How to Measure Engagement With a Stay Interview

When it comes to measuring employee engagement, there's an oft-overlooked method - one that isn't traditionally woven into the formal HR process - that some engagement specialists say might be the most effective of all: the stay interview.

Unlike the exit interview, where HR managers gain insights into employee sentiment just before they walk out the door, and the performance review, where managers assess employees' performance for the year, the stay interview asks the question most managers yearn to ask their top talent: What could we do to make you stay?

''The ultimate goal of the stay interview is to stay in someone's head and make sure we retain them,'' said Kevin Kruse, author of WE: How to Increase Performance and Profits Through Full Engagement.

The stay interview is perhaps a manager's most honest grip on engagement, according to Kruse. It's a one-on-one meeting with a front-line manager and a direct report to gain insight on that employee's perspective on the organization's key engagement drivers, and to learn which of those drivers need fixing to retain top talent.

Kruse said stay interviews work best when they happen at least once or twice a year. The stay interview is also not typically owned by the HR manager. If a manager feels that his or her relationship with an employee is particularly trustworthy, the stay interview might be more effective outside of the office - say at a coffee shop or over lunch, Kruse said.

A successful stay interview, however, isn't as simple as just asking the question: ''What could we do to make you stay?'' HR managers need to train leaders to ask questions that help drive understanding on employee feelings about the key areas of engagement - company culture, communication, growth and recognition.

''It's less about, 'Are you going to leave?' and more about, 'How are you feeling about the things that would make them [want to] jump on Monster.com,''' Kruse said.

Managers should exercise caution on how stay interview questions are framed. For example, when asking employees about their feelings about communication, it would be best to refrain from asking blunt questions such as: ''Do you think communication is going well here?''

Instead, managers can engage employees in a more open approach: ''Is there enough two-way communication going on at [insert company name here]?'' Kruse said.

It's also important for managers to separate the stay interview from discussions about employee performance, said Dick Finnegan, the author of The Power of Stay Interviews for Engagement and Retention and the CEO of C-Suite Analytics, an engagement and retention firm.

''It's [a meeting] about how is the job working from your perspective [the employee] and not my perspective as a manager,'' Finnegan said.

In addition to holding stay interviews for top talent, Finnegan recommends managers conduct them on a more frequent basis for new hires - after the first 30, 60 and 90 days on the job.

Finnegan also said stay interviews should always be done one-on-one and not in a group. Further, if a formal stay interview procedure were to be implemented throughout the organization, it should be conducted in a cascading fashion - start with the CEO and move down the firm's ladder.

For organizations that conduct wide-ranging engagement surveys each year, it's best to conduct the stay interview not long after those results become available. ''If you know the [engagement] scores, you can focus more time and attention on the areas of validated need,'' Kruse said.

Finnegan added that while engagement surveys are effective in some areas, the stay interview is a better overall measure of employee engagement.

'' Engagement surveys are great for benchmarks, but they're really bad for solutions - because they tell you how people respond to survey questions, but they don't tell you what they really want,'' Finnegan said. ''They don't lead to solutions.

''So stay interviews become the lynchpin to solutions ... and they help you learn the unique needs of your high performers. Engagement surveys tell you average information about your average employees.''

Both Kruse and Finnegan agreed that while not currently a formal process, HR managers should make efforts to implement stay interviews in their organization and hold front-line managers accountable.

While Kruse said he's known of some HR managers who conduct the stay interviews themselves, he cautioned against it. ''The power in this is getting a conversation going between that critical link between the manager and the direct report,'' he said.

Finnegan agreed. ''Trust is the absolute most important skill that managers need to have,'' he said. ''The stay interview becomes a way to build trust.''

By Frank Kalman | Talent Management [About the Author: Frank Kalman is an associate editor of Talent Management magazine.]

Should We Dispatch With Annual Performance Reviews?

Q: What are the alternatives if we scrap the annual performance review?

- Torn in HR, warehouse/distribution, Virginia Beach, Virginia

A: The issue is not your performance-review system. It's probably a deficiency in coaching skills among your managers.

