Description

Date and Time: April 2, 2026 at 11:00am-12:00pm (ET)

Are you unknowingly sabotaging your communication? Often, the problem isn’t what you’re saying, but how you’re saying it and what your body is portraying. During this session, we’ll explore how unconscious gestures, posture, and eye contact can sabotage your communication. You’ll learn to identify common body language signals, understand their potential meanings, and develop strategies for mastering your own body language.

Recording

Transcript

Stephanie Lewis [0:04]: Good morning, everybody, and welcome to Hidden Signals, Mastering Your Nonverbal Body Communication. My name is Stephanie Lewis. I will be your moderator today. Before we get started with today’s webinar, I’d like to give you a little bit of an overview to the Microsoft Teams environment to make your viewing experience a little bit more enjoyable.

Roberta Yegidis [0:14]: I. Thanks.

Stephanie Lewis [0:26]: One, you are in a listen only mode, which means you will not be able to speak to our presenter directly, but you do have the opportunity to submit any number of questions throughout today’s presentation by utilizing either the chat and or Q&A box. We will be staying connected to both of those. This presentation is interactive, so we would appreciate if you would send any responses to our questions in the chat box. You can see a list of those that are logged in under the attendees list, and feel free to give us kudos throughout today’s presentation by utilizing the React tool. If you experience any technical difficulties with the sound, you can always have Microsoft Teams give you a call by clicking on the three dots for more and say call me, enter your phone number and that will give Microsoft Teams your phone number and we’ll give you a call.

Roberta Yegidis [1:14]: Yes.

Stephanie Lewis [1:23]: At the end of today’s webinar, just simply click leave to close the meeting and you’ll be all set. So with that, just a quick note, this webinar is hosted by the Florida Department of Transportation’s Florida Rural Transit Assistance Program, and our speaker today is Miss Roberta Yegidis. So Roberta, take it away.

Roberta Yegidis [1:44]: Good morning. Good morning, everybody. Good morning, everybody. Happy almost Friday. So we’re going to talk about hidden signals that we send from our body that are nonverbal as we’re communicating with people. And it’s interesting when we went through this, as Stephanie said.

This is sponsored by Florida RTAP. As always, the Florida Department of Transportation is extraordinary in supporting us and all of our partners throughout the state. So for the next 55 minutes or so, we’re going to talk about how. the importance of our non-verbal communication skills, so and how they positively improve the results and interactions with others. So the first thing I have to ask is.

Other than myself, and if you could respond in the chat line, I would appreciate it. Have you ever gone to a meeting and you’re all sitting there and someone’s giving a presentation? At the end of the presentation they say, does anybody have any questions and nobody says a sound, you could hear a pin drop. Everybody gets up, they walk out of the meeting and the first thing you do is you turn around and you say, hey, Steph, do you know what just happened? Anybody have that experience? It’s always interesting.

How sometimes? Yep. Thanks, Larry. Yep, we always do it. I’ve done it myself and I don’t know why, but I have done it myself.

Why do we not ask the questions when we’re in the room sometimes? Are we afraid to? Are we embarrassed that somebody’s going to think we don’t know what we’re talking about? So learning objectives. We hope by the end of this webinar that you’re going to be able to identify what we say non-verbally, what our body language tells people as opposed.

to the message we’re really trying to communicate. Understand the impact of nonverbal communication and how important it is. Define the different aspects that impact nonverbal communication. Address steps to improve your nonverbal communication. And for some of us, it’s easier than for others. And I’m going to say that right up front and acknowledge that, and I’ll explain why in a little while, and describe and address the nonverbal communication that we send. So what is nonverbal communication? As you can see, there’s a lot of different people there that we’ve posted on. They’re all sending different messages, but it’s actually our body language, our facial expressions, the tone of voice we use, and the difference between what we’re saying and what we’re portraying in our body language. So as an example, for all of those on the webinar right now that have children, I’m sure you have either the mother look.

Or the father look when the kids are really in trouble. So I know when my kids were little, you know, they’d be really in trouble. And then one of the three would do something. And how hard is it to keep that you’re in trouble face when you’re starting to laugh at something?

So just be cognizant of how you’re acting and what you’re portraying. So a non-verbal communication can really ruin what you’re trying to say. So here’s a couple examples. Have you ever tried to speak to someone about something? And they’ve understood something entirely different and you’ve wondered why. Or have you attended a meeting where after the meeting you’ve asked questions and we’ve all already said that we’ve all done that and it’s always interesting.

The reason is because people pay more attention to how things are being said very often than what’s being said. And because body language is very much part of it, a lot of times we’re looking at people’s facial expressions, the way they’re standing, what they’re doing and other aspects of nonverbal communication. So we’re going to talk about a few illustrations and see how many of us actually do this as well. So understanding the impact of nonverbal communication. Here’s an interesting fact that we found. So think about this for a second on communication. Doesn’t make any difference what you’re saying, what message you’re trying to relay, anything else. 55% of everything we said is interpreted by our body language.

Over half. So the woman in this picture here, does she look like she’s really approachable? Does she look like she’s someone that you want to talk to right now? Does she look like she’s someone that you want to bring an issue to right now? Probably not. She looks like she’s pretty aggravated about something. It’s a bad Monday.
Yes. No. You know what? And the interesting thing about it in transit, and I don’t know why, I guess it’s because we’ve been gone for two days. Every Monday is a bad Monday. 38% is the tone of our voice. You know, do we sound approachable. People can tell when you call up if they’re smiling or if they’re just angry like if I answer the phone and say hello vs I answer the phone and say hello, you can tell right away what type of a personality or what type of a mood someone is in.

