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You can show nonverbal agreement with the subordinate from this position by mirroring his movements and gestures. As in the open standing position, your bodies point to a third point to form a triangle, which can show agreement.

By turning your chair to point your body directly at someone, you nonverbally tell them that you want direct answers to your direct questions.

Direct body pointing keeps things serious

When you position your body forty-five degrees away from the other person, you take the pressure off the interview. This is an excellent position from which to ask delicate or embarrassing questions, encouraging more open answers to your questions without them feeling as if they are being pressured.

The right forty-five degrees away position

How to Rearrange an Office

Having read this far in the book, you should now be able to work out how to arrange an office to have as much power, influence, or control as you want or to make it as relaxed, friendly, and informal as you want. Here now is a case study showing how we rearranged someone's office to help solve some of his personal manager/employee relationship problems.

John worked for a large finance company. He had been promoted to a manager's position and given an office. After a few months in the role, John found that the other employees disliked dealing with him and his relationship with them was often tense, particularly when they were in his office. He found it difficult to get them to follow his instructions and had heard they were talking about him behind his back. Our observations of John's dilemma revealed that the communication breakdowns were at their worst when the employees were in his office.

For the purposes of this exercise, we'll ignore any of John's management skills and concentrate on the nonverbal aspects of the problem. Here's a summary of our observations and conclusions about John's office setup:

The visitor's chair was placed in the Competitive Position in relation to John.

The walls of the office were solid panels except for an outside window and a clear glass partition where John could look into the general office area and be seen by the rest of the staff. His visibility reduced John's status and could increase the power of any subordinate who was sitting in the visitor's chair because the other employees were located directly behind the visitor and were, in effect, on the subordinate's side of the table.

John's desk had a solid front that hid his lower body and prevented the subordinates observing his lower gestures to evaluate how he felt.

The visitor's chair was placed so that the visitor's back was to the open door.

John often sat using the Catapult or Leg-Over-the-Arm-of-Chair gestures or both whenever a subordinate was in his office.

John had a swivel chair with a high back, armrests, and wheels. The visitor's chair was a plain low-backed chair with fixed legs and no armrests.

John's initial office layout

From a user-friendly, nonverbal standpoint, his office was a disaster area. It felt unfriendly to anyone who entered. The following rearrangements were made to help encourage John's management style to become more friendly:

John's desk was placed in front of the glass partition, making his office appear bigger and allowing him to be visible to those who entered. In this way, visitors were greeted by John personally, not by his desk.

The “hot seat” was placed in the Corner Position, making communication more open and allowing the corner to act as a partial barrier for staff who felt insecure.

The glass partition was coated with a mirror finish, allowing John to see out, but not permitting others to see in. This raised John's status by securing his territory and creating a more intimate atmosphere inside his office.

A low round table with three identical swivel chairs were placed at the other end of the office so informal meetings could take place.

In the original layout, John's desk could give half the desktop space to the visitor but the revised layout