Greek mythology may not be the first thing we consider in our optical pond as relevant. The word ‘mentor’ hails from Homer’s The Odyssey, where Mentor, the son of Alcimus became a close friend of Odysseus, who gave Mentor the responsibility of ‘mentoring’ his son Telemachus, while the hero was away fighting the Trojan War.
Mentoring is not just for X-Factor contestants or Dragons’ Den entrepreneurs. We can all benefit from having someone you can trust by our side, to bounce ideas off, to listen to your problems or share our vision. Great mentors understand that their role in the relationship is to challenge, to ask the right questions to allow the mentee to come up with their own ideas and solutions.
As Mentoris, my role in this new column, I will be asking you some searching questions about your plans and dreams. As I revisit some of the challenges I have faced, my purpose will be to help you to think through some of yours and we can, I hope, make a difference to your thinking or approach to some of those challenges.
Non-verbal communication
With that in mind a good place to start is with communication. If I knew years ago what I know now about non-verbal communication, my life might have taken a different path. I know I missed many a buying signal, hired someone totally unsuitable and trusted someone who was lying to me.
As I sit here writing this column, in a well-known chain, I am surrounded by people communicating. I can’t hear most of the words they are saying due to the humdrum of noise but I know exactly what conversations are taking place.
Eye movement
Over my right shoulder there is a young woman, probably in her mid-20s with her back to me, sat opposite, a woman about twice her age. I think this is a manager speaking to one of her staff and I think the conversation is about how the employee deals with customers.
The conversation is around the employee’s performance (why they are in a public coffee shop having this conversation I cannot fathom).
Anyway, I can clearly see the manager’s eye movements. When she is recalling situations that have happened her eyes move (up to the left). When explaining what she’d like to see happening going forward it’s up and to the right.
When the employee is speaking, the manager is moving her eyes down to left, which means she may well be engaging in ‘self talk’. This eye movement indicates that she is already constructing her next sentence rather than actively listening to what the employee is saying.
The employee will know instinctively that she is not being ‘listened to’, although the chances are she doesn’t understand why.
Mirroring
To my left there is a dad, with three children aged probably two, four and six respectively. Clearly being the school holiday, he has been roped into seeing what mum has to deal with on a daily basis. I say that because he clearly has no idea how to entertain such a cocktail of energy. What is fascinating, however, is that the youngest is totally mimicking her older sibling, drinking when she does, eating her biscuit when she does and even sitting up on her knees on the chair when she does. This body language mirroring behaviour is believed to start early on in our lives, possibly even in the womb, and our heartbeats synchronise its speed with that of the mother.
Next time you are in a space where people are communicating, notice the social interactions between others. You will see that two or more people who are in a conversation that are in agreement will have the exact same posture and body language. As one changes their posture or position, the other follows.
You have probably heard the idea that yawning is contagious. It is simply a more obvious example of body language mirroring. Try yawning yourself in a conversation and watch what happens.
It’s not what you do – it’s the way that you do it
Albert Mehrabian’s research in 1971 developed the 7-38-55% rule for face to face conversations – 7% is actual words, 38% is how the words are said and 55% of the communication is non-verbal.
In our world of optics, it is essential we build genuine rapport in order to gain the trust of our patients. Understanding how body language contributes to this can reap significant benefits for both parties.
So, how much do you use non-verbal communication to help your patients understand your message? Your challenge this month is to go and find out about body language, read a book, watch a video or Google an article… and have a practice on purpose to see what happens.
Your thoughts and feedback in the letters page would be very welcome.