The Power of Social Intelligence: 10 ways to tap into your social genius

In the tests the subjects were shown a series of videotapes of a young woman expressing a wide range of feelings. The scenes depicted hatred and loathing, a jealous rage, peace and tranquillity, asking forgiveness, motherly love, showing gratitude, and passion.

In all the videos, the sound was muffled so that no speech could be heard. In addition, in each portrayal, one or more of the channels of non-verbal communication had been blanked out. For example, in one the body might be blocked out and only the facial expression shown, in another the facial expressions removed while all bodily gestures remained, and so on.

The results?

A direct correlation was found between being able to read body language and being more sensitive, more well-adjusted emotionally, more outgoing, and, most importantly, more popular.

You will be pleased to learn that this popularity was also directly correlated with success in romantic and sexual relationships!

The success generated by possessing Social Intelligence skills is also reflected in schools. The American Psychological Society reported the results of tests done with 1,011 children that showed that those children who were able to read body language were among the most emotionally stable, did better in academic subjects, and were the most popular.

Understanding body language is of vital importance in social communication. A good friend of mine observed that by playing just three minutes of golf with a new acquaintance, you will learn nearly everything you need to know about that individual, including their ability to accept and learn from success and failure, their generosity, their concern for others, their appreciation of nature, their humour (or lack of it!), how positive/negative they were, their general energy levels, their degree of focus and their honesty.

The Secret of Social Intelligence – Smile!

There is a very simple secret to Social Intelligence – smile at people!

A human smile radiates warmth, confidence, a positive attitude, happiness and, very significantly, a welcoming openness to others.

‘A man without a smiling face must not open a shop.’

(Chinese proverb)

A simple smile is the best way to win friends and influence people. The thing that first attracts most people to someone else is their smile. And when we see a smile, our brains trigger our own smiling muscles, so that we smile back!

Brian Bates, co-author of the BBC book and television series The Human Face, confirms the importance of smiling in society:

‘We would often rather share our confidences, hopes and money with smilers for deep reasons which are often beyond our conscious awareness. Spontaneous smilers have been shown to have a more successful life in personal and career terms.’

Smiles take much less effort than frowns, involve far less muscular tension, and are more instantaneous and spontaneous. The universe even rewards us for smiling! When we smile, the ‘smiling reflex’ boosts our production of endorphins, the body’s natural energizers and pain-killers.

It is now time for your first Social Workout – to be approached with a smile on your face!

Social Workout

Smile and the World Smiles With You

Recently a witty little poem on smiling appeared on the Internet. I have slightly adjusted it, and recommend that you read it, pass it on, and immediately begin practising what it suggests!

Smiling is infectious; you catch it like the flu,

When someone smiled at me today, I started smiling too.

I passed around the corner and someone saw my grin

And when he smiled I realized I’d passed it on to him.

I thought about that smile and then I realized its worth,

A single smile, one just like mine, could travel round the earth.

So if you feel a smile begin, don’t leave it undetected:

Let’s start an epidemic quick, and get the world infected!

Smile First

Make sure that you greet people with a smile. People remember first impressions most strongly, so this will be what they remember of you. This is called the Primacy Effect, or the principle of ‘First Things First’, which we will explore in more detail in Chapter 4. Smiling will get the social interaction off to a positive and uplifting start. You will be gently taking control of the meeting in a ‘win-win’ way.

Make Your Actions Congruent with Your Words

When you are describing things, allow your body to be the natural musical instrument and artist that it is. Make sounds that mimic what you are describing. With your hands sculpt the objects and scenes you are describing.

Check for Congruence/Incongruence in Others

Check for the congruence between what people’s words are saying and what their bodies are saying. You will often find that they are completely opposite. You can practise this Social Intelligence muscle when watching television, especially news and advertisements. Keep a note of some of the more blatant examples of incongruence – they make good conversation pieces themselves!

One extremely amusing instance of incongruent actions occurred when I was at a cocktail party.

I noticed that two businessmen who were supposed to be negotiating with each other were doing an extraordinary dance. Every time one of them moved towards the other, the second almost immediately moved away. It was as if they were two similar poles of a magnet, where the repelling force prevented them from ever making contact. No matter how hard the first tried to get closer, which he was obviously trying to do, the second always moved away. On and on they went, until they had snaked and zig-zagged their way around the entire room!

