Your Body Speaks First—Make It Count

Hey, I'm Kwame Christian, and you are about to step into the world of Negotiate Anything, the number one negotiation podcast in the world, where we teach you how to make difficult conversations easier while getting more of what you want in the process. Each episode is packed with practical tips and strategies from the experts. We delve into negotiation, conflict resolution, and leadership skills that are crucial in both business and in life. Whether you're closing a deal, managing a team, or navigating personal relationships, Negotiate Anything provides you with the tools you need to succeed. Our conversations are real, relatable, and most importantly, rooted in practicality. So if you're ready to transform your conversations and elevate your negotiation skills, join me on Negotiate Anything. Subscribe and listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you love to listen. Let's make every conversation a winning negotiation.

David, thanks for joining us today.

It is my honor and pleasure to be with you.

And it is my honor and pleasure to have you my friend. You come highly recommended by our mutual friend, Mike Reddington. I already know this is going to be good.

Well, thank you very much. I look forward to it, too.

Perfect. Well, how would you get us started? By telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do.

Okay, great. Well, my name is David Matsumoto. I'm born and raised Honolulu, Hawaii, way back when, and I was raised in Hawaii until I graduated high school. I went to university at the University of Michigan, where I saw snow for the first time in my life, which is also an interesting negotiation discussion. Finished four years at Michigan and came to UC Berkeley for graduate school in 1981. I finished a master's and PhD here at UC Berkeley in psychology. And I was very, very fortunate to get a job here in the Bay Area when I graduated in 1986. I then moved to San Francisco State University in 1989, where I have been till now. So I've been at San Francisco State University for 34 years. During that time, I also have opened and run a company called Humantel, which does consulting, research, and training in the areas of reading people and body language, most of it in relation to investigative interviewing, deception detection, threat assessment, a bunch of negotiation stuff. And so we've been doing that for almost coming up upon 20 years. In addition to all of that, I do judo. You know, judo is kind of the major force in my life that keeps me going. I've done it since I was 7 years old. I'm 63 now, so that if you do the math, and I shouldn't say this, because then I got to do the math right on the fly. But in 57 years or 56 years or so, I've been doing judo. And despite the wherever my body is, I'll still get on the mat and. And try to work on. So that's me in a nutshell. I think.

I love this. And listeners, you might be wondering, why is a Buckeye having a Wolverine on the podcast? Well, as you can tell, he does judo, so I'm not going to mess with him. Okay.

All right, listen, I didn't realize you're a Buckeye. If I knew that, we would not be.

You know.

Listen, I was there in the days when Woody Hayes and Bo Schembechler used to duke it out on boy. And they would. Towns would go crazy, Ann Arbor would go crazy, and whatever college town. Is that a university there? I mean, oh, God, you're a Buckeye.

Oh, listen, see, I have to make sure that I disclose that once we've already committed to the episode.

I see. Okay, well, go blue. There we go.

See this we.

I was just glad that your. Your deception detection didn't pick up on my buckeye vibes.

Yeah, I should have turned on the Jedi stuff when I was reading about this thing, you know.

Oh, this is great.

I think we are overdue for an episode on nonverbal behavior. This is your expertise, and I'm just excited to get into this in general. When we talk about nonverbal behavior, I want to get your definition of nonverbal behavior, and then we'll start to go from there.

Okay, well, nonverbal behavior is any behavior that transmits messages that is not words. So anything like the fact that you're. I think you're writing something down, the fact that you're looking down, the fact that a person is smiling. And I mean, I see non verbal behavior as a subset of non verbal communication. So the kind of microphone you've got, the fact that you've got that sweater on, the color of that sweater, you know, all the other things that gives us a message about who the other person is or the context in which you're in, gives us flavor and understanding of what's going on. So that's the larger world of nonverbal communication, which is also important to any interaction, I think. And then the behaviors are the things that people do. It's any of the dynamic movements and actions that a person does that communicates without words. So it's any of that.

This is great. And the reason why I wanted to start there is because I think most people listening would think that they have an understanding of what nonverbal behavior is. And when you're talking to a true expert, they can see those nuances. They can see the layers that are almost imperceptible to other people. So that's why I want us to start there too. And even that distinction between nonverbal communication and non verbal behavior, that is substantial, but I think a lot of people miss it. Can you go a little bit deeper into that and draw the distinction even further?

