One move and you'll give yourself away

What kind of person are you? Former dancer Carol-Lynne Moore says she can tell just by looking, writes Michael Seaver

You can often tell when people are lying. Sometimes it's the look on their faces or inflections in their voices, but usually their bodies contradict the words coming from their mouths. And even if it's not a question of lying, our posture and movement can reveal more about us than our words. People who gesture with their arms, for example, are clearly expressive. Other, less obvious movement "sites" are equally revealing. As the movement analyst Carol-Lynne Moore puts it: "Thoughts are not invisible, since we can mind-read through reading the person's body."

Moore is in Ireland to talk about her work in the emerging field of movement-pattern analysis. The lecture, at NUI Maynooth tomorrow evening, is the first in a series of three that examines kinaesthetic intelligence; that is, intelligence through movement. Movement-pattern analysis is, she says, a codified and disciplined method of analysis that has gained respect and a foothold in corporate culture over the past few decades. But it is still only emerging. We should know a great deal about human movement: as Moore claims, body movement is the first seat of knowledge for the child and the first source of knowledge for the human species. The reality is that, in a world where intelligence is measured in numeracy and literacy, there is a great deal of ignorance about human movement, and only recently has there been any attempt to codify its role in physical, emotional and mental development.

Moore cites two reasons for this. "First of all there is that old body-mind dichotomy where the western philosophical tradition has separated the two rather artificially. Secondly, psychology itself, when it developed at the end of the 19th century, was really 'the talking cure', and although things are changing quite a bit, to this day most psychotherapy is very verbally oriented."

Moore, who trained as a dancer, was researching a new piece of choreography when she came across the writings of the psychologist Carl Jung and became fascinated with movement and personality. She abandoned all ideas of becoming a choreographer and, during further studies with the movement analyst Irmgard Bartenieff, came across the work of Warren Lamb, who was developing action profiling and movement-pattern analysis.

"Warren Lamb primarily applied movement-pattern analysis in management circles in a variety of ways, such as selecting people for senior posts, promotion and placement of people who are already in a company, or simply giving advice to the chief executive regarding the best use of the people who report to him."

The ideal situation is to use it to develop the senior team of executives so there is better motivational balance and the team is not made up of people who are all alike. "Sadly, you don't always get senior teams where the people are different," she says.

Although the process takes time, its dividends are balanced teams. Clients include Hewlett-Packard, ICI and Legal & General. "Fixing things quickly is a priority in business, but movement pattern analysis is highly individualistic and a time-consuming procedure, so companies have to make an investment in it. But, once made, that investment will pay back for quite a while, because in adulthood movement profiles are not subject to a great deal of change. The information that you get on an individual will be good for the period of time he or she is at the company. "

So what is involved? "The actual process involves a two-hour individual interview, which is a typical interview in which you collect a career history. What isn't typical about it is that while you are doing that you are also observing and analysing movement. After that the profile has to be calculated and interpreted. Then there is another meeting with the individual to essentially talk to them about the profile.

"We don't compare people directly to one another, and it's not standardised, so we don't think that the vice-president of finance needs to have an x, y and z profile. This is because at senior level people have a great deal of latitude to interpret responsibility as they choose. What we do find is that they interpret their responsibilities in line with their motivational profile. So movement-pattern analysis is very good at predicting how someone will approach a job and identifying their positive sides and negative sides."

Is it possible to beat the system? "No, not really, because the particular movement patterns that we look at are called integrated movements, which involve a cohesive quality that is difficult to do on command. You can assume a posture or can be taught by image consultants to make certain types of gestures, but integrated movement lies a little more outside conscious control, so certainly across a two-hour interview it would be difficult to fake.

"Analysts will look for involvement through the whole body, not in a static way as in assuming a pose. Also, we will observe that the quality of action through the whole body is coherent, so you don't have a sense that one foot is being held and left out of the action or that a little movement going on in the fingertips doesn't match the quality of the rest of the movement."

So while an ebullient person might in a very obvious way move their arms as they talk, the way they move them reveals deeper parts of their personality. Are their arms directing or at odds with their speech? Is the movement enclosing or spreading outwards? Is the movement firm or light, retreating or advancing? The flow of energy within the overall pattern of movement is a consideration. Is it free-flowing or bound? How do they move their limbs in relation to their trunk? Is it simultaneous, successive or blended? From this information comes a profile that is far deeper than any initial impression based on posture.

The germ of this analysis can be traced back to Rudolf Laban, a German who developed a form of movement analysis that was applied to industry production lines but whose writings and teaching have left a huge legacy in many areas of dance and movement training.

As an advocate for her field Moore is powerfully persuasive. She is on the one hand a heavyweight academic, on the other a clear, accessible communicator: tomorrow's lecture will include an application of her analysis of movements by craftsmen at work and the decision- making style of Mr Bean, Rowan Atkinson's comic character.

More recently her focus has changed to training other people in movement- pattern analysis. She typically teaches them one to one, part-time over about 18 months. The programmes involves observing and analysing movement, developing interviewing skills, calculating and interpreting the profiles of individuals and teams, and then, finally, studying independently, to decide how to apply the training. Not everyone is drawn to the corporate sector; some work in career development and counselling.

With increased visual literacy, mostly through television, we increasingly judge people by their movement. "The problem is, it's not necessarily disciplined, and it often can be subject to all sorts of prejudices based on what you have experienced in your social and cultural background," says Moore. The ubiquity of movement makes us take it for granted, but by observing the world beyond words we might, in Moore's words, lift the veil of ignorance a little more and, by doing so, illuminate not only where we have been but also where we are going.

Carol-Lynne Moore's will talk about the "thinking body" at 8 p.m. tomorrow, on the old campus of NUI Maynooth, as part of Kildare County Council Summer Dance School and Critical Voices. Admission is free; further details from Kinetic Reflex at 087-8130183