Good Manners = Good Body Language
When people ask me what body language they should use to enhance their communication, I tell them to practice good manners. But wait a minute — are good manners good body language? I say yes.
Good manners still convey quality. For example, all that old-fashioned advice about “let people finish their sentences, keep your shoes off the furniture, and don’t talk with food in your mouth” — that stuff is still valid. It says you are a quality person. And in modern business it’s easier to drop the defenses and trust quality people and their opinions. For example, in my business life, I have walked away from real estate deals because the salespeople didn’t have good manners. That might sound wimpy but deep inside I didn’t trust the quality of their advice to me because I didn’t feel they were quality people. They turned me off. Face it, weak manners scream uneducated, unrefined and uncaring. 3 strikes like that and the person’s out.
Several years ago I read in Judith Giest’s “Miss Manners” column, that good manners are not stuffy out dated-rules but that good manners are a civilized way of showing respect for other people, their feelings, and their possessions. To me, practicing good manners is smart body language.
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