People can tell when you call up if they’re smiling or if they’re just angry like if I answer the phone and say hello vs I answer the phone and say hello, you can tell right away what type of a personality or what type of a mood someone is in and 7% is spoken word, so less than 10% of everything we say is portrayed versus body language or tone of voice. So keep in mind, it’s not what we say, it’s how we say it. Our body language, our facial expressions, the posture, the tone of our voice. I know that sometimes…
I don’t know about anybody else, but when I was with my transit bear agency, very often I was trying to probably do three things at one time.

One okay, one maybe not okay, and one was a total disaster. But when you’re trying to have a conversation with somebody and you don’t focus on that person, it really has a negative impact on the conversation. So in addition to what we’re saying, it’s the words that we use and everything else. Here’s a perfect example.

I was asking on a personal project that we have going on at our home. I was asking somebody a question and I started it out inappropriately. I said, so what you’re telling me is that you can’t do this? And he said, that’s not what I said. He said, what I was trying to explain to it and I just wasn’t paying full attention and it was my fault.
So, you know, once again, we apologize and start all over. So the impact of nonverbal communication is significant portion of any interaction. And as we’ve said, only 7% is what we say, 93% of everything we’re trying to say is nonverbal and can be discounted right away.

Let’s just say that Steph and I have an argument and I’m walking away, which has never been the case, by the way. But I’m walking away and I’m walking with my arms crossed and I’ve kind of got a puss on my face because I’m still thinking about the conversation. And now I’m feeling really bad about what I said or how I said it or something like that and Sue comes up to me and says, hey Roberta, can I talk to you about something? And I said, sure. Sue’s probably not going to want to continue that conversation, and I wouldn’t either. So another thing is timing is always the key to success. And like you said, Monday mornings is probably not the best time. I’ve always found, for me at least, when you have to have something heavy, deep and real when you’re at your transit agency, Friday afternoons seem to be the best for some reason. Not sure why.

Some nonverbal messages are subliminal. We don’t even know that we’re doing it. Women very often tend to walk with their arms crossed. And the reason for that is a lot of times we don’t have pockets in the slacks that we’re wearing or the skirt or the dress or something that we have on. So putting your hands in your pocket is often of having your arms crossed is a sign of, you know, you’re not being approachable. But I do it a lot. Otherwise I look like I’m just cold. I like that.

Otherwise, my arms are flapping around when I’m making a presentation and I look like a bird that’s about to take off. So understanding your reactions and how they impact others is really, really important. So first impressions. Anybody have an idea on how long it takes to make a first impression?

Take a guess. 1.5 seconds, 3 seconds. seconds, 3 seconds, 5 seconds, 10 seconds. Pia, you’re very, very generous. The one that said 1.5 seconds, that’s probably my reaction, but yeah, less than 10 seconds.

So the question is, how long does it take to make a first impression? Seven seconds. So think about that. You’re walking up to somebody that is new to your office or new to a meeting or new to your group or something. And as you’re walking towards them, in seven seconds, you’ve probably already made a determination
on how you feel about that person.

and you never, ever, ever get a second chance to make a first impression. So when we meet people for the first time, we a lot of times make step judgments about whether we feel that they’re accessible, whether we feel that they’re friendly, whether we’d like to talk to them at all, or just forget about the conversation.

I don’t know about any of the ladies on the call, but…I have a very bad habit of judging people almost immediately by their body language and things like that. So as an example, my husband and I will walk into a group of people, whether it’s a social event or something like that, and I’ll walk in and there are people in there that I’ve never met before. And the first thing I say to my husband, well, man, Jeff looks really arrogant. I don’t even think I’m going to bother with him tonight.

And my husband, who’s Jeff, turns around and says, Roberta, you haven’t even met the person yet. Could you try saying hello and then making a judgment? So a lot of us really do put a lot of emphasis on our first impressions. So a lot of times, somebody hasn’t even said a word, and we now have an opinion on what they’re like.

So one of the aspects of nonverbal communication is that we’re a lot of times unaware of what we’re doing. We’re not aware of our facial expression. We’re not aware of our body language. We’re not aware of our posture or other things like that. And it just happens to be the way we walk around sometimes.

And a lot of times it sends messages that are misinterpreted. People think we’re being deceptive. They don’t think that we’re being honest and that they can really believe in what we’re saying that we send something that’s a mixed message or we just frustrate people. So I don’t know about anybody else, but…We talked about being in a meeting and walking out and saying, hey, Steph, what just happened? I didn’t understand anything else. But has anybody ever been the presenter when you’re standing there and you know people are lost, you know people are not following you, you know they have questions and you keep saying, is there any other areas that we can address?

Is there anything I can do? And they all sit there like tiny, quiet little people. So sometimes it’s just as hard for the presenter as it is for the person who you’re having the conversation with so types of nonverbal communication, appearance. Here’s a perfect example of what happened to me the other day. And I always use myself as an example, so that way the only person I could offend is myself. I walk my dog two times a day around the neighborhood, and usually I have a pair of gym shorts on and a t-shirt because I work from home. So there was a catastrophic event to somebody I know that is a server in one of the restaurants by our area. So I wanted to give to the GoFundMe page, but I couldn’t access it. So I went over to the restaurant before it was open in my dog walking outfit. And I walked around the corner and there was this restaurant wasn’t open yet. And I walked around the corner and I said to the gentleman who was emptying some garbage, I said, I’d really like to give. And he said, are you a homeless person looking for food? And I looked out at myself and I said, well, man, I didn’t think it was that bad, but obviously it’s worse than I thought. And then I explained to him, I was just there to try to donate to a GoFundMe page. He really apologized. But a lot of times it’s just what we’re wearing. I mean, when you go on job interviews or you go to a meeting for the first time or something, you probably want to dress a little bit.

