Your body language could hurt you at work

Why do men and women in the workplace cover their “neck dimples”?

What does it mean when you’re pitching an idea and your listener makes a “tongue show”?

How does a gesture traced back to a lizard’s “high stand” find its way into the boardroom?

The answers are not in office memos or phone messages, but bodies. And psychologists, ethologists and executive consultants say that body language in the business world often speaks louder than words.

A classic 1971 study by UCLA psychologist Albert Mehrabian showed that less than 10 percent of what audience members remembered from a speaker was verbal. About a third of the impact came from tone of voice. The rest, more than half the recall, involved body language — gestures, facial expressions, posture, movements.

It’s communication that starts from the moment you meet someone, executive coach Carol Kinsey Goman says. People decide whether you’re likable, credible and trustworthy within seconds. That’s why the consultant from Berkeley, Calif., suggests adjusting your demeanor in advance.

Say you’re at a conference and turn around to introduce yourself to someone. Do it with a smile, eye contact, a body that leans slightly in toward the other person (which shows interest) and an “eyebrow flash,” the slightly raised eyebrows that are a universal sign of recognition.

The right kind of eye contact is important. Imagine a triangle with the base at the listener’s eyes and the peak in the middle of the forehead. That’s the “business gaze” zone where you should be concentrating, Goman says.

Now imagine an upside-down triangle with the base at the listener’s eyes and the apex at the mouth. That’s a social, flirtatious zone, more suitable to the happy-hour mixer than the office.

“If you want to be taken seriously, you need to raise your gaze and get the look of business,” Goman says.

Goman warns women to avoid the head tilt, a primitive signal that conveys a person is listening but can be a sign of submission at work.

“The head tilt is going to look coy. It’s going to look cute. But it’s not going to look powerful,” she says.

But don’t be stiff, for heaven’s sake. Fey Parrill, an associate professor in the department of cognitive science at Case Western Reserve University, says business majors are told to keep their hands still during interviews or important meetings, perhaps holding a pen under the desk.

That could backfire, she says. Gestures help people think, for one thing. People told to freeze their movements trip over their speech and have more trouble remembering things. And they look less animated, with flatter intonation.

Gestures that indicate passivity or nervousness are self-touching movements called “self-adapters.” Examples include keeping your arms folded over your body, fiddling with fingers, adjusting glasses and smoothing hair.

Some research suggests that women use more self-adapters than men. Being aware of this might help women to remember confidence body signals, Parrill says, such as sitting forward, making eye contact and keeping voice and body animated.

David Givens, who founded the Center for Nonverbal Studies in Spokane, says humans definitely register like, dislike or neutrality in a flash. But he says first impressions are not necessarily sustained, especially because first meetings are often stressed — we may give a quick handshake and look away.

Givens says “businesslike” behavior is best in the office, an unnatural setting for a creature that not so long ago roamed open savannas in small family groups.

When you sit in a confined space for eight hours a day with co-workers, you really have to suck in your personality and wear clothes that are not too eye-catching because a 40-hour week of flamboyance would be too intrusive on others, he says.