S4E8: Erica Dhawan, Digital Body Language

This is the No Ego Podcast, where we ditch the drama, end entitlement, and transform your workplace. I'm Sy Wakeman. Welcome listeners to another episode of the No Ego Podcast. As promised, I am bringing you all the experts I can find to help you work well in our future, whether it's hybrid, whether it's completely digital, whether you're the essential person in the office working with everybody else digitally, you're gonna love my next guest. She has written an amazing book for these times, and it's called Digital Body Language: How to Build Trust and Connection No Matter the Distance. And I'm gonna get right to it because she's fantastic. Erica DeJuan, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you so much for having me, Sy.

I know that you are on a whirlwind of a book tour, and you're probably getting asked a ton if you You just whipped this book up during the year of COVID but you've been working on helping us communicate digitally for many, many years. Is that my— is my understanding correct?

That's right, Sy. I have been working on this book for 5 years and definitely didn't expect it to be as relevant for everyone everywhere as it is now. But it's really been a lifelong journey and a lifelong story.

Tell a little bit about your history because I know that you have helped so many of us communicate better and use communication to really not just build connection, but to get great results and in a way that is zero drama. I love how you connect communication to no drama.

I grew up, Sy, as a shy and introverted girl. My parents were Indian immigrants and at home we spoke Hindi, which meant At school, I had accented broken English and I got teased. I dealt with a lot of drama as we've all maybe experienced in middle school and high school. But one of the things that I was able to do at a young age was really observe others because I was so shy and decipher and understand the importance of body language. I would watch the popular girls with their heads high, their shoulders back, the cool kids slouching during school assemblies. And it really developed my knack for understanding that it's not what we say. It's how we say it. And fast forward 30 years, I became an expert on communication and body language. But a few years ago, I kept hearing the same challenges from my clients, executives, leaders, team members in the workplace. I would hear questions like, why is there so much misunderstanding at work? How do we better connect with different ages and working styles? And one of the things I realized was that There was no rulebook for the body of our language in a digital world. I'll never forget one client. She is an executive at a large company and she got a performance review saying that her empathy was weak. It was a 360, so it mainly came from junior team members. And when I started coaching her, I looked for all the traditional markers of subpar empathy, whether it was poor listening or a lack of engagement in questioning. And I found that she was wonderful at all of these. She had great eye contact. She leaned in. She showed and asked questions to her team. But what I realized is while her body language was wonderful when it came to empathy, her digital body language was abysmal. She would have brief low-context emails. She would multitask during meetings. She would send one-liner subject lines that confused her entire team. So, in today's age, what I've learned is that We all need to master this new skill of digital body language, and it is critical for no drama in the workplace.

What a great story. And I love your background, how you took, you know, a challenging situation and turned it into a gift, basically, to give the world. And I think that people just really forget 2 things. They forget we're animals, basically. And so it isn't just what we're saying, but You know, the other person is picking up so much more from us of the total experience. And then I think when people get behind a screen, especially whether they're typing an email or on a digital meeting, they somehow— that screen, they feel they have a level of privacy they don't have, or they feel like they can sharpen something, you know, like a one-liner that is taken without context. And we talk about giving people benefit of the doubt and assuming positive intent. Mm-hmm. When it comes to emails and other things. But there comes a point that your team can only assume so much good from you when it's chronic and inconsistent. So, oh my gosh, where do you want to start? You have so many great insights and tips, whether it's communicating, you know, email or Zoom or what. Where do you want to start with some of the, like, the basics that, that people just need to know? We all just assume everybody knows this stuff, and then we'll build from there. Like, what are the basics that you need people to think about if they want want to improve their presence?

There are 4 things that I think are the most common anxiety-provoking symptoms in digital body language. And so, maybe I could start there. Introduce what are the 4 most common cases where you could either cause others anxiety or be feeling it yourself and how you can address some of those. And then, maybe we can talk about how you can set rules with your team to avoid miscommunication going forward.

I think it's perfect. And even, you know, I know you'll get into just the, the good etiquette because I too, when I coach people, they always ask me like, give me a script. Like, what do I say to help people through this? And I'm like, well, we gotta back up. You gotta open your mind, open your heart. Like, think whole experience rather than just the scripting. So go for the basics. What would you have people start with?

Let's start with the 4 most common situations where you can feel anxiety in digital body language.

Okay.