Keep the annual review, but add the following elements:

a) Launch a recurring training program to help managers develop coaching skills. If you don't do this, none of your other efforts really matter.

b) Work with your senior leaders to implement a system whereby managers are held accountable for ''one-on-one check-ins'' with all the employees they directly supervise. These sessions should occur at least once a month. Implementing this requirement forces your managers to practice and hone their own coaching skills.

c) Be prepared to serve as a coach to the coaches. They are going to need your help.

Coaching is the replacement for the annual performance review. In fact, the lack of coaching skill is the No. 1 reason for performance reviews. The one-on-one sessions should truly be of a check-in nature - no rating scales or other formal assessment measures. The manager schedules time for employees to discuss their own list of items.

Your managers are there to knock down barriers for employees as much as possible. Once each employee is done with his list, the manager uses the coaching skills to talk about which things are going well and refocus the employee's attention on potential areas for improvement.

[Source: Kris Dunn, HR Capitalist, Birmingham, Alabama]

The Empty Soap Box - Japanese Case Study

One of the most memorable case studies on Japanese management was the case of the empty soap box, which happened in one of Japan's biggest cosmetics companies. The company received a complaint that a consumer had bought a soap box that was empty.

Immediately the authorities isolated the problem to the assembly line, which transported all the packaged boxes of soap to the delivery department. For some reason, one soap box went through the assembly line empty.

Management asked its engineers to solve the problem. Post-haste, the engineers worked hard to devise an X-ray machine with high- resolution monitors manned by two people to watch all the soap boxes that passed through the line to make sure they were not empty.

No doubt, they worked hard and they worked fast but they spent whoopee amount to do so. But when a workman was posed with the same problem, did not get into complications of X-rays, etc but instead came out with another solution.

He bought a strong industrial electric fan and pointed it at the assembly line. He switched the fan on, and as each soap box passed the fan, it simply blew the empty boxes out of the line.

Moral of the story: Always look for simple solutions. Devise the simplest possible solution that solves the problem. So, learn to focus on solutions not on problems.

"If you look at what you do not have in life, you don't have anything; if you look at what you have in life, you have everything."

The Value of Cultural Competence

What would a typical chief diversity officer say if the CEO asked, ''How is the office of diversity and inclusion helping us penetrate emerging markets?'' Few CDOs have a full suite of solutions, but they can provide strategic guidance to help their organizations meet the growing challenges of global expansion.

There are numerous cases where a lack of understanding about cultural norms resulted in mistrust and failed business opportunities. For example, high sales of Mattel's Barbie doll in China did not materialize as expected. Part of the problem was that the Chinese prefer cute dolls like Hello Kitty rather than the sexier Barbie. In Japan, eBay did not generate expected sales because leaders did not take into account that the Japanese prefer to pay with cash.

Cultural competence can be a critical piece of a diversity and inclusion platform because employees, suppliers and markets are more global than in the past. Cultural competence can help employees from different cultures see scenarios from multiple perspectives and encourages them to ask the right questions. The rewards are increased productivity, innovation and sales.

The New Reality

A geographically dispersed, culturally diverse workforce and marketplace is the new reality. Global businesses and organizations need culturally competent members and an environment that promotes mutual respect and creative collaboration to derive the most from their talent.

Roy Chua of Harvard's research on creativity and innovation and the book The Innovator's DNA by Jeffrey Dyer, Hal Gregersen, and Clayton Christensen conclude that employees with multicultural social networks and exposure to other cultures are more creative and likely to come up with innovations for their organizations. However, exposure alone does not make this happen.

Exposure to new cultures and to multicultural social networks and teams is more likely to have positive consequences if those involved have been properly trained to understand and appreciate fundamental cultural differences and values that impact workplace relationships. Factors such as communication style, management style and approaches to diversity and inclusion are as varied as cultures.

The chief diversity officer must become a major advocate of cultural competence and build alliances with all leaders across the organization who support associates, vendors, markets and clients from diverse cultures. The office of diversity and inclusion should be a center of excellence for cultural competence.

To learn how to design and execute cultural competence programs as a key element of diversity and inclusion initiatives, here are some practices from culturally competent organizations.