More formal wear, business formal wear than you would normally. Our body language. Like I said, there’s all different kinds of body languages here. Here’s a woman looking at a laptop as she’s walking down the hallway.

If I come up to her and say, hey, can I talk to you? And she keeps looking at the laptop, am I going to feel like she’s ignoring me? And the answer is probably yeah. Eye contact. And the one thing I’m going to say about eye contact is sometimes people have situations, disabilities, or other effects where eye contact is very difficult for them. So
Just don’t automatically make a judgment on that one. But eye contact is very important. Remember when we were little, our parents always told us to look people in the eye, be quiet and everything else. Facial expressions. Are you looking receptive?
Do you look like you just went bankrupt or something like that? Hand and arm gestures. And like I said, I can’t stress that enough. And tone of voice.

Personal space, and I’m gonna talk about personal space. Here’s the deal with personal space. Some people like to get right in your face. If you walk up very closely to me, what do you think I’m going to do? Like if you’re within a foot of my face when you’re talking to me, what do you think my first reaction is going to be? Back up. Absolutely. Back up. Thank you, Monica. Thank you, Gwendolyn. Absolutely. You just need your, take a step back. You need your personal space. And for me, it’s kind of an arm’s length. I’m only 5 feet tall, so an arm’s length isn’t really that far. But yeah, be careful. Some nationalities tend to just like to be closer to you when they’re speaking to you. And of course, if you’re really good friends with somebody, it’s a different situation. But if you just have a very formal business relationship with them or you haven’t developed a relationship with them, be very cautious about that. And our parents includes our outfit, our facial expressions, our body language and handshakes, you know? I shook somebody’s hand the other day and my hand almost got broken and I started laughing. I said, well, that’s a firm handshake. And he said, I’m sorry. I said, no, no, don’t apologize. It’s okay. But, you know, it makes a big difference. And as I said, you’re never going to get a second chance to make a great first impression.

Those 7 seconds we talked about a while ago, they’re never coming back, ever. So, judgment. How many of us? For somebody that we’ve not met that’s walking up to us, or if we’re walking into a room and there are people that we’ve never met before, how many of us make a judgment on somebody’s looks before they’ve even said a word?
Sometimes, absolutely guilty. Yeah, me too. And some of my times have been in conferences where the presenters walked up and I’m like, man, I don’t know how interesting this is going to be because this person looks like they’re not really doing such a great job.

So judgments can be subconscious and have a lasting impression. Remember, you never get a chance to make a second first impression. In a professional environment, you’re never going to know who you meet on a daily basis, especially in transit. In transit. I don’t know about anybody else. We had a mid-sized transit agency. It was probably about the size of Lee Tran. Our peak pull out for fixed buses was about 60, 70 buses and paratransit was about 30. It just was amazing how many different people I would encounter throughout the course of the day.

Either it was a sheriff presenting us with a lawsuit, law enforcement for something that did or did not happen, public officials that were coming into the organization to find out what was going on. A lot of time board members would just show up. The mayor showed up one time, or just different people, salespeople or other things coming in. It’s always, always a gamble as to who you’re going to meet throughout the course of the day. So I know that a lot of us have become more casual in our appearance at work. And in many cases, especially in the very, very small, what I call the tiny, tiny agencies, it’s fine. But if you think you’re going to meet somebody today that’s new, you might want to think about, you know, putting on a nicer pair of slacks and a top or something like that.

Are you appropriately dressed for the occasion? So I did not know until we did this that there was a business formal. And I kind of chuckled to myself because when I was with my transit agency, that woman way over on the right was how I looked every day because I always wore a business suit to work.

That was the dress code in our office at the time. Obviously, this was pre-COVID, but you know, you have casual, which a lot of people it’s fine with. You know, you can wear your jeans or your sweaters or your polos or whatever. Smart casual, it’s a little bit more dressed up. Business casual, business professional. You don’t see a lot of people wearing shirts and ties anymore unless somebody’s going to a meeting or making a presentation or something like that. But it depends on where you’re going. So do you dress differently depending on who you’re going to be, have a meeting with that day or who, where you’re going to go or who you’re going to see? And the answer probably is yes.

Yeah, absolutely. We do. We take into account, you know? And I don’t know about anybody else, but I always, I’m like the queen of black. My husband tells me I could be a funeral director. But for me, it’s just, it’s easy. You know, everything’s black and white. My slacks, my dresses, my skirts, my shoes, everything.

I always kept a black jacket on the back of the door. Okay, Karen, you and I can go start our own funeral parlor together. But I always kept a black blazer on the back of my door just in case something happened and I had a look a little bit better than I usually did. Because if you put a blazer on for some reason, it hides A multitude of sins. So body language, posture, arm placement are very important in the presentation and what we’re wearing. So I don’t know about anybody else. I don’t have great posture. I never took ballet lessons as a child, and I’ve spent most of my life over a laptop or something like that. So now I’m trying to be more cautious about standing up straight. But when I look at myself in the mirror as I’m walking by, I realize that I’m slouched over a lot of times. So I’ve been trying to consciously work on that a little bit more.

But standing up straight makes a big difference in a lot of situations. Are you slouched over your laptop? Are your arms crossed? Which when you cross your arms, it sends a message subliminally that you’re not open and you’re not receptive. And I, as I said,
Bad back. A lot of different reasons. Absolutely. Some people have spinal situations. I have a friend that has very, very bad curvature of the spine, so they don’t have the best posture and it’s very difficult.

