Malcolm Gladwell on Physical Presence and Leadership

In the May 22nd New Yorker, Malcolm Gladwell has an article that could be seen as a profile of "Dog Whisperer" Cesar Millan or as a exploration of Millan's methods and why they work.  But the real topic was the importance of physical presence in leadership, and I came away with an increased appreciation for the ways in which our physical "phrasing"--our "combinations of gesture and posture"--affect how we are perceived by others.  (As Gladwell notes, "the great communicators are those who match their phrasing with their communicative intentions.")

We're trained to think of communication as an inborn skill, but I've learned (the hard way) that I can be a much more effective communicator by being more mindful of everything from the words I choose to my tone of voice to my facial expressions.  Why couldn't I also be more mindful of my physical presence?  Gladwell writes elsewhere, "Movement analysts say that we all have a kind of phrasing baseline—a personal style that is fairly unconscious and unchangeable. But, as with all personal traits, we can definitely learn to improve our performance at the margins."

Gladwell's perspective is rooted in Laban Movement Analysis, devised by Rudolf Laban in the early 20th century and extended by Irmgard Bartenieff and Warren Lamb.  Laban classes are offered as a form of alternative movement therapy and his work is apparently still a big influence in contemporary dance, but I'd also love to see these principles applied simply to help people feel more comfortable in their bodies, to be more mindful of their "phrasing," and to be more effective communicators.  If anyone knows of any classes like that in or around San Francisco, let me know.

Extended quotes from the Gladwell article and a separate Q&A with Ben Greenman after the jump.

tags: malcolm gladwell cesar millan rudolf laban laban movement analysis phrasing new yorker

From Gladwell's "What the Dog Saw" in the May 22nd New Yorker:

When Cesar walked down the stairs of Patrice and Scott's home then, and crouched down in the back yard, JonBee [an aggressive dog] looked at him, intently.  And what he saw was someone who moved in a very particular way.  Cesar is fluid.  "He's beautifully organized intra-physically," Karen Bradley, who heads the graduate dance program at the University of Maryland, said when she saw tapes of Cesar in action.  "That lower-unit organization.  I wonder whether he was a soccer player."  Movement experts like Bradley use something called Laban Movement Analysis to make sense of movement, describing, for instance, how people shift their weight, or how fluid and symmetrical they are when they move, or what kind of "effort" it involves.  Is it direct or indirect--that is, what kind of attention does the movement convey?  Is it quick or slow?  Is it strong or light--that is, what is its intention?  Is it bound or free--that is, how much precision is involved?  If you want to emphasize a point, you might bring your hand down across your body in a single, smooth motion.  But how you make that motion greatly affects how your point will be interpreted by your audience.  Ideally, your hand would come down in an explosive, bound movement--that is, with accelerating force, ending abruptly and precisely--and your head and shoulders would descend simultaneously, so posture and gesture would be in harmony.  Suppose, though, that your head and shoulders moved upward as your hand came down, or your hand came down in a free, implosive manner--that is, with a kind of vague, decelerating force.  Now your movement suggests that you are making a point on which we all agree, which is the opposite of your intention.  Combinations of posture and gesture are called phrasing, and the great communicators are those who match their phrasing with their communicative intentions--who understand, for instance, that emphasis requires them to be bound and explosive.  To Bradley, Cesar had beautiful phrasing.

There he is talking to Patrice and Scott.  He has his hands in front of him... He then leans forward for emphasis.  But as he does he lowers his hands to waist level, and draws them toward his body, to counterbalance the intrusion of his posture.  And, when he leans backward again, the hands rise up, to fill the empty space.  It's not the kind of thing you'd ever notice.  But, when it's pointed out, its emotional meaning is unmistakable.  It is respectful and reassuring.  It communicates without being intrusive...