1. Build cultural competence into employees' professional development goals.

Organizations such as Johnson & Johnson and Hilton Hotels & Resorts that use a competency-based professional development assessment process have added cultural competence or global mindset to their list of required competencies. Even without such a mandate, increasingly, companies such as Novartis and American Express are offering a basic cross-cultural competence course to all employees at all levels. A core course to meet this requirement should cover:

a) Cultural awareness of self and others.
b) The consequences of cultural assumptions.
c) Ways to promote effective working relations.
d) Styles of doing business around the world.
e) Cultural differences in communication styles.
f) The impact of virtual communications on intercultural understanding.
g) An overview for each major region.
h) An action planning session with clear timelines and metrics to implement the new practices based on a culturally competent platform.

Most programs also feature a cross-cultural diagnostic assessment tool that allows participants to gauge their cultural style and a process to develop strategies to bridge cultural differences. Often the diagnostic tools are completed prior to a program, and the participants bring their results with them. Or, the diagnostic tool is done live, and the results are immediately posted for all to see.

2. Create country- or culture-specific expertise and training.

Employees working with specific countries need in-depth, cross-cultural training on the nuances of the relevant cultures, including:

a) Communication style.
b) Approaches to risk-taking.
c) Negotiation style.
d) Ways to promote effective working relations with representatives of the country, contrasting styles of doing business between each of the relevant countries.
e) An in-depth regional and historical overview of the country and its relationship to its neighbors.
f) Functional topics as needed such as labor unions, quality/standards, work habits, intellectual property and holidays.

Companies such as Dolby Laboratories, ConocoPhillips and Novartis have such programs on countries ranging from China, the U.S., The Netherlands, India, Brazil and Saudi Arabia.

3. Build global cultural competence into the leadership track.

By now all diversity departments should have a strategic leadership track or program to address the developmental needs of current and potential leaders. If they don't, they need to put this in place first, and cultural competence can help make the case.

The key role for the office of diversity and inclusion is to create a track for global leadership, which requires unique competencies.

Global leaders need to be able to create personal and organizational action plans for effective intercultural leadership in the global/virtual workplace. This includes not only an understanding of globalization, diversity and cross-cultural differences, but also an intuitive grasp of the areas in which misunderstandings are likely to occur so leaders can proactively forecast and develop appropriate strategies.

An effective global leader must be able to view the same situation from multiple perspectives simultaneously to respond effectively to each culture's needs. Global leaders must demonstrate an inclusive, collaborative style that enhances open dialogue with local leaders. They must do more listening than commanding.

A good example of this is the Genesis Park program at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). In this program, cohorts of 50 future PwC leaders from more than 20 countries are brought to a foreign country for 10 weeks and taught how to use cultural competence to work in multicultural teams, build skills they will need as leaders and explore the country.

Global leadership and cultural competence courses are a key element, but also can be a starting point. Making international assignments a requisite for a leadership position makes sense in today's global economy.

4. Link international assignee development programs to diversity and inclusion initiatives.

Most international assignees bring a vast amount of cultural wisdom that is rarely tapped by diversity executives.

Further, all expatriates and their family members need in-depth cross-cultural training on working and living in their host countries; this is usually provided before or after the expatriate leaves for the new country. Chevron-Phillips Chemical Co. trains its expats before they leave on assignment or conducts training in the host country.

While the training is best done in person, Skype and other technologies can be used. The expats will need to learn the cultural nuances of their host country, ways to promote effective relations, an in-depth understanding of the country and region, an understanding of how to balance local versus headquarters requirements, strategies to deal with culture shock and an understanding of how diversity and inclusion are practiced in the host country.

Rather than training just the outgoing expats and their families to adapt to their new host culture, cultural diversity training can be provided to the receiving manager, after which the receiving manager and assignee would have an alignment meeting. There would then be an alignment meeting between the assignee and her or his new team. Finally the assignee would be coached during the assignment and the best practices would be captured for all to share. This is driven by the office of diversity and inclusion in companies such as Dow Chemical Co.

5. Train diverse intercultural teams in concert.

Diversity and inclusion can play a pivotal role in the success of multicultural teams. Diverse insights and perspectives can help teams uncover hidden cultural biases and stereotyping that may impact their work and relationships. Cross-cultural competency team-building programs can help to avoid misunderstandings and to establish team trust in the formative stages of team development.