So how to improve body language. Try not to walk around with your arms crossed.
Ladies, I know it’s hard sometimes. I’ve tried, I’ve started buying slacks that have pockets in them just so I have some place to put my hands because I think the first time I gave a presentation for CUTR, Steph was videotaping it and I looked like a bird waiting to take off because my arms were flying all around because I didn’t know what else to do with them.

Handshake. Does it convey confidence and a feeling of acceptance or, you know, does it feel like I don’t want to bother with you? And always, always, always try to focus on the person in front of you. Put the phone down, turn away from the laptop. That email that you’re trying to read, it’s going to be there when you get done with the conversation. If I’m sitting in my office and I start [keyboard typing sounds] on my laptop. And I’m like, yeah, okay, Steph, I got it. What are you talking about? And that’s all you hear.

Does that, do you really feel like I’m listening to you? I unfortunately have done that in a couple of times and I’ve had people walk out of my office and I’ve had to go after them and say, I’m so sorry. I’m really sorry. It was a board member. I had to get something out, but please come back and accept my apology because a lot of times distractions, you’re absolutely right. A lot of times they’re very difficult to avoid. And people don’t necessarily have a scheduled appointment with you. Something happened, there’s an accident, there’s an incident, there’s an argument, there’s some kind of a panic over a financial situation. Or worst case is for Florida, we’re famous for having our hurricane.

So you know, sometimes, you try not to be distracted, but whatever happens, you can’t avoid it. And when that happens, if somebody walks into my office and they say, can I talk to you? I say, sure. Can you just give me one second? I’ve got to finish this email. It’s really important. I apologize. And a lot of people feel as if when you say, I’m sorry or I apologize, that you take ownership for the situation. And that time, I was taking ownership of the situation. I was apologizing for my action. But in general, it doesn’t mean that you’ve created the whole problem that just have come down on you like 10 tons coming around the corner. So eye contact. I’m sure when we were all little, our parents told us to look people in the eye, be respectful. My parents told me don’t speak until spoken to. Obviously, that part didn’t sink in very well. But eye contact is one of the most powerful tools. And I do know that there are some people Gwendolyn, I don’t know about you, but that happened to me. There are some people that have a disability or a situation where they don’t have eye contact. I unfortunately worked for someone that had that situation and I didn’t know it until they were there for about a week or two. And I said to somebody, could somebody please tell me why Mike never looks me in the eye? It’s some cultures also, you’re right its cultures as well as other situations. Thank you so much for bringing that up.

It’s just different, you know, and you don’t want to be staring them in the eye and not blinking or anything like that. But if you’re not looking people in the eye, and you know, it’s not a cultural issue, or it’s not some kind of type of a…disability or something, try to make eye contact because then people know that you’re really, really listening to what they’re talking about. It signals that you’re genuinely interested and concerned. And, you know, don’t stop blinking. Don’t just stare at somebody. You know, it’s but.
Looking people in the eye makes a huge, huge difference and makes the other person feel heard.

And like I said, individuals may have a disability. Thank you for bringing up a cultural impact, but they may have some reason why they don’t look you in the eye. In that case, I would just try, you know, keep speaking and maybe they’re shy or something. It takes them a little time. And as always, a smile never hurts. Absolutely, Marcia. So…Here are some pictures of a woman that go anywhere from happy to…First one, she’s aggravated, you know, and…tell people to read lips. Very good. Universal nonverbal language, communication, feelings and thoughts, instantly, facial expressions. I can tell you right now that my family can walk up to me and in a heartbeat, they can tell what kind of a mood I’m in, by the look on my face.

My kids call it, my kids are actually…adults but they still call it the mom look. I don’t know what it is, but it’s there. Impact or interaction, scowling, frowning. A lot of people look very serious. My husband, for example, has a beard and a mustache. So when he’s smiling, it’s got to be a really, really, really toothy smile for you to know that he’s smiling. So it’s difficult sometimes, but a smile goes a long way.

And often unnoticed is be mindful of your own expressions during the conversation. If somebody’s saying something to you, they’ve done, let’s just take for an example, somebody’s made a mistake. This has always been my rule of thumb in a leadership position. If Jeff is working for me and Jeff does something wrong, in the beginning of our relationship, I always say to Jeff, there’s three things I ask you. Number one, if you’ve done something wrong, let me be the first one to know because I’m not going to hear about it from somebody else. I can help you fix it and we can make it go away. Number 2, don’t try to hide it because that’s only going to make it worse.

And #3, let’s learn from our mistakes. Everybody makes a mistake every single day, no matter how small and insignificant it is, everybody makes a minor mistake. There’s nothing wrong with going up to who you work for and say, listen, Steph I’m really, really sorry, but I messed this up. And I think I know how to fix it, but I’m not sure, or I don’t know how to fix it because I did it wrong and I didn’t know how to do it right. I should probably should not have done at all. So just have that relationship with people that you work with. Try to create that team and have an open communication and line.

This is what happens. Mood shifts, facial cues. Okay. So you’re approaching someone who looks really angry. It’s going to bring your mood down and you’re going to be, I did have some good news. Maybe I don’t want to go and take it today, or maybe I’ll talk about it tomorrow. Or if I’m standing in the hallway smiling and you come up to me, maybe your problem, you don’t feel like it’s going to be such a huge problem if I’m standing there smiling.

Meeting a smiling person can lift everybody’s attitude. People reflect what other people. body language is. So if I’m smiling, people might smile back. If I’m frowning, people are either going to ignore me or frown also. So happy people tend to turn other situations around all the time. So just know. that your expressions and emotions really send a big language. If you take nothing else away from this one hour webinar, please take away the 93% of everything we said has nothing to do with the words we use.