Oh yeah, sure. You're exactly right. A lot of people use those terms interchangeably. But I, and most, I think scholars in the field differentiate those terms nonverbal communication and nonverbal behavior. So again, nonverbal communication is the larger umbrella term that covers non verbal behavior and other buckets of communicative modes that we get messages from. For example, the physical environment that we're in, right? If we, if we were meeting in a restaurant that was well lit and we were sitting at a certain type of table with chairs across each other, that's different than meeting at McDonald's or meeting in a, in a very fine dining restaurant where it's darker and you were sitting adjacent to each other, et cetera, et cetera. So the physical environment is one of the buckets of non verbal communication. Another bucket of non verbal communication is physical appearance. Of course, our size, our shape and all that other stuff that are immutable to our person. But all the other things that we choose to place on us because all of that gives an impression to others, but also tells others something about yourself. It's like, I mean, I didn't mean to put you on the spot, but yes, the color of your, your sweater and whether you've got a little facial like I, you know, I don't have as much there, or, or the type of glasses that a person chooses to use and what I've chosen to wear, everything that I've chosen about my appearance tells one something about that person. So for example, if I come with a little badge, a pin here that says, um, U of M, you know, then I wouldn't have had to have made that statement about U of M. We could have had an immediately a discussion about that. And there, because I've. People put those things on for a reason and those are interesting places to have conversations, to develop that rapport, to just show your interest in other people, I think. And so anyway, there's a physical appearance bucket. Then there's another bucket called that I call behavioral traces. So this is where you're not here anymore, but I can tell. But you've done something that tells me something about you. For example, if I just ran across Kwame's car and I saw that it was a 1964 Mustang, red, dark red, that tells me something about you. As opposed to Whether it's a 2023 Hyundai or whatever, and what color it is and what bumper stickers you've got and the layout of your house and what you've got in your yard. These are behavioral tr. You're not there, but it tells me something about you. So that's the third bucket. The fourth bucket then becomes the non verbal behavior. These are the dynamic actions and movements of our bodies that transmit a message to somebody else that tells us about that person's mental states, their personalities, their intentions, their motivations and other characteristics. You know, if we, if we're watching two people or more interact, we can get an idea of, of the nature of the relationship, their intimacy levels, their comfort levels, their hierarchy, you know, and who's the boss and who's the subordinate and things like that. And I'm just. And now I'm starting to just ramble. But those are the four buckets of non verbal communication, which non verbal behavior is one of those buckets. But of course, you know, it happens. I think it's one of the most important buckets.

I agree. And this already has been a masterclass, David, so I appreciate this. So let me just recap it really quickly for the audience. So the larger umbrella term is non verbal communication. And there are four elements of it. We have the physical environment, we have the physical experience, we have behavioral traces and then non verbal behaviors. And if the listeners are kind of like me, they are blown away by just how much there is to this, and then potentially overwhelmed, saying, where do I even begin? Because there is that, you know, we have that position where we're in, where we suddenly become aware of our ignorance.

That can be overwhelming.

So for the everyday negotiators, when we're trying to take this information and make it practical for us, where would you suggest that we start?

Well, I'll tell you exactly where to start. And this is my suggestion. And it's knowing that background. The place to start is to observe. I mean, really observe. Most of us think we observe, but we don't really observe. Take notice of that background. Take notice of what that person may be wearing. Take notice. You know, I. I know a lot of people I think are great negotiators. And one of them told me something that really stuck with me. I don't necessarily agree with the content, but the thought is something that's really interesting, which is every time he walked into, he was going to talk to somebody, he noticed their shoes because it told them something. Yeah, I get it. I'm not the shoe guy either. But it told them something about that person. And sometimes it would lead to a discussion or not. So other people I know say look at, you know, notice their watch. Other people I know say notice whatever pin or badge they've got on them, notice or notice the picture they've got on the desk when you walk into the room. Whether it's the picture or the watch or the shoes. The main point for me is notice, right? Because my job in the world is not, is to help people get better data about the individuals they're going to talk to. So I'm talking to a master negotiator right now. And my job is to open people's eyes and minds to the fact that there's all this additional data about that person that you can get that made, that was always there. But we may not be leveraging now. What do you do with that data? Now we're back in your world right now. It's okay, let's say you notice that watch, or you notice that shoes, or you notice that picture, or you notice the layout of the room, or the color of the their furniture, or the frown on their face or the smile on their face or whatever it is, what do you do with that? Now we go back into your world, right? Where are you in the negotiation? What kind of relationship do you have? What's the purpose of why you're meeting there? But my job is to get you that data so that now you have additional information that you can operate on it's notice. Now that we know that the world has all this information, let's make a little notice. And sometimes leveraging something you notice that's not exactly the content of your interaction. In my experience, sometimes leveraging something little on the side means all the world to building that relationship, to building that rapport, to setting the stage, to having a good fruitful conversation as long as we do it well. But if you don't notice, you don't have that platform, you don't have, you can't, you don't have that springboard to do that.

