The Ultimate Body Language Book

thoughts and ideas. This is why is it important, as closed body language arises, to immediately recalibrate
your tactics. If your target’s legs cross, have them stand up and move to the same side of the
table to get a closer look at the material, or have them reach forward for something, forcing them to
take a ready position with their bodies leaning toward you. If their arms are crossed, have them jot
down notes on a piece of paper which you can express as being important for later, or have them
examine a document which you can hand to them. You will want to carefully monitor their post
position to see if after the item is discarded they return to their original closed body position. If they are
adamant in keeping closed, they probably aren’t receiving the message to your favour.
Other ways to open people include handing them a cup of coffee, or glass of water, show them
photographs of family or pets, handing them model cars or any other office artifact you might have
noticed them examining with some interest. Handing them any object forces them to uncross their arms
to reach for it thereby opening them. The object used isn’t vitally important, it just needs to be
interesting enough to motivate them to reach for it. By doing a bit of research beforehand, you can
probably find a mutual interest that can be exploited during the pitch to build rapport. This will prove
especially useful if the meeting takes a turn for the worst. Being creative to re-open the conversation is
an important tactic for everyone in business.
Chapter 7 - Opened Mind Opened Body Closed Mind Closed Body
The Meaning Of Leg Crossing
These legs are interested – note how they are crossed toward rather than away.
The legs are equally as expressive as the arm in terms of the meaning they convey. This is largely
because the arms are frequently busy doing other task oriented things whereas the legs usually remain
idle free to express hidden thoughts. Of course, the legs also have their share of work to do, but when
sitting or standing still they have a tendency to leak information. We also pay less attention to our legs
because they move less freely putting them further away from our consciousness. Perhaps we feel that
because our legs can only do so much we need not pay them any mind and so reason we ignore them.