This at-a-glance tool to make you more effective in your communication is specifically designed to help you create 20 second sound-bites and super-quick, but totally compelling elevator pitches—because you’ve only got three floors to make an impact! And it’s called FACT–CARE–DO™

FACT–CARE–DO™ is one of my simplest structures to create effective elevator pitches or sound-bites with short pithy explanations of your point, quick retorts to objections or simple replies to a question.

First, state a fact relating to an issue your work deals with: “Four out of five communicators are judged by audiences as totally ineffective…”

Given this, say how you care about it: “… and it’s so important that people like you have the opportunity to become good presenters.”

Finally, say what you are doing about it: “That’s why I give fast, practical training, in confident communication.”

How easy is that? Now just practice creating your own and see how quickly it engages those around you to talk more with you about your solutions.

You will no doubt have seen the abundance of commentary on news sites and blogs speculating as to the meaning of Tiger Woods’ body language during his recent apology to family, friends, colleagues and the public in general. As someone referred to as an expert in this arena, here is what I am pretty certain of with regard to body language and meaning in this case:

In 1985, Dr. Paul Ekman (the man upon whom the deception detecting hero of Fox TV’s Lie To Me, Dr. Cal Lightman, is based, considered one of the 100 most eminent psychologists of the twentieth century) did some experiments and found that most of us, including highly trained experts in nonverbal indicators, have a not much better than 50/50 chance at consciously detecting the meaning of a piece of nonverbal communication. For example, what are often mistaken for signs of insincerity can be indicators of stress and even pacifiers relieving that stress.

Ekman’s work suggests that we humans are not very good at consciously detecting the deceivers amongst us. You see, body language can tell you someone’s feelings but not the source of those feelings. In the recent case of Tiger Woods, Tiger certainly looks and sounds at times tense, detached and under stress (as many have already suggested), but the reason or reasons for this are debatable. Without interviewing Woods directly about how we have perceived his reactions around certain elements of his verbal statement, and then judging his nonverbal reactions again to this investigative questioning–it’s all pretty much guess work.

As I describe in my new book Winning Body Language published by McGraw-Hill: for the majority of us, the only dependable use for an understanding of body language is to concentrate on controlling the signals we send out to communicate clearly with others our feelings, intentions and motives, and build trust to gain influence, rather than fantasizing that we can get the upper-hand over others by reading their minds.Unlike others, guess work is not method I choose – and that (amongst other reasons) is why I recently turned down a request by CNN to give a live body language analysis of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s appearance before the Iraq inquiry. Even with my background and experience it is foolish to make speculations for anything other than pure entertainment!

Read on in the newsletter for more info about my book, which doesn’t mess around with guesswork, and instead helps empower individuals to use their own body language effectively–and take with a grain of salt the comments of the body language pundits who simply state the blindingly obvious, or just plain guess at the psychology behind the stars.

Remember you are statistically most likely to be just as expert as they are!

1. If you are part of a commercial company that has no competition, holds a monopoly over a vital product or service for a very large population, and is totally at ease with the level and style of communication that it has with its captive audience. Frankly, you don’t need to communicate more effectively—if at all.

2. If you are in a position within your organization where you wield total executive power, with no threat of demotion, review, or overthrow (maybe you have taken control of the business using extreme force and in doing so have neutralized all opposition), it’s a good guess that you have no real need to engage with your colleagues in a way that wins their trust and compels them to help your goals. Great communication skills for persuading and influencing others are therefore totally pointless for you.

3. If you are planning on leaving the world of business to become a reclusive cave-dwelling hermit for the rest of your life, living off worms and moss, totally independent of any human interaction and society to help you further your personal goals, then communication is likely top of your “must not do” list.

To sum up, if you find yourself and your business totally unthreatened by the usual market forces, poor public perception, or difficult human interactions, and so unable to see any benefit in exponentially increasing any ability to communicate, then I look forward to never interacting with you again.

For everyone else around the globe who is still reading, congratulations: you recognize the fact that the feelings people have about you and your work are fundamentally based upon what is communicated by what they see you do in relation to what they hear you say—and that is a real issue for any real business.

To learn more and receive free chapters of Mark Bowden’s new book Winning Body Language sign-up to TruthPlane’s newsletter here.

There is already an abundance of commentary on news sites and blogs speculating as to the meaning of Tiger Woods’ body language during his apology to family, friends, colleagues and the public in general today. And so as someone referred to as an expert in this arena, here is what I am pretty certain of with regard to body language and meaning in this case:

In 1985, Dr. Paul Ekman (the man who the deception detecting hero of Fox TV’s Lie To Me, Dr. Cal Lightman is based on and considered one of the 100 most eminent psychologists of the twentieth century) did some experiments and found that most of us (including highly trained experts in nonverbal indicators) have not much better than a 50/50 chance at consciously detecting the meaning of a piece of nonverbal communication. For example, what are often mistaken for signs of insincerity can be indicators of stress and even pacifiers relieving that stress.

Ekman’s work suggests that we humans are not very good at consciously detecting the deceivers amongst us. You see, body language can tell you someone’s feelings but not the source of those feelings. In the case of Woods he certainly looks and sounds at times, tense, detached and under stress (as many have already suggested), but the reason or reasons for this are debatable. Without interviewing Woods directly about how we have perceived his reactions around certain elements of his verbal statement, and then judging his nonverbal reactions again to this investigative questioning–it’s all pretty much guess work.

As I describe in my new book Winning Body Language published by McGraw-Hill: for the majority of us the only dependable use for an understanding of body language is to concentrate on controlling the signals we send out (to communicate clearly with others our feelings, intentions and motives, and build trust to gain influence), rather than fantasizing that we can get the upper-hand on others by reading their minds.

Sign-up here to receive free chapters of Winning Body Language before it publishes and be the first to read it and understand step by step how to gain positive influence with the people who matter using the power of your body… or keep on reading the comments of the body language pundits who simply state the blindingly obvious, or just plain guess at the psychology behind the stars.

Remember you are statistically most likely to be just as expert as they are!

Watch Tiger’s Apology Here and judge for your self.

So called body language experts still talk endlessly about how nonverbal communication is the key to determining if someone is lying. Law enforcement officers, security agencies and the general public have bought into this, and especially with shows such as Fox Television’s “Lie to Me”.However in 1985, Dr. Paul Ekman (the man who Lie to Me’s hero, Dr. Cal Lightman is based on) looked at this and found that most of us have no better than 50/50 chance at detecting deception. What are often mistaken for signs of lying (nose touching, mouth covering etc.) are really pacifiers that help us to relieve stress. These self-soothing behaviors are employed both by the guilty and innocent to relieve the anxiety of being put on the spot. Ekman’s work has been replicated many times since, only to prove again that we humans are not very good at consciously detecting the deceivers amongst us.The danger of this is that we can all often perceive behaviors that can happen when we are tired or under stress, as I describe in my book “Winning Body Language”.The solution is for us all is to concentrate on understanding and controlling the signals we send out rather than looking for deception in those we receive. And that is what Winning Body Language is all about.Sign-up here to receive free chapters of Winning Body Language before it publishes and be the first to read it.

Consider a leader who is evaluated as not fulfilling promises made. This leader decides to learn about keeping commitments—to satisfy the evaluator. The leader reads the latest leadership books with chapters on commitment and responsibility. Now intellectually knowledgeable on the subject the leader can speak quite convincingly about it, yet does nothing to modify any actions.