You Are the Message

by Roger Ailes

  When we entered the prison, we were led through a labyrinth of steel gates and cement block hallways until we ended up in a holding cell about twelve by fifteen feet. Across the hall from the holding cell was the prison library. The guards asked Tom to wait in the library while they brought Manson up. In the meantime, Tom and I sat down and discussed the interview at some length. We had several general questions but knew that the discussion would take on a life of its own once Manson started to ramble. The camera crew was setting up in the holding cell, so I decided to leave Tom, walk across the hall, and make sure the camera angles and lighting were right before Manson arrived.

  As I walked out of the prison library and made a right turn, I bumped directly into someone. My eyes focused as this person bounced off my chest. From a distance of six inches I was staring directly into the eyes of Charles Manson. He was small, wiry, and mangy. He looked like a quick, dangerous ferret. I was momentarily shocked. As our eyes locked, I at first said nothing. I realized that a very primitive confrontation and mutual assessment were taking place. Then I said, “Mr. Manson, I’m in charge of this interview. I’d like you to come with me.” For a split second more he stared at me. Then he lowered his head, backed away, and suddenly acted very obsequious. He was happy to meet me, he said, and wanted to know what I would like him to do.

  In that first five to seven seconds, we had tested each other. I knew he loved to puff himself up like the Wizard of Oz and frighten people around him into doing what he wanted them to do. Since I didn’t budge, he backed off and lowered his head, much as a dog does. They say a dog tests you by coming at you, fangs bared, head and tail up, and if you continue to show no fear, he will back off. Humans do this in their own way. Charles Manson was like a junkyard dog. Once he backed away, I knew I had control for the rest of the day. Tom did an excellent interview, although Manson occasionally got out of control. For example, Manson alternately shouted, then abruptly be came quiet, as he menacingly made a noose out of the microphone cable. At other times, he’d pace up and down, change the subject, and mutter to himself.

  Each time the crew stopped to change a tape, Manson asked me how he was doing, as if he needed my approval. It later occurred to me that even in this highly bizarre situation, where logical thought was largely irrelevant, the instinctive relationship set up by the first seven seconds made a difference.

  Research shows that we start to make up our minds about other people within seven seconds of first meeting them. Much of this is unspoken, as my first few seconds were with Charles Manson. But we are communicating with our eyes, faces, bodies, and attitudes.

  Consciously or unconsciously, we’re signaling to other people what our true feelings are and what we really want to happen in an encounter. It’s almost a reflex action, like the pupil of an eye reacting to light. People, in the presence of others, affect each other’s bodies. Sometimes imperceptibly, sometimes noticeably, we influence each other’s breathing, heart rate, skin temperature, sweat glands, blood pressure, eye blinks, body motions—even the way some tiny hairs stand up on the skin. In the first seven seconds, we also trigger in each other a chain of emotional reactions, ranging from reassurance to fear.

  FIRST IMPRESSIONS

  Stop and think about some of the most memorable meetings you’ve had with other people. It may have been an introduction to a friend or a lover. It may have been a job interview. It may have been a rude shock—an intruder, a stranger, someone very unwelcome. Or it might have been pleasant—a surprise party. Whatever it was, try to focus on the first seven seconds of the encounter. What did you feel and think? How did you “read” the other people and how do you think they read you? How accurate or lasting were the first impressions on both sides? Did the tone in the opening seven seconds carry over to the rest of the meeting? Was the ice broken initially, or was tension established?

  Now, review the last few days. Did you meet anyone new? Try to remember. What happened in the first seven seconds? What was directly or indirectly communicated in that time? How did you feel about this person?

  Finally, think about yourself. What sort of impression do you believe you make on others in the first seven seconds? How aware are you of all the verbal and nonverbal signals you send to others as you come face-to-face, or even when you speak to others over the telephone? How aware are you of the underlying messages sent by eyes, face, voice, and body (yours and others’)? How much control do you feel you have over these variables? It’s important to focus on these questions because they help define not just your communications skills in the abstract but also who you are and how others perceive you.

  Try to read other people’s nonverbal signals in every situation. It may be business or personal, at a convention or an intimate dinner. It’s amazing how accurate these messages are. We all send them out and we all receive them.

  Some body language specialists suggest that you can interpret someone’s hidden agenda from the positioning of arms, legs, torso, and so forth. That’s partially true. But it’s not so simple. You also have to take into account the other person’s pitch, tone, rate of speech, phrasing, breathing—even eye dilation. The interpretation has to be a blend of literal observation and instinct. For example, some people would interpret folded arms to signal a defensive attitude when, in fact, there are people who actually fold their arms for comfort. One signal alone can be misleading. Learn to look at and listen to the “composite” person.

  Most children are natural at reading others. They know when to ask Daddy or Mommy for something. They know when to keep quiet and leave the room. They know when there’s tension between their parents. And they know when everyone thinks they’re adorable. As we get older, we begin to block these natural absorbing techniques. We need to open them up again. Pay attention. Watch. Listen. Talk less. Notice whether people’s words are saying the same things as their vocal tones.

