The Definitive Book of Body LanguageWe attended a meeting of our local council where a debate was
held on the cutting down of trees by developers. The develop-
ers sat to one side of the room and their opponents, the
'greenies', sat on the other. About half those attending sat
with their arms crossed at the opening of the meeting and this
increased to 90% of the 'greenies' when the developers
addressed the audience, and almost 100% of the developers
did it when the 'greenies' spoke. This shows how most people
will take an arms-folded position when they disagree with
what they're hearing. Many speakers fail to communicate
their message to their audience because they haven't seen the
crossed-arms position of their listeners. Experienced speakers
know that this gesture means a good 'ice breaker' is needed to
move their audience into a more receptive position that will
change their attitude from negative to positive.
When you see someone take the arms-crossed position, it's
reasonable to assume that you may have said something with
which they disagree. It may be pointless continuing your line
of argument even though the person could be verbally agree-
ing with you. The fact is that body language is more honest
than words.
As long as someone holds an arms-folded
position, a negative attitude will persist.Your objective should be to try to work out why they crossed
their arms and to try to move the person into a more receptive
position. The attitude causes the gesture to occur and main-
taining the gesture forces the attitude to remain.
Solution
A simple but effective way of breaking the arms-folded posi-
tion is to give the listener something to hold or give them
something to do. Giving them a pen, book, brochure, sample