The Body Never Lies by Emmanuel Manolakakis, Regional Director

Body Language is older than spoken language. If the human race is nearly 3 million years old, human speech is only 100,000.

As a security professional, it is vital that you develop the skill of observation. Take the time to learn how to read and decode body language: first individuals and then of groups of people.

Here are a few mistakes I’ve seen security guards make …

1. Failed to consider context—context is key! 

2. Forgot that people can find meaning in a single gesture

3. Did not understand or know the baseline (normal level)

4. Evaluated/filtered a situation with cultural biases

5. Evaluated/filtered a person through own personal biases

Pay attention, evaluate gestural clusters, consider the context.

Once you know what to listen to and look for as an individual’s norm, you can detect changes that accompany stress of varying degrees. Note when an individual is in a relaxed state so that gestures and physical responses are involuntary and happen naturally without affectation or stress. See if you can feel and see things from the other’s point of view. Don’t jump to conclusions based on things you think are true—avoid assumptions

ALL OF US ARE BORN WITH ROUGHLY THE SAME ABILITIES TO USE OUR BODIES TO COMMUNICATE AND YET THOSE ABILITIES RESULT IN SOME REMARKABLE DIFFERENCES IN THE WAY WE EXPRESS OURSELVES