Show openness, hand and arm gesture, keep your hands visible, avoid crossing arms. You know, are you confused? Are you thankful? Are you aggravated? Are you not receptive? Are you shocked? A lot of those things are just relayed by hand language, and a lot of us…do that throughout the course of a five-minute conversation. So avoid pointing, unless you’re trying to highlight something. If you’re making a presentation and you want to highlight something on the PowerPoint, or you’re pointing to a specific vehicle or something like that, never ever point at someone. It’s very very, very rude. It can make them feel very offensive and it’s going to end the conversation. Even if they keep talking, they’ve shut you down. They’re not listening to a word you say. You could go on for another 10 minutes. They haven’t listened to one word you said. positive hand gestures, thumbs up, things are okay. You know, things are not as bad as we see. You know, in transit, a lot of times.

When I first got into transit, my husband asked me, why do I work 14 and 15 hour days? How hard is it to make a bus go from point A to point B, Roberta? It can’t possibly be that hard. And I would look at him and say, if we didn’t have to pick anybody up and if we had automated vehicles with no drivers, my world would be a perfect place. However, we’re in the business of working with humans, and every single person we interact with has a different personality every single day. So you never know. You’re going to go from one situation, one person, one catastrophe, one positive thing, all throughout the course of the day. And a lot of times.

I’m sure that people, weather, traffic, yeah. There’s all kinds of reasons why we can’t get a bus from point A to point B. Sometimes there are mechanical issues. You never know. So tone of voice. Monitor your tone of voice. I tend to have an animated tone of voice. That’s kind of my personality to begin with. But if I spoke throughout this whole one hour seminar in a monotone tone of voice without any expression whatsoever, you probably would have either logged out or just let the thing go to mute and play in the background and not even listen to a word I say. And I’ve done that myself. So it shapes the understanding and acceptance of the message. Do I sound as if I’m ready and receptive to your message? Do I sound as if I understand what you’re saying? Am I raising my voice that’s going to make you withdraw and stop speaking?

It’s all different methods and its listeners focus on how something’s being said more than what’s being said. So remember the 93%, it’s got a little to nothing to do with the words we use. And when I found that out, I was just shocked because when I thought back of some of the meetings I had been to, I realized that I’m A doodler. So if I’m in a meeting and you see me start doodling on a notepad, you know I’ve checked out of that conversation. And I’ve either checked out of the conversation because A, I’ve already gotten the information I needed and the rest of it is peripheral to me, or it’s just being presented in such a negative or monotone fashion or something like that, that you’ve lost interest in what people are saying. COVID, I think, forced us to all develop better speaking skills, for lack of a better term, because even though transit was essential and almost everybody in transit kept coming to work into the office all the time, I know that there are a lot of transit agencies right now that their customer service reps still work remotely and some other functions within their organization. But because everything we were doing was virtually, it kind of forced us to get out of that comfort zone of those short and sweet conversations of, yep, nope, see ya.

So tone, volume, and emotional delivery. Tone adds a lot of emotion. And I said that before, it can amplify or distort the message. If I’m snapping at somebody and it’s good news, I don’t know why I’d be doing that, but I have actually seen people do that because it’s their personality. Everything to them is negative and they’re just unhappy people. So they could be telling you that, you know, you’re getting a 10% raise and there could be a lot of reasons behind the 10% raise. The only thing you’re going to get out of the conversation is a 10% raise because everything else was so negative to you as you were listening to it that you tuned it out. Know your listener.

Know the people you’re speaking with. Some people are very soft-spoken. Obviously, I’m not one of those. Other people speak loudly. And I realize that. Um…okay, I realize that some people have hearing deficiencies and I know, for example, my father-in-law wears hearing aids. If we go into a restaurant or something like that, for people that have hearing deficiencies or disabilities, it’s difficult for them to be in a conversation at the table they’re sitting at because there’s a lot of background noise and it distorts the conversation.

So first of all, if you need to have a conversation with somebody that’s very important, obviously don’t do it in the middle of a crowded area because everybody else is going to be background noise. So know your listener, know who you’re speaking with, understand what their style is, understand what they prefer. If you have 10 people that work for you, you have 10 different personalities.

If you have 200 people that work for you, you have 200 different personalities. You have to know how to approach each one and how to work with each one to the extent possible, stay calm, cool, and collected. And even when it’s getting really bad, try to maintain a steady voice. One of the things that I’ve been extraordinarily impressed with throughout my time in Florida, I’m originally from the tri-state up in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.

And you could drive through the state of Connecticut and not stop to get a cup of coffee or use a restroom or anything. It takes you about two hours most. It’s very small compared to Florida. But no matter where you are in the state of Florida, every transit agency is willing to help every other transit agency, from the panhandle all the way down to Key West. And during emergencies, it always amazes me how calm everybody stays and how steady their voice is. And I guess it’s just that we’ve had it happen to us so many times that we’ve become professionals at doing that. It’s not as if, oh my God, Chicken Little just died and the roof’s falling in, let’s all run away.

So stay calm, tone your volume, and keep your emotions where you believe they should be for the appropriate situation. Regional differences. This is the big one, and sometimes this is very difficult for me. Depending on where you’re from in the United States, you tend to speak slower than other people do. Stephanie and I are both from tri-states. So if you listen to Stephanie and I in a conversation, it’s like 150 words a minute, and we short circuit half of our sentences and other people have been offended by our conversations, even though we haven’t offended each other. It’s just our personality style, so we know each other well enough that we could do it. So just understand if you’re working somebody from another country or another geographic area or whatever the situation may be, you may have to adjust your communication style.