This is great for me. What makes this so exciting and empowering is the fact that that's something I can do nowhere. No matter where we are in this journey, negotiation and observation, we can all start to notice more things. And I think that's really exciting. And you're absolutely right. We're not exactly sure how or if the things that we notice will come into play in the negotiation.

Right.

But we give ourselves the opportunity to take advantage of it. If we do start by noticing. At the end of the day, negotiation is an information game. The more information we get, the better off we're going to be. And then the next level would be understanding what to do with that information actually in the moment with the other person.

I think you're exactly right. And you know, most good operators that I talk with, whether they're operating in the world of negotiation or sales or investigations or in the intelligence world, most good operators have heard of the mantra about active listening. What I'm suggesting is we do the active observation as well, and we put the active observation together with the active listening because just listening will limit yourself. I mean, listening is important now. So let me. People sometimes take me wrong and suggest that. I suggest that, you know, the words don't matter. Words are incredibly important. But sometimes we just, we rely on the words. The exclusion of the, of the world around the, what I call the packaging of the world with the words and words that we have in human communication are always packaged by the nonverbal behavior that we produce when we say them, as I'm doing it right now, and as we all do them, and by the context in which we are in, taking notice of the package I think can be really important.

I agree. And this is just some Kwami curiosity here, David. When you think about your vast amount of experience with non verbal behavior, micro expressions, nonverbal communication as a whole, I should say as well. And then you bring it to the sport of judo, let's say, if you are looking at the person on the other side that you're going to be up against, do you bring some of this observation to the mats as well?

Well, yes, in many different levels. I mean, the communication when we're with somebody else. Judo's kind of interesting, you know, because it's one of the few martial arts like jiu jitsu, where you, you're actually grabbing a hold of somebody else. Like other martial. Many of their martial arts have people at a separate distance, right? And so they're striking and kicking and all that kind of st. But judo and jujitsu are pretty unique in that we're gripping each other. And so communication occurs here. And this is non verbal communication. I'm communicating with that other person. And believe me, a lot of communication is occurring in these Wrists, Right. It's like, I mean, when one gets experience, you can tell this person knows what they're doing or not, is afraid for their life or not. And all this other stuff is happening right here. And then the other senses, like my observational skills and all that other stuff kind of color all of that, this communication that's occurring right here. So I would say that the observations start here in judo. When I'm coaching judo and you know, I've coached a lot of judo, of course I'm not grabbing another player because I'm on the side coaching of an athlete to win a match. And absolutely I'm observing their posture, their gait, their expressions in the meantime, how they're reacting to tough situations because as you know, second by second there's someone that wants to kick your butt and, and it's interesting to how people react to that. Right. And I use that, those observations to help me understand and thus provide advice to athletes on how to overcome whatever they're dealing with in the moment. And sometimes it's overcoming their own reactions and sometimes it's helping them to find a way to overcome their opponents behavior. But yeah, the observations become crucial at that point because at that point I've only got observations when I'm doing judo. It is observation plus the feel. Right. It's a little different when you're doing it versus you're coaching it.

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Yeah. Oh, that's fascinating. That's really interesting. The part that I think is most interesting to me is how you talked about how you're reading the body language, but also how the person walks, how they carry themselves and those type of things. Because the way that you carry yourself, your presence, your aura, however we want to describe it, that by itself can be persuasive. You're sending messages all the time. And so for us as negotiators, when we're thinking about our own body language and Our own nonverbal communication. What are the things that we should keep in mind?