The first one is brevity. Now, we may not realize it, but we have to write quickly because we're responding to hundreds of emails a day. But brevity can create a lot of confusion. I'll give you an example. A leader of a team I know sent a no-subject calendar invitation to a junior team member for a meeting the next morning, Friday at 8 AM. This team member thought he was about to get fired. He had heard about budget cuts. Assumed the worst, and the power dynamic had a major impact. And so, especially if you're a leader, never confuse a brief message with a clear message. Take the time to be careful in your messages. The second one is passive-aggressiveness, or a belief that someone may be passive-aggressive even though they're not. We've all gotten those messages such as, per my previous email, or, as we already discussed in our prior conversation, or, bumping this to the top of your inbox. And is that an ambiguous message? Is that just a phrase they learned in business school? Or are they trying to insinuate something? My general rule of thumb here is, as you said, Sai, we have to assume good intent. Check if our interpretations are correct. Stop getting emotionally hijacked. And also, know when to switch the medium. I like to say a phone call is worth 1,000 emails. The third is what I call formality confusion. So, if we've ever gotten a message where we used to send informal one-liners to each other, but then all of a sudden someone starts writing, Dear Erika, and ends their email with respectfully or best regards, we may start to wonder what's going on.

It freaks me out when people— a customer will be like, you know, and have a blessed day. And I'm like, are you breaking up with me as

a customer? Exactly. You know, we've all felt that before. And I think the last one that I want to bring up is slow or no responses. Ghosting is not just a personal thing. We've felt it in the professional world. If we don't hear back from someone, we start to wonder what's going on. Maybe we get a little anxious. Maybe then we start ruminating about what happened. And then finally, we just think they probably forgot and follow up. Taking the time to give grace and also knowing when to switch the medium is incredibly important.

These are perfect because I think that the shared accountability in all of this is if you're the one initiating the contact, or, you know, it's your turn in the conversation, to think about the other person. And if there's a way to put them at ease, it locks the emotional part of your brain back in so that the message can actually get through. People cannot hear or interpret or integrate when they're nervous. So I think as the sender, it's like find a way to put someone at ease. And as the receiver, I think grace is, is the main word. And if you're wondering and you're thinking, I made up a story about this person, change mediums and say, look, I was making up a story that you didn't, uh, get back to me and I didn't want to interpret that differently. Are you not interested? Or— I think it's so important. Um, these are great basics. I do the one— so I'm going to pick your brain. I do the one— I've noticed in myself where I want to give a really good answer, but I don't have time, so I give no answer. And I think I probably cause anxiety for people. Do you have a suggestion? I mean, is it as simple as just responding with a sentence that says, I really want to give this a better answer, so you can expect it to be a day or two?

My general recommendation is if you can't respond instantly or you need more time, which actually shows thoughtfulness, reply with a simple, got it. I'll get back to you Tuesday, or I'll get back to you next week. That simple, quick response can actually do more and relieve any anxiety versus not responding at all. Another thing is sometimes we get in a situation where someone is using the wrong channel with us. If we've ever experienced a serial texter who won't stop texting us in the middle of the day when maybe it's not urgent, Yes. A quick thing you can do is—

Those are my children.

You can just say that's it. For me, it's my father. And it's usually a question about a fax machine or something like that because he still uses fax machines. And I'll get an all-caps message saying, call me, and I'll think that it's an emergency. But it's really about a scanner or fax machine. And my general rule here is know when to respond quickly because it's really urgent and also know when to switch the medium. Say, got it. I'll respond to you by email. Or, can't respond now. I'll be back to you Sunday. Simple things like this can go a long way in avoiding not only your own anxiety that you have to remember to get back to them as quickly as possible, but also, it will allow others to understand your digital body language style too. The other thing I'll share is in all of our messages, what I found is that we are reading and sending digital body language signals based on 2 other questions. The first is who has more or less power, and the second is how much do we trust each other? If this is a person who has a lot more power than you, you may be more likely to read into messages, to feel more cautious, to maybe err on the side of formality versus someone who has less power. You may be more likely to send one-liners, and here's where it is important to be thoughtful of that, especially if you have a higher power dynamic. The second with trust: if we get a we need to talk. From a good friend, we may be not as alarmed. It may be quick chitchat. I miss you versus a we need to talk from someone we've never met before or someone that works with us in the workplace. We may be a bit more alarmed. And so, understanding and being conscious of the power and trust gaps can help you just check your own emotional anxiety when you get a message and also try to focus more on understanding and clarity.