You may have to speak slower. You may have to be repetitive in what you’re saying. A lot of us, if you’re working on the paratransit side of the house, we become masters at this. So just keep that in mind. And I don’t know about anybody else, but I can tell when I’m speaking to somebody by the look on their faces to whether I’ve lost them. They’re still involved in the conversation or they’re totally confused. So that’s when I go back and I’m like, okay.

Let’s go back over this for a second, just to make sure that we’re both on the same page, not just to make sure that you understood me, because that implies that you weren’t listening or something like that. So to the extent possible, when you feel as if somebody is misunderstanding what you’re saying, it’s probably because of a language difference, or it might just because their brain works in a different way. So try to adjust. Just your message. Personal space.

An invisible boundary surrounds all of us. Like I said, mine’s an arm length. Like I guess if you’re like Shaquille O’Neal or something like that, he probably has a seven, I don’t know, probably 7 foot arm length or something like that. But respect everybody’s personal space. In the US, we like to be about

Four feet away, other. countries, other nationalities tend to be closer. Others tend to be farther apart. I used to do a lot of work with the Scandinavian countries. The Scandinavian countries are very, very conscious of their personal space. They want you to be like more than four feet away. You know, not more that you’re yelling, but just stay in your own distance. And proxmetics, study of how space influences interaction. So unless you’re really close to someone and you could go up and whisper something in their ear or give them a great big hug or something like that, respect people’s personal space. Because if you move in too close, or you’re sitting too close, people are going to be, feel invasive. They’re going to be intimidated. Like I said, the individual that I worked for had Asperger’s and I did not know that at the time. And in our first meeting, he was sitting so close to me. I kept moving my seat over and he kept moving over with me.
And it really made me feel uncomfortable and I didn’t understand why. So when it happened the second time, I finally went up to him and I said, can I speak to you for a moment? And he said, yes. I said, you know, I just want to ask, is there a reason why you sit so close to people when you’re in a meeting? And that’s when he explained it to me and I said, oh, okay, I understand. You know, I’m sorry.

Did not have the awareness of that at the moment. And, you know, sometimes it’s just, you got to ask the question. Yep, absolutely. So think about this for a second. Which of the nonverbal communication traits that you’ve identified pose the greatest challenge to you when you’re having a conversation with someone or areas that you think you should focus on? So the things we’ve discussed so far, which ones do you do? Do you cross your arms? Do you scowl? Do you keep? Talking with my hands. Yes, I know a lot of us do that, especially from the tri-state. Facial expressions, crossing my arms. I know the crossing my arm things is a really difficult thing to get over because yep, distance. Thank you all for participating.

Full attention. You know, thank you so much, Catherine. That’s one of the biggest things. In transit, we don’t really have time to do one thing at a time. We’re probably trying to do 10 things at a time. Rino, I love it. I travel with Rino. Rino’s absolutely right. Rino and I have some of the funniest conversations. And a lot of them have nothing to do with what we’re saying. It’s like our arms are going a mile a minute. But anyway, yeah, it’s one of the things that I had a, people had to make me aware of before I realized I was doing it. Because you’re trying to do 10 things. I’m really focused on you, but I’m still typing. I think I can do two things at once really well.

Maybe not so often. So thank you for your participation. Nonverbal communication. So nonverbal communication, technology has impacted a lot of challenges in this. A lot of you have children that have grown up on technology. I kind of laugh every time I’m in an airport or I’m in a store or something. And there’s this little person that’s in a stroller, maybe two or three years old, and they’re cranky and they want to go home and they’re bored. So the first thing their mom does is they give them their iPhone or, you know, their cell phone to play with and put some kind of a video game on or something like that. But I’m sure all of us get a message at the end of the week that tells us how many hours we’ve been on our cell phone this week.

And it’s amazing and shocking sometimes when I look at those, not this mom, good for you, Lorraine. But yes, it’s shocking how addictive we have been to technology. Here’s the perfect example. And I’m going to apologize right now. We have lost Wi-Fi at our house. And I went to three neighbors’ house starting at 10 o’clock this morning to prepare for this. And when I got to the 4th neighbor’s house, Steph finally hooked me up on my iPhone. So I’m actually doing this webinar from an iPhone, which is the first for me. So I hope it’s going okay for everybody else.

But it’s amazing how…technology has infiltrated our lives. We rely on it. We can’t do anything with it. Virtual events, meetings, we all have virtual meetings because a lot of people either have budget constraints or it’s just a lot easier. You know, I shouldn’t have to fly to California to do something like that. Training sessions like this.

Florida RTAP program is extraordinarily generous in all of the webinars and all of the training they provide to the transit agencies throughout the state of Florida. And I always, always thank them whenever ever I see them. One-on-one interactions is always the way.

So camera and lighting, if you’re going to make a presentation when you have to have your camera on. So first of all, we all know what we should not do, right? We learned that during COVID when one of the news forecasters stood up and he had his shirt, a tie, and a suit jacket on and boxer shorts on the bottom. So that was a big oops.
But position your laptop and your camera to make sure that you see your entire face and not just your eyes or not just your mouth. A lot of us have bought those small lighting rings because it makes a big difference. Try to have the background be as neat and clean as possible so people aren’t distracted from a lot of things that are going on behind you.