  EASY MONEY

  I recall producing a documentary on gangs for WCBS–TV in New York. We interviewed a group of tough teenagers between the ages of fifteen and eighteen who were in a halfway house being rehabilitated. These young criminals robbed people on the subways. On a “good” day, they claimed, they made three hundred to four hundred dollars in cash without ever being detected by the police or turned in by their victims. We were having our initial meeting with these youngsters. They agreed to take us later on a tour of the subways and show us how they performed their “work.”

  As they entered the conference room, it was clear that if any of them asked you for your money, you’d probably turn it over. The leader of the group was Henry, a seventeen-year-old who exhibited a great deal of confidence. I asked Henry why he robbed people.

  “Because crime pays, man!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I make fifteen hundred dollars a week in cash in the subways. I don’t have to hurt nobody. If somebody don’t give me their money, I go to somebody else. I don’t want flack, man. I don’t want problems. I don’t want to draw attention. I been doin’ it for three years. Now, tell me, where can I get me a job makin’ fifteen hundred dollars a week?”

  “Why are you in the rehabilitation program?”

  “I ain’t sure I’m gonna stay. They talked me into tryin’ so they could teach me a job skill. I’m open to listenin’. But I ain’t positive I’ll never go back out on the streets again.”

  That was not a comforting thought. We asked for a demonstration of how the gang members “rolled” their victims. I asked Henry, in particular, how he picked victims. He told me he looked for people shuffling along, heads down, eyes averted, isolated, and frightened when they saw him. In effect, he used his senses and his instincts to read their body language.

  I looked around the room, picked out individuals, and asked Henry if they would make good victims. He said yes or no.

  “Would I make a good victim?” I asked.

  “No, I wouldn’t mess with you.”

  “Why not?”

  “When I firs’
walked into th’ room, you stood up and turned right toward me. Your eyes looked right into my eyes and then you looked me up and down from head to toe as if measurin’ me, to judge if you could take me in a fight if you had to. Those kinda people cause trouble. I might hafta kill you to get your money. I wouldn’t want t’ hafta do that. Not for your sake, but for mine.”

  This relatively uneducated street tough could instinctively read the body language that would allow him to make a hit and be successful. He made that determination in less than seven seconds.

  COMMUNICATE OR DIE

  Captain Eugene “Red” McDaniel was a Navy pilot shot down in North Vietnam and held as a prisoner of war for six years. In his book Scars and Stripes, he describes the desperate need of prisoners to communicate with one another to maintain morale. He says POWs tended to die much sooner if they couldn’t communicate. On many occasions, Captain McDaniel endured torture rather than give up his attempts to stay in touch with other prisoners, especially when he was in solitary confinement. Prisoners risked death to work out a complicated communications system where they would write under plates, cough, sing, tap on walls, laugh, scratch, or flap laundry a certain number of times to transmit a letter of the alphabet.

  Captain McDaniel writes, “One thing I knew, I had to have communications with my own people here in this camp. There were people like myself who wanted to live through this, if at all possible. Communication with each other was what the North Vietnamese captors took the greatest pains to prevent. They knew, as well as I and the others did, that a man could stand more pain if he is linked with others of his own kind in that suffering. The lone, isolated being becomes weak, vulnerable. I knew I had to make contact, no matter what the cost.”1 For those brave men, it was communicate or die.

  When we think of survival, we usually list food, shelter, and clothing as the essentials. I believe communications belongs in that grouping. Babies have died in hospitals because of lack of attention, caring, and handling. Human communication is incredibly important, but most of us take it for granted and think we know how to do it. We’ve been told many times that we only use a tiny part of our brain. We use only a tiny part of our communications abilities as well. For example, how many facial expressions can you read?

  FACE VALUE

  Research shows that the eighty muscles of the face are capable of making more than seven thousand different facial expressions.2 Most of us can read if someone is happy or sad or frightened, but what about the other nuances? Develop a curiosity about what you see in other people’s faces. Do you see apprehension, shyness, curiosity, hostility, humor, warmth? As you get better and better at reading these signals, you will become much more successful at interpersonal communications.

  Facial expression is often the most difficult area of nonverbal communication to master because we are taught early that our faces can give us away. Many people, particularly business executives, freeze their faces regardless of the emotional state they are in. They believe a poker face is a strategic advantage. Sometimes it is. But often, you only gain complete credibility with an audience when they feel you’re completely open and not masking anything from them. The viewer generally perceives the warmer, more vulnerable personality as being stronger and less afraid.

  MIRROR IMAGE

  Let’s try something you’ve probably never done before. Look in a mirror and study your own face. Begin to talk about a political issue and see which part of your face moves and which doesn’t. Using the same subject matter, repeat the conversation; however, imagine that now you’re speaking to a child. See if your face softens and if your eyes become more expressive, and if there is a tendency to care more that the listener understands what you are saying. Most people do tend to use more facial expression when talking to children.