Oh, so I'm so sorry to talk about on generic levels, but here it is. It's to do exactly what you're saying, keep that in mind. Because a lot of people don't keep that in mind and just go into their situations without thinking about how they're coming off. And I don't think that there's, I mean, now. So I don't know the answer to this question. You tell me. Actually, I don't think that there is a one way rule that the way you need to come off to have a successful negotiation. I think sometimes you want to come off looking really strong when you're walking in their posture, you're. But I think sometimes that may not be the best thing depending upon who you're talking. I'm just guessing here. And if that's the case, there's not one rule. I think the, the rule is what you know, that you're coming off a certain way and be strategic about how you want to come off. And if you're strategic, given the goals and who you're talking to and all that other. Now we're in your world, being strategic is, is the more important thing to me. Like, you know, I do a lot of work with investigators and it's very clear in the world of investigative interviewing, which is like a negotiation. It is exactly a negotiation, right. I mean, most cops who are doing an investigation are negotiators as well. They're just selling a different product. They sell jail, right? I mean, come on, man. That's the way I approach this. You know, they're selling jail. So they're like, they could use the negotiation classes too, but that's a different story, you know, but you know, it's very clear in the investigative world that in generally a non confrontation based approach is really, is really effective. It's very effective. But it's sometimes it's okay to be a little bit confrontational. The question is be strategic about it, right? It's okay to be aggressive, just be strategic about it. But when people are reactively aggressive, reactively confrontational, then it's a 50, 50, you know, percentage of whether you're going to be effective or not. And we want negotiators in those world, in most of our worlds to be as effective as they possibly can. And that means be strategic about what you're doing. So now I'm just going taking the long route about by suggesting, answering your question. Be strategic about how you're coming off. And if you sometimes, you know, there's been times when I, I don't consider myself a mass negotiator at all. Although I tend to do pretty well about, in my world, what I want. Right. But it's. Sometimes it's important to come off like, hey, I'm the guy. Get out of my way. And then sometimes it's not, Sometimes it's not. Doesn't work like that. And it's important to know the difference.

I think 100% you're spot on. And I, again, I love the simplicity of this advice because it's like my favorite quote from da Vinci. Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. It takes a lot of intelligence and experience to be able to simplify a complicated message to this level. Because you're right. At the end of the day, we need to be strategic. We need to make sure that we have a plan that narrowly tailored to the situation at hand. And I think a lot of times people go in with this one size fits all approach. Okay. I need to be mindful of my body language.

Language.

All right. I'm going to stand up straight. Shoulders tall. Stand tall. Okay, great. And now you're apologizing for a mistake that you make. And you walk in like, loud, strong and proud.

Loud, strong and proud. Okay, wrong. And strong.

Right.

90% of the mistakes are there. Okay. So.

Right.

It doesn't work.

Now if there's a situation, if somebody's trying to bully you and you're trying to, you're letting people know, like, no, I'm going to stand up for myself. I'm going to stand up for my team. Now that approach might make more sense. You have to recognize the situation that you're in and recognize that these are dynamic situations. Different situations will require different approaches. And the best negotiators and the best communicators are able to flow.

You know, I'm appreciative that you can give the nuances of what I'm saying. The other thing about what the way I always answer that or think about that is, you know, if I suggest, hey, stand up straight, put your shoulders back, and then it becomes mechanical. And people who are, and even if you're not a pro, people can tell a person who's faking their behavior generally a mile away. And once you come off, as in disingenuous, you know, you're, you're, you're starting at a bad place. Right. Whether it's a negotiation or any kind of interaction, I think being, appearing to be genuine and Appearing to be authentic, even if you're angry or sad or whatever that is. But appearing to be genuine and appearing to be authentic goes a long way with just having a human to human relationship and interaction. And thus when I suggest just be noticed, think about it, be noticeable and then be strategic about it. That way we allow ourselves to have the our behaviors come from the inside, not be forced from the outside. I'm hey, I'm going to go and sit up and I'm going to put my hand here and now that's mechanics I want to, to me it's better to for those behaviors to be expressions of an internal state and that way it becomes more genuine. And I think the perceptions of genuineness are really important to, for most of our interactions.

You're spot on. And that's something that I talk about a lot when it comes to confidence too. So somebody, sometimes people would ask me, how do I look more confident? And I say that the problem is that you're not confident. It's not about faking that you're confident. It's about doing the things in order to build up your confidence. So like you said, we could have the behaviors representing our internal state. And I want to briefly and somewhat selfishly turn this into a micro coaching session. And this isn't a situation where I want you to just validate blindly for my ego. If I'm off on this, I want you to let me know. So when I was talking, when I was reading Joe Navarro's book, what everybody is thinking, this is a question I should have asked when he was on the podcast. Actually you would like his episode. I'll send it to you. It was really good. One of the things he talks about is asynchronous behavior. So it's like the body language isn't matching the internal state and people can pick up on the fact that something's off. So for me, when I read that in the past, what I would try to do is hide my emotional state. If I'm upset, I don't want to let people know. If I'm sad, I don't want to let people know. But now what I would do is I would give a little disclaimer. So if any of that emotionality leaks out, they understand where it's coming from. And so I want to get your thoughts on that.