"Mostly what we see in the normal population is undifferentiated phrasing," Bradley said... "When we meet someone like this"--she nodded at Cesar, on the television screen--"what do we do?  We give them their own TV series.  Seriously.  We reward them.  We are drawn to them, because we can trust that we can get the message.  It's not going to be hidden.  It contributes to a feeling of authenticity."

Gladwell expands on this discussion of phrasing in a New Yorker Q&A with Ben Greenman:

Cesar Millan’s success is credited not only to his experience with dogs but to one specific skill: phrasing, which deals with the vocabulary and syntax of gesture and movement. How old is the study of phrasing?

The study of human movement—at least, in the formal, sophisticated way that I’m talking about in the article—dates to Rudolf Laban, who was active between the wars. Much of his work was picked up and extended in the nineteen-fifties and sixties by a man named Warren Lamb. So this is a discipline with a fairly extensive history. Laban, interestingly, was a dancer, and this theory started as a way of understanding and notating dance. If you think about it, in that world you need a language to describe movement just as you need a language to describe music.

You write about political phrasing, and how a politician like Bill Clinton or Ronald Reagan is better at calming and inspiring an audience than a politician like George W. Bush is. How much difference does that make to voters watching speeches on television? How much does phrasing overlap with personal charisma?

That’s a good question, and not one I have a good answer to. Television has a strangely muting effect on a lot of this stuff. A former aide to Clinton once said to me that if Bill Clinton had been able to personally shake the hand of every American, he would have been elected unanimously. I think that’s right. In person, people like this are far more impressive than on television: we pick up so much more on nuance. I remember the first time I saw Jesse Jackson live. I’d seen him many times on TV, and was unimpressed. I thought he was kind of a clown. In person, I was floored. Cesar is the same way: it’s only when you meet him that you “get” why he has that kind of effect on dogs...

Cesar’s phrasing skill impresses not only dogs but dance teachers and movement analysts, and some of them use their own phrasing to work with children with developmental issues. What are the broader implications of good phrasing?

What we’re talking about, when it comes to phrasing, is simply the ability to communicate with clarity. We all think that those around us have the ability to read our minds—and we get frustrated when our intentions are misunderstood. But the truth is that accurate communication is really hard, and only a very small number of people can do it well. One of my favorite quotes in the article was from Karen Bradley, a prominent movement analyst, who said that when someone does manage to properly integrate posture and gesture with speech we tend to give them TV shows. Oprah is a great example. We also tend to elect them President—like Reagan and Clinton.

Did your phrasing change during the time you worked on the article? Are there certain gestures that you now try to include in your movement vocabulary?

I make a point of never connecting what I’m writing about to my own life. Just kidding. Of course, I started to think about it. Actually, I became quite self-conscious for a while about what I was doing with my gestures. I wish, actually, that at some point in my life I had taken a course on movement. I suspect it would have saved me a great deal of grief over the years.

Can a person learn better phrasing late in life? In your article, you mention a dog owner who is a character actor. He is trained to communicate a certain amount of dramatic tension, which is productive onscreen but not good for calming dogs. Is there any hope for him? Can you teach an old non-dog new tricks?

To a certain extent, yes. Movement analysts say that we all have a kind of phrasing baseline—a personal style that is fairly unconscious and unchangeable. But, as with all personal traits, we can definitely learn to improve our performance at the margins. A good analogy is with actors. Are some people better natural actors than others? Absolutely. But even the best actors take acting lessons—and radically improve their performances as a result.

Comments

[Albert Mispel]

Was that a meme that buzzed my ear?
Gladwell does it well! (am glad)

[Jim Sullivan]

Malcolm Gladwell has a remarkable mind - he just seems to dig deeper than most other commentators.

Physical Presence is a fascinating topic; it has always interested me that so much of our body language expertise is unconscious - even the best textbooks on the subject deal only with the superficial aspects, and it seems to me that this is because we aren't meant to be able to understand this stuff explicitly or consciously.

Which begs the question : why not? Would it disadvantage us to have greater insight into body language? I suspect that it would, although that's quite a counter-intuitive idea.