They were obviously making each other extremely uncomfortable, and not understanding why.

Later on in the evening, I asked them, separately, where they came from. As you might expect, the first one stood very close to me, the second at some considerable distance!

You will not be surprised to learn that the first one came from New York, where closeness to people is part of everyday life, and the second from a vast ranch in Texas, where close contact was very rare.

Being aware of people’s different ‘comfort zone’ is a very important part of Social Intelligence. If you can make people feel comfortable by not invading their personal space, they will immediately be more willing to talk to and spend time with you.

Meeting and Greeting With Feeling

Be particularly alert to body language when you are meeting and greeting people. Remember the two scenarios you imagined before (see here) and the extreme positions your body took. Most people will be somewhere between the two.

Once again become the body-language-detective, and quickly assess the many non-verbal messages that are being given during those first vital moments.

If shaking hands, play close attention to the energy of the hand you are shaking – it can speak volumes. In the same way, make sure that your own handshake is firm (not too firm!) and welcoming. Make sure you make eye contact with the other person. Brief eye contact acknowledges the other person as being of interest to you – which will make them more interested in you!

Use Appropriate Gestures of Affection

Some cultures use hugs and embraces much more than others. In Russia, for example, hugs are a normal part of greeting people, whereas in Britain, people tend to be more reserved.

Psychiatrist Dr Harold Falk has listed some of the benefits of hugging: ‘Hugging can lift depression, enabling the body’s immunization system to become tuned up. Hugging breathes fresh life into tired bodies and makes you feel younger and more vibrant.’

In support of this, Helen Colton, author of The Joy of Touching, points out that the haemoglobin in your blood increases significantly when you are touched and hugged. As it is the haemoglobin that carries the vital supplies of oxygen to your heart, brain and body, hugging can be seen both as a life-giver and a life-saver, as well as a wonderful expression of Social Intelligence and confidence.

Mirror Talk

Before any social meeting, check yourself – ideally in a full-length mirror. Rather than just casually checking yourself and your appearance, imagine that you are the Costume Director and Producer on a film set. Your function is to make sure that the clothes your star actor (you!) is wearing are perfectly appropriate for the role, and to make sure that your star looks so attractive that other people will actively want to make contact. When you are dressed well and appropriately for the occasion, you and your body feel at ease and confident.

‘All the world’s a stage …’

Make a habit of ‘people watching’. It is a constant, entertaining, informative (and free!) theatre. Make yourself an increasing expert on the intricate body-language conversations that ‘speak to you’ on the streets, in restaurants, at social events, on beaches, and in all places where human beings congregate. When you see examples of particularly superb body-to-brain communication, mimic them and incorporate them in your own body language.

Social Brain Boosters

 I am developing my body to be a superb communication device.

 My words and actions are increasingly congruent.

 I am spreading smiles wherever I go.

In the next chapter we will consider another vital non-verbal part of communicating with other people – listening to them!

The Art of Listening

Chapter Three

‘We are interested in others when they are interested in us.’

(Publilius Syrus)

The Roman poet Publilius obviously knew about Social Intelligence! If someone shows an interest in us and clearly wants to know us better, then we will be more interested and favourably disposed towards them.

The best, easiest and most effective way of showing interest in another person is to listen to what they are saying – to really listen, focusing on what they are saying, as opposed to standing there planning our own reposts and anecdotes in turn!

Listening in a Socially Intelligent way shows that you find someone to be worth your attention, and to be of value as a person – and everyone responds positively to that.

A Cautionary Tale of Social Intelligence – Part Two

When I was still in the ‘Mighty Muscle/Mighty Vocabulary’ stage of developing my Social Intelligence, I would tend to ‘dominate the airwaves’. This was because I thought that the more brilliant points I made, the more brilliant the conversation was.

This was a very one-sided and limited view.

Nature stepped in and taught me a very valuable lesson.

Just before an important social occasion, I contracted an irritating throat infection. To my chagrin, I could hardly utter a word.

At the party I met someone who was passionate about many things. We began an animated conversation, but because of my weakened voice, I was soon reduced to nodding, massaging the conversation with well-placed ‘uhuhms’ and very occasionally asking a question, which gave my companion the opportunity to launch into another five-minute conversational journey.