Programs should discuss:

a) Team members' mutual perceptions.
b) Setting global standards for roles, responsibility, accountability, and leadership and management styles.
c) Establishing protocol for virtual and face-to-face communication styles and the development of a communication plan.

Novartis was putting together an IT team made up of employees from the U.S. and India for a three-month project. After the first three weeks, the director of the program wanted to cancel it due to poor results. Instead, one of the cultural diversity specialists brought in a cross-cultural team-building organization to help the team members realize they have different work habits. Americans would ask the Indians to perform a task and once done the Indians would wait to be told what to do next, while the Americans were expecting the Indians to come to them once the task was done. After a day-and-a-half-long cultural competency team-building program, the project was back on schedule.

6. Strategically utilize employee resource or affinity groups.

Most companies include senior leadership in affinity groups and work closely with these groups on everything from recruiting and retention to marketing strategy for relevant target customer audiences.

IBM, American Express, Eli Lilly and Merck have an excellent track record in globalizing their ERGs, and their companies profit from the input. One Eli Lilly group helped to identify doctors in underserved communities who could nominate patients for clinical trials where these populations were underrepresented.

7. Compile, organize and share collective cultural intelligence.

Corporate intranets, diversity websites and other central repositories can be used to pool an organization's collective cultural intelligence. These Web-based interactive resources should have practical information on all relevant cultures, industry-specific case studies and company-specific intelligence. Further, they should enable and encourage interaction across teams and practices to leverage that intelligence.

Pharmaceutical company Sanofi compiled a cultural diversity profile on each of the major countries where it operates and used the system to capture case studies and best practices so employees working across cultures could learn from each other.

Ensuring employees are culturally competent can mean the difference between successful global operations and gridlock, angst and disappointment.


By Neal Goodman | Diversity Executive

How To Successfully Lead Today's Diverse Workforce

Perhaps we need a new word. Roget's Thesaurus provides the following synonyms for leadership: authority, command, control, direction, domination, foresight, guidance, power, pre-eminence and primacy. This presumes a leader is someone out in front, with all the answers in hand and perhaps trailed by a cadre of willing followers.

But being a leader today is more complex. Not only are the business challenges daunting, but the increasing diversity of the workforce makes building a cohesive organization difficult.

There are four things you need to do to lead today's diverse workforce successfully:

1. Appreciate:

Withhold judgment - don't jump to conclusions.

2. Acknowledge:

Legitimize diverse perspectives.

3. Arbitrate:

Surface differences and establish clear and effective group norms.

4. Adapt:

Frame and deliver messages in ways that are meaningful to each individual.

To appreciate requires a willingness to withhold judgment. What seems to be an illogical interpretation or odd behavior to you may seem normal to another. Everyone's initial reaction reflects a particular bias or lens, shaped by each individual's background and experience.

Acknowledging there is no reason any individual's perspective should automatically be given primary significance gives you the ability to fairly hear and evaluate multiple points of view.

Second, leaders must publicly acknowledge the legitimacy and benefits of alternate views. This often requires teaching: helping others discover that colleagues see issues differently and becoming comfortable with differences. As a leader, facilitate group discussions of how a situation looks and create a context in which it is acceptable - preferably desirable - for people to express different views.

Third, leaders must arbitrate the inevitable behavioral differences that will arise. Again, in a group, ask employees to share perspectives on how things might be done, acknowledge the validity of various views and establish ground rules or norms for use in your particular circumstance. To the extent possible, make these rules situation-specific. Rather than pronouncing one view right or wrong, conclude that in this situation, the group will follow this course of action.

For example, areas for discussion may include:

1. How individuals view time and place:

Older employees began their careers when work was the time spent in the office. In contrast, younger workers tend to view work as something you do anywhere, any time, and find set work hours a throwback to another era. In your circumstance, does it matter whether people are working in the office or somewhere else? Does everybody have to work the same hours to accomplish the tasks?

2. How colleagues communicate:

Some are accustomed to brief texts, while others may be uncomfortable with digital communication and even feel offended by a lack of face-to-face interaction. What method of communication will your group use for what purpose? What response time is expected under which circumstance?