Check your audio to make sure that it’s effective, that it’s clear. Sometimes I have to apologize because even though I closed my office door, my 85 pound boxer is barking at something in the background and somebody’s trying to contain them. And just think about all the ways you can do to be on camera. Like, you know, when you look at people on the news or things like that, they’re always very focused. They’re always looking at the camera. And that’s really important. If you’re giving a presentation and the camera is focused on you, don’t be looking the other way because people are going to know that you’re doing something else. Specific challenges for virtual meetings. How a person says hello can signal the rest of the emotion. If I open this up with, hi, my name is Roberta Yegidis, and this is what we’re going to talk about. No, you can’t do that. Dress as you would in person, look appropriate. Put on, you know, a good t-shirt or, you know, a business top or something like that. And your facial expressions really carry the whole conversation when you’re doing it virtually, because you have no other means of communication. Nobody sees how you’re standing. Nobody sees where your arms are or anything else.

So you have to maintain a natural, engaging look and keep everybody interested and animated. And take turns when speaking. Use and raise hands for different features.
Preparing for virtual presentations. Make sure you consider the conversational preferences of each group. Rino and I travel a lot on business together, and we were out of the state two weeks ago in a totally different geographic part of the country, and we had to be conscious of how they were receiving our communication and how we were communicating with them. And we even had to adjust our communication within the subgroups of everybody that we were speaking with, because they had never met us before, except for one person. And we had to make sure that we were coming across as representing CUTR in the best fashion possible.

So creating virtual presentation or developing an inclusive and effective environment is going to contribute. Make sure, you know, like we try to ask questions throughout this thing. You don’t really need to listen to me talk for an hour. But if I ask questions and you provide the feedback, it actually is very interesting and helpful for me, as a presenter, because I know that people have either agreed or disagreed, but it also brings in some different topics that are really, really important. And if you can, read the facial expressions. If you look like you’re going to start losing the audience, here’s the deal. If you’re giving a class and it’s 1.30 in the afternoon, it’s an hour after lunch or something like that, it’s the worst time to be making a presentation.

And everybody that does it knows it. Everybody is full. They want their 130 nap. And they’re, you know, by this time, they’re usually running around their office or wherever it is. But now they’re just sitting there listening to something. So you might have to get everybody to stand up and stretch, give a 5 minute break, or start asking questions and say, how would you handle this? Could you give me an example of what facial expressions you would use, or how would you make this presentation?

Communication by generation, it’s really very different. Neural adaptation to technology, the digital generation’s brain structures have been reshaped by continuous exposure to devices. So the way some of our kids and grandkids think and process information is much different than how we do and whenever Rino and I give a class and we’re traveling around, we’re always conscious of that because there’s always multiple generations within a group. And we want to make sure that we’re keeping everybody engaged. They process and think and information in ways that are different than older generations. Speed of information, younger people want to get it.
Within a nano-second and their expectations influence how they’re going to engage and respond. But the one interesting thing that we found out is a couple of us gave a leadership, a two-day leadership class that had people that were from every generation, from the top executive to the entry level of supervision within the group. And the one thing we asked is how do people want to receive information when there’s a change in the organization?

Do they want to receive it via text, via email, or via meeting? And everybody, regardless of their age group, wanted the opportunity to sit in a meeting, understand what was being said, and ask questions, which really caught us off guard. We didn’t expect that one. Generational communication differs by style. Baby boomers, we prefer face-to-face interaction. There’s no other ways around it. Millennials grew up on technology. They grew up on virtual meetings. A lot of people, especially teenagers that missed their proms and graduations and everything else during COVID, they’re really, really used to digital communication. So you have you have to adjust your style for whatever you’re presenting and whatever medium or method you’re using. Adapting your virtual messages, tailor your audience, identify the preferred method, look around the group and see who really wants the icon, who really wants to just get down to the bottom line.
Prioritize brevity, it.

I used to tell people, if I ask you what time it is, I really don’t want the history of the sundial. If you have other information to give me, that’s great. But if we can keep it short and sweet and to the point, because sometimes, well, all the time, people are in a hurry when they’re in transit. So baby boomers, be ready to explain the how, when, why, and where. Details matter to us. We want to know. Why are we changing this? Are we just changing this because there’s somebody new or is there a reason?

And foster intergenerational respect. And I found that in transit agencies, we’re very good at doing that because especially if you’re in a control center or a radio room or a dispatcher or something like that, there’s always different generations in a very small office where everybody’s talking at the same time and they’ve got it down to a science.
But I also think that transit in general, because we work with the public and many times we work with people that have cognitive or physical disabilities, we’re really, really good at adjusting our style. Mastering virtual presentations. The first time I did one, I actually gave the one-hour presentation to my husband in the kitchen. And at the end of it, he sat there, he gave me 3 suggestions, which I incorporated.

And when I gave it to him the second time, he said, oh my God, you listen to me. You never listen to me. But I was uncomfortable. I didn’t feel very confident in doing it. And I wanted to make sure I did a good job. And he was the only person hanging around. So unfortunately, he got it. But the more you do it, the better you get at it. Confirm your basics. Ensure your lighting, your sound.

I’ve had my dog jump up in the middle of the screen and introduce them to the group. Do a dry run. Test your technology. Like I said, I started an hour before this trying to find somebody that had Wi-Fi. And practice, practice, practice. Practice always makes things perfect. The more you do something, the more comfortable you will be with it. Even if you don’t like speaking, In front of groups, the more you do it, the better you’ll get at it, so…In summary, remember your parents dressed for success. I look at it this way. Dress for the job you want, not necessarily the job you have, unless you’re already the CEO, and then that’s a different issue. But if you want to move up in the organization, come to work professionally dressed. I will tell you, some of my operators
always wore the casual uniforms. Some of my operators always wore the dress uniforms. And the people with the dress uniforms…a lot of times turned out to have the most professional attitude when they were operating or something like that. They were also our trainers and things of that nature. So just think about it.