  Still looking in the mirror, think of something funny until you smile. When you do, see if your eyes smile as well as your mouth. It’s important not to try to make a smile but to concentrate until an incident or something someone said comes to mind which causes the reaction naturally. Dwell on that thought until your whole face smiles, including your eyes. Note carefully how your face smiles.

  LISTEN UP

  Concentrate on listening and reacting. As you listen to a newscast, allow yourself the freedom of relaxing completely and then, as if your face were your only means of communication, try to transmit the feeling of that story to an imaginary third party by use of your face only. Do the same exercise in a mirror, imagining different stories and trying to transmit your feelings about them.

  Think of a very happy time in your life, a very sad time, and a time when you were most angry; think of a time when you were frightened or concerned and try to show all these emotions as if you were a mute. Study very carefully how your face moves and concentrate on how it feels so that when you aren’t looking in a mirror, you can re-create that look simply by muscle tension and feeling.

  Ask a question such as “Did you enjoy the concert last night?” and see if your face can show an inquisitive characteristic. “Do you really mean that?” “Is it time to go?” Try thinking those sentences without speaking and somehow get the meaning across using only your face.

  THE MASK

  Even if you’re not a fan of television, turn on your set and watch it carefully for half an hour. Alternately turn the sound off and on. Change channels frequently and watch the facial expressions of the actors and actresses. Also watch their reaction shots, when they’re not speaking lines. Angela Lansbury, star of “Murder, She Wrote,” is famous for her reaction shots. See if you can interpret their meaning and then imitate the expressions.

  We all wear masks, but it’s necessary to drop the mask to communicate fully. Get used to using your face every time you speak.

  Often, writers describe eyes as steely, knowing, mocking, piercing, glowing, and so on, or they may refer to a burning, cold, or hurt glance. Look in a mirror. Can you demonstrate any of these emotional states just by using your eyes?

  The duration of a stare, opening the eyelids, squinting, or the dozens of other manipulations of skin and eyes can send out many meanings. The most important thing to consider is the feeling behind the look or the stare. This tends to give the object being stared at either human or nonhuman status. Have you ever had a person stare at you as if you were an object and not a person? It’s chilling, isn’t it? If we wish to ignore someone pointedly and treat him with contempt, we give him the same unfocused look as if we didn’t really see him. Panhandlers are often treated this way.

  To acknowledge humanness, we avoid the blank stare and focus our eyes while relaxing our faces. This creates a warmth and empathy with another person. There are a variety of ways to avoid a blank look—for example, the sideways glance, the furtive glance, the lidded look, the surprised expression which says, “Oh, how nice to see you,” and so forth.

  Basically, we’re dealing with the art of conversation, encouraging others to speak by reacting facially as we listen to what they say. This is called active listening. Speaking with enthusiasm when it’s our turn is also essential to good conversation.

  CONVERSATIONALLY SPEAKING

  Good communication starts with good conversation. If you converse well, then you should be able to transfer that ability to a lectern or TV or any other format.

  To gauge your conversational skills, you need constructively critical feedback from someone else. Ask a spouse, friend, or coworker to candidly appraise your conversational skills, based on these criteria:

  • Are you self-centered or other-oriented? Do you try to dominate conversations? Do you talk too much, overexplain, or lecture others? Are you a complainer? Or do you draw other people out on topics they’re clearly interested in discussing? Are you a sympathetic listener? Do you smile, laugh easily, and respond to others genuinely?

  • Do you have interesting things to say? Can you discuss subjects besides your job or home life? Do you occasionally use colorful language? Do you avoid trite expressions?


  • Are you lively or dull? Do you speak in a monotone and without enthusiasm? Do you get to the point quickly and engagingly or do you belabor points? Are you passive and non-responsive or active in the give-and-take of conversation?

  • Do you encourage monologues or dialogues? Do you ask others open-ended questions that draw them out? Or are your questions “closed,” prompting just one-word responses? Open-ended questions often begin with “how” or “what”; they elicit detail. You may need to use closed questions occasionally, as in this series of questions. You can recognize closed questions because they often begin with “do you …”

  • Do you pontificate or do you ask others how they feel about a subject? Are you open, candid, direct, and friendly, or tight-lipped, secretive, elliptical, and aloof?

  Ask yourself the question I ask every client: If you could improve a single thing about the way you communicate, what would it be?

  THE TEN MOST COMMON PROBLEMS

  Here are the ten most common problems in communications. Read the list. If any of them apply to you, the principles in this book will help you solve them.

  1. Lack of initial rapport with listeners

  2. Stiffness or woodenness in use of body

  3. Presentation of material is intellectually oriented; speaker forgets to involve the audience emotionally

  4. Speaker seems uncomfortable because of fear of failure