It's so true. And it goes back— and I know it's old research, but like only 7% of the message is what you actually wrote in the text. And so much— there's so much context that people have to fill in. If we're in person, we fill it in through tone of voice and body language. But when we're not in person, it's like 93% of the message we fill in based on our relationship. I had a new person join our staff and She was helping my chief of staff support me during a really busy time. And I'll never forget learning this lesson from having power and scaring the heck out of someone or having them just see me as a wicked person. I was furiously texting, like, make sure the files are at the hotel when I land. I absolutely have to have them. If you have one thing to do, make sure that's done. Much shorter than that. And this person almost crumbled, and she went to my chief of staff, and she's like, look at this message Sy just sent me. I had a whole different impression of who Sy Wakeman was. And my chief of staff looks at it, and she looks at the time it was sent. She goes, oh, 7:04. Doors were closing on the plane. Um, she was just trying to fire off the shortest message possible. Wow. And that's when I realized, after 12 years with my chief of staff, who's like Radar O'Reilly, who reads my thoughts, How much I scrimp on building relationship and helping people put things in context to the point where I would almost recommend for those of you listening to this podcast, have a one-on-one and talk about your digital relationship with the other person. Like, what do you do that helps and what do you do that hinders and vice versa? Like, just like you would in a marriage. Like, this is like a great topic for a one-on-one. Like, how are we doing in our digital relationship?

Absolutely. In fact, in my book, I have a digital body language style quiz where you can take it with your partner, with your colleagues, with your teammates, and actually understand that we are all different. Some people have a texting language that is short, to the point, similar to you, Sai. And others, if you don't use an emoji or a LOL, they'll think you're angry. One study showed that We even look at different punctuation marks differently based on gender and generation. In fact, one study showed that an all-caps message saying, I finished the doc, for example, from a man versus a woman could be interpreted differently. An all-caps message saying, I finished the doc, from a man means urgent and from a woman means excited. And I'm a big fan of breaking those biases, right? Don't assume. But this is what the research Research shows that we even interpret it differently. Another one is ellipses in text messages. If you put a dot dot dot in text messages, a digital native—those that tend to skew younger—that grew up with AOL Instant Messenger will think that means passive aggressiveness, whereas others who maybe are more digital adapters—they learn digital communication in their adulthood—I often think that's just a casual hang on or a continuation of a conversation. So think about how much confusion that can create.

Amazing. And what's funny in the workplace is that we put so much time into like our personality styles, you know, Myers-Briggs or DiSC or Predictive Index. This takes it to a whole new level. It's generational, it's gender, it's, um, culture. Culture. Because, because we're digital, we're also working so much more globally. And yeah, there's just, there's so much there. And I— this is a really underdeveloped Part of communication for people to even think about. I love that you have brought this on, and I love the quiz. The quiz idea is fantastic to find out what kind of a communicator you are and they are, and just the drama and the the story—it will save folks. Like when I type dot dot dot, it means I'm thinking. And the other one I think different people don't understand is when. The anxiety you cause— I cause, I'll own it— when I have my cursor in the spot where I'm gonna write back or text back, but I put my phone down and go do something. So someone on their end sees Sy's typing for an hour and a half. It's like they're like waiting for my response. So my—

Being anxiety-free.

My team asked me to not do that. Yeah.

In fact, Sy, there was a study that showed that we tend to hold our breath when we're checking email. Because I think we're more on guard with what are we gonna get. And think about the impact that's having on our emotional well-being. And in many ways, I think good digital body language is a key factor in reducing workplace drama right now. I'll never forget a story from one of my clients. He sent a text message to his boss Tom that said, do you want to speak Wednesday or Thursday? And Tom's response was, yes. Now, I like to share that example because reading messages carefully is the new listening and writing clearly is the new empathy. And so, knowing not only that we have to be much more careful and thoughtful in our messages because body language hasn't disappeared. It has transformed. And also, knowing when to pick up the phone is important. I like to say a phone call is worth 1,000 emails. And that itself is a relationship breaker or maker right now.

This is important stuff. I'm excited about this topic because it's a way that we have to absolutely get intentional at the very time. I think when we're looking at a screen, we feel protected and like we can be less formal. And there's just something when we go to digital media, I feel like it puts us— excuse me— it puts us in a position where we can actually be a little bit Less intentional, even lazy at times. But reading clearly is the new listening. I absolutely love that. And carefully, I should say, reading carefully and communicating clearly. It's a way to tend to the relationship in a way I just haven't considered. So, um, I think it's brilliant. I cannot tell you the number of times I've done it or I've received those messages. You know, what time are you coming in? Is your flight coming in? And they're like, today. I'm like, okay.