3. How we sync up and organize:

Older employees typically are planners and schedulers, while many younger colleagues are coordinators. Neither approach is perfect for every situation. What requires a plan and schedule? What can be coordinated in real-time?

Fourth, you may need to adapt your communication using language that resonates with members' differing values and preferences. Consider how the U.S. Army has delivered the same message - "Join the Army" - to successive generations.

With traditionalists, whose values include respect for authority and a desire to affiliate with institutions, it used a powerful, finger-pointing image and the command: "Uncle Sam Wants You." In contrast, the idealistic boomers, self-occupied and bent on personal growth, would never have responded well to this approach; the Army switched the message to "Be All You Can Be." The self-reliant members of Generation X were asked to join "An Army of One." And today, to reach a generation of family-centric Y's, the Army is speaking directly to parents with the message, "You Made Them Strong; We'll Make Them Army Strong."

By Tamara J. Erickson | Diversity Executive.

Don't Throw Your Employees Into the Deep End

Imagine enrolling your child for swim lessons at a place that promotes the following:

Our standard, one-lesson policy for novice swimmers is to walk them over to the deep end and push them in. Those with the best swimming potential will quickly figure out how to keep their heads above water. Those who can't tread water will sink, confirming they weren't cut out to be swimmers. Advance payment required, no refunds.

Poor instruction and worse parenting? Yes. But it's also the prevailing approach to promote talent into stretch roles. In the deep end you go. If you are truly high potential, you'll figure it out. If not, sorry we put you in the wrong place on the potential/performance grid. No refunds.

What a waste. Just as any responsible swim instructor will provide appropriate instruction to ensure the safety of every student, intelligent organizations will see each stretch promotion as an obligation to instruct and support.

By definition, stretch assignments mean the individual isn't fully ready for the new job. Perhaps the new role requires a higher level of skill or judgment, a leap in job breadth or role complexity. In any case, before you hear a big splash by the deep end of your organizational pool, it would be wise to consider five principles.

1. Look before they leap:

With today's ultra-lean human capital resources, providing substantial support for every promotion isn't practical. But realize the cost of failure due to neglect. Strategically place support resources where the odds of failure are high or the cost of failure to the individual and organization are high. My experience points to first-time moves to general manager roles, global assignments and high-pressure product development or critical customer relationship jobs.

2. Teach transition dog paddling:

Building strength in transitions to challenging work is a fundamental leadership competency. It should be a core part of anyone's personal skills portfolio and a systematic element of any talent development program. Be transparent in coaching and training to communicate the risks of jumping head first into a "deep waters" role. Further, provide development in the three fundamental swim strokes of big transitions: expanding self-awareness of their impact on others early, gaining a lifelong habit of aggressive learning and self-development rather than relying on old skills and acquiring solid start-up practices and stress-reducing resiliency habits.

3. Preview unseen currents and riptides:

Proactive coaching on stretch job challenges will better prepare talent for unknown hazards. One of the big moves in my company is promotion to division president, where plenty of trials await. We've developed a start-up briefing, based on interviews of successful incumbents passing along advice and experiences from the first year on the job.

4. Make it a team swim:

Loneliness in stretch roles is typical and can compound the difficulties of a transition. Similar to a geographic relocation, those newly promoted begin without the circle of familiar faces they left behind. Having a mentor or at least a sympathetic ear can be a lifeline. I've seen organizations assign a trusted external coach for the first six months or a skilled internal mentor who has been there.

5. Keep an eye on them once in the water:

The direct manager should play an active role. The more enlightened bosses will recognize their destiny is tied to new leader success and will provide assistance at start-up. Equally important is to keep checking how the new swimmer is doing throughout the first year. Sometimes signs of new leaders struggling aren't apparent for months. Managers who withhold help throughout the first year are like lifeguards taking a noontime nap. Managers can likewise fail to toss in a life preserver due to a misguided fear of undermining the new leader's confidence or seeing it as disrupting the "sink or swim" trial.

"Sink or swim" isn't a smart policy for swim classes, and it isn't the most effective approach to talent development in times of big job transitions. Providing great transition support is like telling your talent to come on in, the water's fine.


