of his associates on either side of
his chair.
By time Harper arrived, his late ploy, often effective, had back-
fired because of Mark's territorial triumph. Mark earned another
victory when he stood up and held his hand out as Harper entered,
forcing his rival to walk all the way around the table in order to
shake his hand.
Confused by the turn of events, Harper was flustered and quickly
took one of the only seats open to him, a subordinate one. Had
he been a wiser man, he would have simply asked Jane to move
and then sat in her power place, making it a more equal battle.
By not doing this, he lost control of the situation. Mark became
the one projecting the subtext of power and took full advantage
of it in dealing with his adversary.
In this case, the subtext of power and status came from a clever
use of the space around the conference table. The legendary King
Arthur was well aware of this technique, when Merlin advised
him to use a round table for his knights. In that way no one
would have higher status than anyone else.
Unfortunately, this doesn't work when one person, such as a
king, has a great deal of status from the start. No matter what
the shape of the table, the people seated next to the king have
the highest status, and status declines as one is seated farther
from the king.
In a boardroom or conference room the person with the highest
status will usually choose one end of an oblong or oval table.
The exception is the person of very high status, the CEO or chairman