BODY LANGUAGE IS OF PARTICULAR IMPORTANCE IN LARGE GROUPS

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

The author, Eugen Tarnow, is a management consultant with a degree in physics (Ph.D.

M.I.T., 1989). His interests include the performance of large and small work groups including
cockpit crews and the effects of computerization on workplace communication patterns.

The author thanks Michelle Fine and Kay M. Washington for useful discussions.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Eugen Tarnow, 18-11

Radburn Road, Fair Lawn, NJ 07410; [email protected] (e-mail).

ⁱ As the balance of communication types in a meeting changes, the weight of each
communication type must also be considered. As far as the author knows, there has been no
experiments trying to determine the relative weighting of a verbal or a non-verbal communication
channel. A simple and not unreasonble assumption is that each channel being used is counted
as one vote.

ⁱⁱ There is some support in the literature for the potential dominance of emotion versus intellect in
large groups. See, for example, Le Bon (1895), McDougall (1920), Freud (1921), as well as
Sherif (1961), Asch (1956), Milgram (1974), and Janis (1972).

ⁱⁱⁱ Different groups require different considerations. For example, at seminars called "Dealers" at
Xerox Palo Alto Research Center beanbag chairs are used. The relaxed postures are not
distracting in this high performance environment. The social science seminar describe above
had a somewhat unusual seating arrangement: participants were sitting around round tables
allowing easier access to the non-verbal messages of all participants than had the seating been
in conventional seminar style.

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