By Kevin D. Wilde | Talent Management

Authentic Leadership Development: Your Past, Present, and Future

There’s been a lot written about the concept of “authentic leadership”, that is, being a leader that is comes across as sincere, genuine, and real. Authentic leaders lead from the heart and are true to their values and principles. Authenticity builds trust, credibility, and inspires – all essential elements of great leadership.

Becoming a leader isn’t just about studying famous leaders or role models and then trying to emulate them. Nor is it just about assessing yourself against a competency model, and attacking your weak spots with a development plan.

While those can both be effective leadership development strategies, they won’t help you to be an authentic leader. 

Becoming an authentic leader involves transformation. It’s not “doing” leadership, it’s figuring out who you are and who you want to be as a leader.

In order to become a truly authentic leader, you can use the same methodology used by Ebenezer Scrooge to discover the true meaning of Christmas: examine your past, present, and future leader.

Your past

In his book True North: Discover Your Authentic Leadership, former Medronic CEO Bill George suggests looking back over your life to identify key moments that helped define who you are today. These key moments could be from early childhood, school, family, work, sports, military experience, religious, or people in your past life that had a significant impact on you. They could be high points or low points in your life. These key events and people taught you lessons – lessons that played a part in shaping your values, principals, and your identity. 

In a recent UNH leadership development program, our instructor, Dr. Carole Barnett, had participants map out their leadership journeys visually on a “Leadership Journey Line” poster. She then had them present their stories in their small groups. It was moving and inspirational! Presenting your Journey Line to others can be a powerful way to learn about yourself and others. 

Your Present

When you examine those critical incidents from your past, you begin to piece together patterns of lessons learned that help define what’s important to you today. These lessons define your values, principles, and motivations – in other words, you become self-aware. 

Your values, principles, and motivations in turn drive your behaviors. They become your compass in life, serving as a conscious or unconscious decision making checklist to guide the choices you make. Behaviors then drive results.

Figuring out who you are and what’s important to you is hard work! In fact, for many, it can become a lifelong journey. In addition to the Journey Line exercise, other ways to facilitate self-awareness include:
- Formal values assessments (I’m certified in Hogan, but there are others)
- Reflection
- Feedback from others (to uncover blind spots) 
- Journaling
- Therapy
- Gazing at your navel

Seriously, there’s no need to go completely off the deep end when it comes to self-awareness. You just need to end up with a handful of guiding values, principles, and motivations that when in doubt, guide your everyday decisions as a person and leader. 

BTW, this list shouldn’t be kept a secret, only to be discovered with a secret values decoder ring by those around you. Great leaders share their defining stories, values, and principles with others. They become “teachable points of views” in explaining their vision, goals, behaviors and decisions. This is where authenticity comes from – through heartfelt self-disclosure.

Your Future

We all know that leaders need to be visionary, to have a compelling vision, are future focused, etc…. This is all true and important. However, great leaders also have a vision of the legacy they want to leave behind.

They don’t wait until their retirement to begin to reflect on their legacy. They start the process early on in their careers, and then live each day in a way that contributes to that legacy. This involves asking yourself what you want your lasting impact to be on your organization and the people you work with. “Starting with the end” will have an amazing impact your daily behaviors. 

Try visualizing your retirement party in a positive way. What would you say in your speech? More importantly, what would you want others to be saying about you? 

Authentic leadership development: look to your past to figure out what’s important to you today. Think about your future legacy and begin leading with that purpose today.




By Hari Das Nair - Vice President & Group Head - HR at JBM Group

How To Spot A Liar At Work

"You can count on my support."

"It wasn't my fault."

"You're next in line for a promotion."

Really?

Wouldn't it be great to know when we're being lied to? If only spotting falsehoods were as easy as it is portrayed on television shows like "Lie to Me" and "The Mentalist." But in real life, deception detection remains an inexact science.

Lying triggers stress

For the vast majority of individuals the act of lying triggers a heightened stress response. These signs of stress and anxietyare obvious, if you know where to look. Basically, research shows that the mind has to work a lot harder to generate a false response. One theory, posed by Daniel Langleben, a psychiatrist at the University of Pennsylvania, is that, in order to tell a lie, the brain first has to stop itself from telling the truth, then create the deception, and then deal with the accompanying emotions of guilt, anxiety, and the fear of being caught.