When we eventually parted I assumed that he would consider me an utter bore, as I had contributed probably less than 5 per cent to the conversation, and he comfortably more than 95 per cent.

To my amazement I heard later that he considered me a fascinating conversationalist!

How could this be so?

The light slowly began to dawn: we had had a wonderful conversation. He had entertained me with delightful stories and provocative concepts; my body, rather than my voice, had ‘spoken back to him’, indicating that I was interested, was involved and, by my supportive presence, I had allowed him to explore his own thoughts in good company, and therefore not only to have a conversation with me but also with himself.

I realized that listening gave me this wonderful opportunity to be completely relaxed in a conversation, to be entertained with wonderful tales and thoughts, as well as allowing me to give someone else the opportunity to be freely expressive.

I realized that up to that time, I had been guilty of what Leonardo da Vinci observed: that most people ‘listen without hearing’.

This chapter is devoted to helping you listen with hearing!

Listening – A Neglected Art

It is estimated that we spend between 50 and 80 per cent of our waking life communicating. On average half of that communication time is spent in listening. In schools and colleges the percentage is even higher, and in the business world listening ranks as one of the top three most important necessary managerial skills. Amazingly, despite all this, listening is the ‘poor relation’ of communication skills when it comes to being taught, despite the fact that it is learned first and used most, as the table below shows.

LearnedUsedTaughtListening 1stMost (45%)LeastSpeaking 2ndNext most (35%)Next leastReading 3rdNext least (16%)Next mostWriting 4thLeast (9%)Most

The Power of Social Intelligence is going to help you redress that balance.

Self-check 1

How would you rate yourself as a listener? On a scale from 0–100, with 0 representing the worst listener imaginable, and 100 meaning that you listen better than anybody else, how well do you think you listen to people?

Self-check 2

On a scale of 0–100, how do you think the following people would rate you as a listener?

1. Your family (you may give them individual ratings or a group average)

2. Your best friend

3. Your other friends

4. Your boss

5. Your work colleagues

6. Any people you supervise at work

Most people (in fact a staggering 85 per cent) rate their listening ability as average or less. On a 0–100 scale, the average rating is 55. Only a tiny 5 per cent score themselves in the 80–90 range, or consider themselves excellent listeners. By the time you have finished reading this chapter, you should be in that top category!

When it comes to other people assessing your listening skills, if you gave your best friend the highest score out of the six groups, you will be in the majority! In fact most people believe that their best friend would give them a higher rating as a listener than they would give to themselves.

People rate their boss as giving them the second-highest listener rating, and this rating also tends to be higher than the rating they give themselves. This is because of the power of authority. People tend to pay more attention to those who have their lives, or part of them, in their hands. Interestingly, and you can muse upon this, colleagues and subordinates tend to be rated exactly the same as the individual rates herself or himself – 55 out of 100.

Scores for family members range widely, depending on the particular structure of the family and the interpersonal relationships. Rather depressingly, the ratings which people thought their spouse or partner would give their listening skills tend to decline in inverse proportion to the number of years they have been together. There is a moral in there …

Bad Listening Habits

There are 10 listening habits that are most damaging to your skill as a listener and most weakening of your Social Intelligence.

1 Pretending to pay attention when you are really not

2 Trying to do other things while listening

3 Deciding the subject is uninteresting

4 Getting distracted by the speaker’s way of speech, or other mannerisms

5 Getting over-involved and thus losing the main thread of the person’s argument or thoughts

6 Letting emotion-filled words arouse personal anger and antagonism

7 Concentrating on any distractions instead of what is being said

8 Taking linear, one-colour notes

9 Listening primarily for facts

10 Avoiding anything that is complex or difficult

Of which bad listening habits are you guilty?! Make a note of where your weaknesses lie, and where you can do most to improve your listening skills.

Active Listening

Listening is not a passive activity; it’s not the ‘unexciting’ or ‘unflamboyant’ part of a conversation. As I myself found out, listening well is the vital ingredient in a successful, productive and interesting conversation.

‘Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing.’

(Robert Benchley)

Nor is it just a person’s words that we should listen to. If we are aware of the other person’s body language as well (see Chapter 2) we can intuit so much more meaning from any conversation – we can listen to what they feel as well as what they say.

There is a humorous phase that is particularly apt here: ‘I know that you believe that you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant!’

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