Yeah. I mean, what I found in my research was that we tend to either rush through messages and then not answer the question or read into one line in a way and say, how dare they say that? How dare they say, you know, we need to gather some more feedback when I spent all night on this? Or a team member will work until 2:00 AM in the morning on some slides. And when they come into the office and meet their boss, They could see the relief in their boss's face, their body language, their smile. Now, if they get an email saying, K, period, or no response to the email with the work product, they don't feel appreciated. They don't feel valued. And in many ways, the book Digital Body Language is bringing back that sense of appreciation and recognition, even from a distance.

And I have a lot of people asking me, how do we make sure that people are getting the information they need? both loving them up, appreciating them, and calling them up. And I think we forget, as we all, you know, talk about the good part about work from home or work from anywhere, I think we forget how much just being present in each other's company, um, took care of for us. It took care of a lot of appreciation just because they experienced our body language. Um, it even took care of a lot of our boundaries. We didn't have to set boundaries at home. We're like, oh, look at the time, I have to go to work. And I think there's just another level of consciousness we've all got to step into that says, you know, I need to get really skilled at a new way of communicating so I meet the needs of our people. Otherwise, we're leaving people really hungry for, you know, a good job when all they got was, okay, thanks for, you know, staying up all night doing slides. It's just, it's so important. And then switching medium, I usually switch medium Too late is when I'm tired of writing. I'm on like way below the fold on the email and I'm like, oh my gosh, I don't want to have to explain this. And then I switch and call somebody. It's kind of the worst last moment. And so I'm going to be a lot more conscious about just even as I start communicating, if this wouldn't be better in a call or a dreaded Zoom meeting. So do you also talk in the book about, you know, the video chats we find ourselves on, all the different platforms and how we can build connection when we are seeing one another, but in a really skewed way through our cameras?

Absolutely. You know, digital body language spans all the different cues and signals we send in all different communication mediums, from video calls to phone meetings to hybrid meetings to emails to texts, IMs, you name it. And when it comes to video meetings, One of the things I share is that we have to stop thinking of ourselves as office meeting hosts when we're on video meetings. We have to think of ourselves more like TV show hosts. They have always had to connect from afar. And a TV show host thinks about a few things. The first, they always have a really thoughtful agenda before the meeting, before the show.

They run the show. They actually call

it a run the show. They have questions. They know that they're going to call on people to be part of different segments. They don't assume people will jump in. They have some norms. Everyone, if they want everyone on camera, they say it upfront. If you want people to show up on video, let them know beforehand. Make it explicit versus otherwise, you have half of the people on and half of the people not on video. Then, during the meeting, think in many ways like a news host, whether it's calling on people to share their perspectives. One of my clients, always sends questions in advance of the meeting and then has everyone share in the chat first. And then calls on people who have different or diverse perspectives because it also avoids groupthink. It allows introverts to have time to process ideas and share and avoid certain extroverts often to who, who may tend to overspeak to actually be more concise by writing their ideas first. The other thing she does is she always has a meeting note-taker that's sending a meeting recap within 30 minutes of the meeting. It's like the new virtual handshake. It makes sure that we're all on the same page and Again, in these times, this can be incredibly important because we used to have those body cues to read someone who was stroking their chin, someone with furrowed brows, and we knew when to call on them when they weren't on the same page. Now, we have to really be much more focused on asking people, not assuming they're okay, checking in and having and using different digital mediums to create alignment.

Fantastic advice. I just heard Adam Grant. I know he endorsed your book, loved your book, and he spoke at Work Human, and he talks about how for many of us introverts— and I'm one of them— how lovely the chat function is and how he uses it to do the crowdsourcing. You know, collectively we're genius. And I know in hosting a lot of training on Zooms, I've had to really develop as conscious facilitator and go in with questions and get people started on chat. And as you said, call on people and have them, you know, state their, their context around what they wrote in the chat. And what's been interesting to me is if you don't go in and see your role as really producing this call and with a clear-cut outcome, There are what I call lurkers. People just like attend the meeting, but they have their cameras off. They, you know, and, and for me, it's a way to avoid accountability because I can do the bare minimum of being at the meeting. But since I'm not participating, it's like I'm not really held accountable or my buy-in stays really ambiguous. So I love the virtual handshake where Um, you put it out there. And I even had one leader I was with, it was phenomenal. He recapped the meeting. I think he did it himself. And then he said, everybody pick up your iPhones and send me a 30-second elevator speech on what we decided at the meeting and your buy-in. And so he had people sending him videos, and he's someone who uses Marco Polo a lot as well. To try and get more in front of his team where he's like, you know, here's— and they're in sales— here's an objection somebody ran into, here's a preferred response, send me your ideas. And the first 10 Marco Polos I get, you know, gets a cool golf shirt or something. And so he really ups the expectations for his people in the virtual environment. And I loved it.