Spotting deception begins with observing a person's baseline behavior under relaxed or generally stress-free conditions so that you can detect meaningful deviations. One of the strategies that experienced police interrogators use is to ask a series of non-threatening questions while observing how the subject behaves when there is no reason to lie. Then, when the more difficult issues get addressed, the officers watch for changes in nonverbal behavior that indicate deception around key points.

In business dealings, the best way to understand someone's baseline behavior is to observe her over an extended period of time. Note her speech tone, gestures, blinking patterns, etc. Once you've assessed what is "normal" for a co-worker, you will be able to detect shifts, when her body language is "out of character." Just remember (and this is key), that the atypical signals you detect may be signs of lying—or a state of heightened anxiety caused by many other factors.

One of the biggest body language myths about liars is that they avoid eye contact. In fact, many liars, especial the most brazen, may actually overcompensate (to prove that they are not lying) by making too much eye contact and holding it too long.

12 tell-tale signs of lying

My best advice is not to rely on any one signal. You'll be more successful if you look for clusters of behaviors (three or four body language cues that reinforce one another). To increase your chances of spotting a falsehood, watch for a cluster of body language cues that include:

1. A fake smile. It's hard for liars to give a real smile while seeking to deceive. (Real smiles crinkle the corners of the eyes and change the entire face. Faked smiles involve the mouth only.)

2. Unusual response time. When a lie is planned (and rehearsed), deceivers start their answers more quickly than truth-tellers. If taken by surprise, however, the liar takes longer to respond, as the process of inhibiting the truth and creating a lie takes extra time.

3. Verbal cues. When lying, a person's vocal tone rises to a higher pitch. Other verbal cues include rambling, selective wording (in which one avoids answering the question exactly as asked), stammering, and the use of qualifiers ("To the best of my knowledge." "I could be wrong."). It's also been noted that liars use fewer contractions: "I did not have sex with that woman" rather than "I didn't . . . "

4. Under or over production of saliva. Watch for sudden swallowing in gulps or an increased need to drink water or moisten lips.

5. Pupil dilation. One nonverbal signal that is almost impossible to fake is pupil dilation. The larger pupil size that most people experience when telling a lie can be attributed to an increased amount of tension and concentration.

6. Change in blink rate. A person's blink rate slows down as she decides to lie and stays low through the lie. Then it increases rapidly (sometimes up to eight times normal rate) after the lie.

7.  Foot movements. When lying, people will often display nervousness and anxiety through increased foot movements. They will fidget and shuffle their feet and wind one around the other or around the furniture. They will stretch and curl their feet to relieve tension, or even kick out in a miniaturized attempt to run away.

8. Face touching. A person's nose may not grow when he tells a lie, but watch closely and you'll notice that when someone is about to lie or make an outrageous statement, he'll often unconsciously rub his nose. (This is most likely because a rush of adrenaline opens the capillaries and makes his nose itch.) Covering the mouth or eyes are additional common gestures people make when they are being untruthful.

9. Incongruence. When a person believes what she is saying, her gestures and expressions are in alignment with her words. When you see a mismatch—where gestures contradict words—such as a side-to-side head shake while saying "yes" or a person frowning and staring at the ground while telling you she is happy, that's a sign of deceit, or at least an inner conflict between what that person is thinking and saying.

10. Changes in gestures. Often, in an effort to prevent their gestures from "giving away" the lie, deceivers will hold their bodies unnaturally still. At other times, especially after being asked a searching question, they may accelerate pacifying gestures—biting their lips, rubbing their hands together, fidgeting with jewelry, or touching their hair.

11. Micro-expressions. Difficult to catch, but if you ever spot a fleeting expression that contradicts a verbal statement, believe what you see and not what you hear.

12. The quick-check glance. This may follow a less-than-truthful response: liars will immediately look down and away, then quickly glance back at you to see if you bought the falsehood.

A final caveat: If a person really believes the lie, there is no way that you can detect the falsehood. However, unless you are dealing with a pathological liar or a superb actor, you can definitely improve your odds of spotting those who try to deceive you!

By,Carol Kinsey Goman- executive coach, leadership consultant, and international keynote speaker at corporate, government, and association events.