Try to stand up or sit straight. It’s difficult. I know. Big if for me. Eye contact. I’m really good at that. Unfortunately, some people don’t really like it, so I’ve had to adjust to that over time. And facial expressions. You know, the smile goes a long way. If you’re smiling when you walk up to somebody and you put your hand out to shake your hand, 99% of the time, they’re going to be receptive and they’re going to reflect what you’re doing. And at arm gestures, pay attention to your arms. Do you look like a bird taking off? You have your arms crossed and you look like you’re aggravated at the world. Tone of voice. Be aware of your volume and your tenor. Don’t have to be bellowing, but you know, make sure everybody can hear you depending on the size of the room.

Personal space, big one, a big one. We’re in a very multicultural world right now. And there’s a lot of different cultures with a lot of different personalities and a lot of different ways of communicating. And I accidentally offended someone one time because their culture wanted to be very close. So when they stepped up to me, I stepped backwards and I offended them and I had to apologize and then I had to explain to them why. So it became a learning experience for both of us. Non-verbal communication, practice, practice, practice.

So in conclusion, we hope that you now understand at the very least that 93% of everything we said is lost somewhere in the ozone. It’s more about how we say it and not what we say it. And for those of us that have significant others in our lives, I can tell you right now, it’s very, very true. Virtual meetings are the new norm, you know, for scheduling costs, consideration, and everything like that. So we don’t always have the opportunity to meet people face to face. So your facial expressions mean a lot when you’re doing things virtually. So I’m going to turn it over to Steph. You channel nervous energy into movement during, yeah.

Stephanie Lewis [54:46]: Great. Thank you. Thank you so much, Roberta. Let me bring that PowerPoint presentation back up. There’s a couple more slides we need to go through.

Roberta Yegidis [54:56]: Oh, I’m sorry.

Stephanie Lewis [54:57]: That’s all right. That’s okay. Just a quick note while I… While I get that presentation, in the chat box, I have placed our session evaluation. If you could take a few moments to complete that evaluation as the feedback is provided is very important to not only Roberta, but also the rest of the Florida RTAP team as we continue to develop a number of webinars. that are part of this employability skills. So this webinar series was at the request of several of our rural transit agencies. So if anybody has any questions, feel free to utilize the chat box and we can ask Roberta.
or use that Q&A box. Both are available for you. And like I said, I did place the evaluation in the chat box. You also can click on the link on the screen and or scan the QR code with your cell phone.

Roberta Yegidis [55:48]: And, and. Thanks, Bill. And I do, I want to thank everybody. Do we still look interested? I want to thank everybody for participating in this webinar, number one, but #2 for your understanding because we are having some technology challenges where I am. So I hope that it’s been as effective as we possibly could make it considering
We have no Wi-Fi, so…

Stephanie Lewis [56:25]: The one question came in, Roberta, and says, how do we still look interested yet still have our arms crossed?

Roberta Yegidis: [56:32]: You know, a lot of that gets to do with your facial expression. Steph can tell you and Rino can tell you, Rino can look at me and tell right away if I’m teed off about something or anything. So for me, a facial expression is more about what I’m doing, about smiling, about eye contact, about looking interested, you know, having your eyes really open. And you know, even if I’m standing there with my arms crossed, and I do sometimes because I don’t have pockets that I don’t know what else to do with them, I try to have as expressive a facial expression as I can and something that’s welcoming and then changes to interesting or whatever it could be. So for me, almost everybody that knows me knows as soon as I walk into a room, by the look of my face, what kind of a mood I’m in. So I have to be very conscious of that when I’m changing from one meeting to another meeting or something like that. So I would recommend facial expression and posture a lot of times.

You’re very welcome.

Any other questions, comments? Concerns other than budgetary. We can’t do budgetary problems.

Stephanie Lewis [57:40]: Roberta. Yeah. Yeah, it looks like you got lots of kudos and thank you. So that’s wonderful, Roberta.

Roberta Yegidis [57:48]: Oh, thank you so very, very much. I can’t see anything right now because like I said, I’m a little bit behind. Thanks, Monica. Thank you, everybody. I really appreciate the feedback.

Stephanie Lewis [58:01]: Great, so again.

Roberta Yegidis [58:01]: So, you know, like I said, we always have bad moments. Try not to let that carry you throughout the day. Let it just be that one situation. And then look at every interaction as a learning opportunity.

Stephanie Lewis [58:14]: Right. So again, please, if you haven’t already done so, please take a few moments to complete that session evaluation as the feedback provided is not only important to Roberta, but the entire Florida RTAP team. So my contact information as well as my FDOT project manager, Mr. Tony Brandin, his contact information is provided on the screen. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions or comments. We’re here to support you. So again, on behalf of Florida RTAP, which is the Rural Transit Assistance Program, thank you so much for joining us today. And we’ll see you all real soon. I guess before we go, let me pull up the link and I’ll drop it in the chat. We do have a number of other webinars. on employability that we can share with you. And we would encourage you to attend those webinars as well. So just give me one quick second.

Roberta Yegidis [59:08]: I hope I get to see all of you at the PDW. Thank you, Matt. I really appreciate it. Rino, you’re my bud, when Rino and I were at another agency a couple of weeks ago, we had an agenda that kind of got overwhelming, so we decided to divide and conquer, and it worked out great in the end, but it did take teamwork to get it done and I’m sure each transit agency has a great team that they’re working with. Thank you, Matthew.

Stephanie Lewis [59:30]: The, okay, well, thank you. I dropped that link in the chat and we’ll see you all real soon. Bye, everybody.

Roberta Yegidis [59:44]: Bye.