Oh, in general, I think that's a really good thing in general because my hesitation about that is I'm assuming one's already met you or whoever has made the decision that your the status of your relationship is okay enough where that disclaimer can be okay, because sometimes it, you know, you're not at a place where disclaimers can be made, I think. So assuming that that's the case, that you can make such disclaimers and you're on that level of natural, unhidden, genuine interaction, then of course that's good. That gives people a way to understand whatever they're seeing. And then it's easier for us to then be more honest to what's going on inside of us. And that's. And again, the perceptions of genuineness, the perceptions of authenticity given that are going to be key, I think. And even when it's negative, like you're talking about, it's important. I think so it's good. I think.

Good, good. And specifically, most of the time it's, hey, I'm really hungry right now, and.

If I come off as snappy, please apologize. I need a snickers, right? Oh, this is good.

But, you know, actually I'm thinking, I mean, if somebody. We didn't start like this, but if you started like that today and said, hey, by the way, I just happen to be X, you know, if I appear snap, then I would have. Oh, okay, cool. So, yeah, I think in most situations that's probably an interesting and okay. And probably a good thing to do, especially if you knew you're snappy now, if you were lying about it, you know? Right. I mean, and going back your thought there, you don't want to be doing things like this, as in a mechanistic way, you're being honest about your situation. Right. And then that would be cool.

Perfect. No, thank you. That's very helpful. And I think, really, when it gets comes down to it, authenticity, I think sometimes we overthink it and we need to give ourselves the license to be ourselves in this moment too.

Well, you know, the thing that comes to mind. I'm sorry, jump in. The thing that comes to my mind are people who are not necessarily as confident and thus are not as perceived as confident, and they're trying to be confident. And sometimes I find those people try too hard. And sometimes it's okay to just. I mean, again, depending upon the situation in the relationship, sometimes it's okay to just maybe put it out there that you're. You may not be as confident about X or, you know, or whatever that is as opposed to faking it. Because perceptions of faking behavior, I think, are pretty detrimental to many different kinds of efficient and effective interactions. And the other thing I wanted to Mention about what you said about confidence is the perception of confidence is so important. It's related to what I'm talking about. I can tell you a lot about judo stories about this, but the perceptions of confidence are best when matched with actual competence. Right. And because there's a lot of people out there who look really confident that don't know what the hell they're talking about. Right. Or don't know what the hell they're doing on the mat, for example. And we want to have confidence with the confidence. And when we have competence with. When we have competence, the way our confidence comes out is a different way. It doesn't have to be as brash, it doesn't have to be as out there. But people who know, right? And so I think I always think about confidence, perceptions of confidence to be teamed with actual competence.

I agree 100%. I was in an interview a little bit ago, tables were turned. People were interviewing me, and they were talking about the confidence issue. And I said, I talked about some tactics and strategies to build your confidence, predominantly practicing and just improving. And I said, sometimes we just have to recognize that the reason we don't feel confident is because we haven't done what it takes to earn the confidence. And sometimes you just have to own that and say, I just need to get better.

Absolutely. That's exactly what it is. And, you know, in the training world, whatever you're training, nothing matters except being better than who you were yesterday, right?

Bingo.

And whether it's about negotiation skills or judo skills or interrogation skills or whatever it is, or being a person skills, it's just trying to be better than who you were yesterday.

Absolutely. That's what it comes down to. This is so good, David. My negotiation. I'm going to do this publicly on the podcast. Everybody watch my negotiation skills. I need you to come back on the podcast.

This was so good. Yeah, this is great.

And before you go, make sure to let the listeners know about your company and the work you do and how to get in touch.

I really appreciate that. My company's name is Humantel. That H U M I N T E L L. You can catch us@humantel.com. come over there. There's blogs, there's free stuff for webinars and courses and things like that. I'm happy to see everybody over there. Drop us a note. There's all kinds of things going on there, and I would love being back here on your podcast, but I still got to do something about your melodious voice, man, because I'm afraid listeners are out there listening to your melodious voice voice and my scratchy, squealy voice. And next time I got to come off with some other voice filter or something like that, you know?

Listen, man, you sound great to me.

But listen, if you want to know where I got this voice from, there was a class called how to have a beautiful Voice at the Ohio State University. And, you know, that's where I got it from.

I'm sorry, is that an accredited university? I mean, you might want to file for accreditation, you know, and get. Get to the next level. Okay.

Oh, man, I love this. David, this was a pleasure, my friend.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Take care.

Congratulations.

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