Russian journalist and TV presenter Vladimir Solovyov, in one of his speeches, shared an observation on how to look at a person in order to be a good conversationalist for him: “During a conversation, look into a person’s right eye.”
Is he right?
Vladimir Solovyov is partially right. What is he right about?
If during a conversation your eyes shift, it makes the interlocutor doubt your sincerity. But when you don’t know where to stop looking at the face of the interlocutor and shift your gaze back and forth, you get shifty eyes. And when you focus your gaze on a certain point, your eyes stop moving, your movements become more calm. You give the impression of a confident person who knows what he is saying and knows how to listen.
Further. Why is it better to look into a person’s right eye rather than the left? (Clarification: the right one is how we see it, from our point of view. From the point of view of the interlocutor, this is his left eye). When we look at a person in his right eye, for the interlocutor, our head turns to its left side. And professionals know that it is this turn that creates a sense of mutual trust and the offer of a closer relationship. If you look to the left, your head is turned to the interlocutor with its right side, and this creates a feeling in him of your closeness.
In summary: if you want to create more official relations and a greater distance between yourself and your interlocutor, look into his left eye. If you want to create a closer relationship and instill in him a sense of trust in you, it is better to look into the right eye.
It’s right. But at the same time, this is an erroneous recommendation, because your gaze should not look into either the right or the left eye. When you look at any fixed point on an interlocutor’s face, you don’t see the overall expression on their face. You can miss the instant change of his emotions, and this is unacceptable!
It is necessary to look at the face of the interlocutor in principle in a different way. How?
First, you need to look at the whole face, as if you were looking at a sheet of A4 paper. You know how to look with a wide eye, catching the general impression. When a friend shows you her new outfit, you won’t be looking at every single button on her, the color of the top and the color of the bottom: you’re looking at the big picture, you’re looking at how it looks in its entirety.
About the same way an experienced driver looks at the road. The driver has a slightly defocused look, he does not look at a specific point, but at the road as a whole.
You need to get used to looking at your interlocutors in the same way: in this case, your eyes will not run, but you will see the face of the interlocutor in its entirety and can instantly respond to any of his micromovements.
And now let’s clarify.
Depending on your tasks, you can look at the face of the interlocutor both wider and narrower.
At the beginning of the conversation, in order to catch his general condition, it is better to keep your gaze as wide as possible, namely to track the large triangle. The base of the triangle is the line of the shoulders, the apex of the triangle is the head of the interlocutor. The internal confidence of the interlocutor, his status, disposition towards you will always be reflected in this triangle: the head is tilted or stands straight, turns to you with the left or right side, pressed into the shoulders or rises in status.
When you move on to solving specific issues, it is better to keep your attention inside the small triangle. At the top is the line of the eyebrows, and below the triangle narrows from the eyes to the wings of the nostrils and mouth.
Perhaps it will be more of a trapezoid, because you need to track the corners of the mouth as well.
And inside this figure, where you simultaneously see the forehead, eyebrows, corners of the eyes, the stirring of the wings of the nose and subtle movements of the lips — all the richness of emotions is concentrated within the boundaries of this figure. As long as your attention is focused in this small triangle, you will understand and feel the emotions of the interlocutor faster than he will understand and feel them himself.
Practice this wide, unfocused look. Where are you looking? To the interlocutor. Where specifically? On his face. Even more specific? On his face. Whole!