That is just one great, powerful example of the ways that we have an opportunity actually with digital body language to be less geographically biased, less visually biased to who was just in the room versus who can be part of the room, to avoid turn-taking and over-talking, and actually, as you said, master and empower collective genius. But what it really requires is us to not just flex our years of learning traditional body language, but really at this moment, master digital body language. And I think that this is just as important as we're in remote work as it is as we go back the office and manage hybrid teams?

I think so, because I think that the new leader, the modern leader, needs to be a manager of energy, not just the work. And managing energy, not just mentally away from why we can't to how we could, but managing energy in meetings and really setting the tone for what velocity and what frequency are we coming, coming in. And I know for me, presenting on Zoom, I have to be so much more conscious of bringing my energy up and kind of being on stage in a not performing way, but like you said, newsreel-worthy. So what other great tips you want to make sure that people have, or things to make sure that we're thinking about? And we definitely want people to go out and buy the book. I'm not just here hawking books. Digital Body Language, it's a Big deal. And I think it would be a fun book club for you in HR and learning and development and all you leaders out there for your teams. Do a book club on this topic. I think it will start great conversations. You can start with the quiz. It would be amazing. So what else do you— if you want to highlight for us, like, oh yeah, there's this last couple of things I want your listeners to know about, what, what would they be?

Yeah, I have 3 final tips. The first is remember that less haste equals more speed. The pressure to communicate quickly can cause many of us to reward the fastest person who responds to an email, the quickest person who jumps in on a Zoom call versus remembering that we must prioritize thoughtfulness over hastiness. Remember when it was okay to actually think in silence in a meeting? And now, if we don't hear from someone, we say, are you on mute? Do you have a tech issue? So, take the time to give space for deep thinking and you will get immense better results. The second is something, Sai, that you've inspired in me for many years, which is especially even more in a digital world, we have to assume the best intent. Give others the benefit of the doubt. And if you get those confusing, ambiguous messages, pick up the phone or switch the digital channel. And last but not least, remember that people find their voices differently in a digital world. Many introverts have told me they love the chat tool because they don't have to turn-take or fight for their voice to be heard. They were already struggling with this in the office. Others that may be extroverts really need that airtime. So, manage it. Some are really digital natives. They love text, IM, and chat. And others really want to pick up the phone. So, not only understanding that individuals have different digital styles but creating a collective understanding of what best serves your team is incredibly important right now to avoid that drama and create more clarity and understanding. So those are the 3 tips. And I hope that everyone will check out the new book, Digital Body Language, available everywhere.

Absolutely love it. And once you've mastered this on your team, think about what you could do then for your customers to try and pick up on some of their preferences and how you can really fine-tune and customize the way in which you're interacting with customers and patients and to find kind of their preferred digital body language. And it would be such a surprise and delight to have organizations pick up on that externally as well. I always love talking to you. You are so able to eloquently put language to what we all are struggling with and need to think about, and great tips. So I wish you the best. And by the way, this isn't, um, your first book. You are a powerhouse. I just want to make sure people know about your other books too, because I've absolutely loved, um, your books from the past. So what titles can they also look for? I don't have them on my bookshelf right

now. So, you know, my new book is Digital Body Language: How to Build Trust and Connection No Matter the Distance, and it was really based on the genesis and learnings from my last book, which is called Get Big Things Done: The Power of Connectional Intelligence, which really moves us from emotional intelligence to the world of connectional intelligence, which in many ways has become more relevant and more important in the last 15 months than I ever would have imagined as well.

Absolutely. And what I love— emotional intelligence is good stuff, but what you put in connection intelligence is so actionable. It's not like just understand other people or have empathy. It's like, go do this and check this. And so I, I loved it. Well, I wish you the best. Thank you so much for coming on. I always end with, uh, an assignment for self-reflection. And so the assignment this time, listeners, is really get in touch with your digital body language. There's a quiz in the book for you. And have a one-on-one and just check in with people about what each of you could do better for one another to stay connected as this world is shifting. So thanks again, Erica. I wish you the best and appreciate your time.

Thank you so much.

This is the No Ego Podcast, where we ditch the drama, end entitlement, and transform your world place. I'm Sy Wakeman.