Operations

This is the book most works on body language do not have. They stop at the catalogue of signals and leave you to cope with the genuinely hard question: I have just seen seventeen things in forty minutes, now what do I do with them?

The answer has two halves. The first is an organising framework — four diagnostic domains plus a verbal layer — that turns observation into structure. The second is a seven-step procedure that turns that structure into action, and, more importantly, turns the conversation itself into something that produces better data.

The chapters

1. 21The four diagnostic domainsComfort and discomfort, emphasis, synchrony, impression management. A framework that requires no single signal to be reliable.
2. 22The verbal layerThe highest-weighted layer for the true-or-false question: text bridges, stalling tactics, eleven linguistic features, and one misconception to correct.
3. 23Preparation and spatial designThe three-column table, four seating positions and the 95% figure, table shape, the round-table paradox, the back-and-door rule, the funnel effect, the mealtime setting.
4. 24First impressions and rapportNine ways to walk into a room, the principle linking status to the volume of gesture, eight baseline parameters, five rapport-building behaviours, and five elicitation tactics.
5. 25The question funnel and cognitive loadThe funnel method, memory enhancement, the strategic use of evidence, seven techniques for raising load, and two opposing triads of indicators.
6. 26Read, steer, verifyThe four-cell loop every three minutes, the decision tree for when the state deteriorates, the three-touch rule, and the final boundary of the whole set.