My business arena has interaction of all sorts with all levels of business professionals and consumers.
Most folks have a preference for style of communication. I have about 50/50 right brain and left brain thinking. I prefer pictures and writing notes as my memory is photographic. Though I talk easily and ask questions effortlessly, I don’t always retain the information unless there is active participation, or I take notes. The most indicative sign of how your connection is going is all those nonverbal signals. Fascinating subject, I will share what I was looking into.
“Communication is the act of interacting and exchanging ideas with other people. There are two primary forms of communication: verbal and nonverbal. With verbal communication, people express their thoughts, ideas, and feelings through spoken or written language. Nonverbal communication uses other methods, such as body language including facial expressions, gestures, and more. “
You can help improve the effectiveness of your communication by considering your target audience and how you can adjust your message to help them understand you. With verbal communication, you have a lot of control over adapting your message if you feel it is not effective.
The three main aspects of nonverbal communication are tone of voice, body language, and eye contact, each of which has an impact on how people receive your message.
- Tone of Voice: The volume, pitch, and pace of your voice display your feelings. It can help other people determine whether you’re upset, confident, angry, etc.
- Body Language: Body language is probably the clearest type of nonverbal communication. It can tell a person a lot about how you feel. If someone sees that your arms are folded while speaking to you, they will likely feel you are not very receptive to what they have to say, whereas if you face the speaker with your arms at your sides, you will appear more interested.
- Eye Contact: Making eye contact lets a speaker know you are interested in their message. It can also help you stay engaged in the conversation and better understand the speaker.”
There are many different types of nonverbal communication, including (body movement) or, proxemics (closeness and personal space), body posture, haptics (touch), and paralanguage, which includes facial expression, speaking volume, and tone of voice. These nonverbal cues all contribute to how verbal communication is understood, either clarifying a message or leading to misinterpretation.
- https://socialskillscenter.com/the-difference-between-verbal-and-nonverbal-communication/
The differences between these forms of communication and how to use them:
- Delivery: Verbal communication can transpire over the phone, through email, written letters, or a face-to-face conversation. Most nonverbal communication happens only when two or more parties can see each other.
- Intentionality: A difference between the two types of communication, verbal and nonverbal, is that the words a person chooses—verbal—tend to be intentional, whereas many elements of nonverbal communication can be unintentional or out of a person’s control and impact reception. Nonverbal communication can be unconscious; for example, a person who sweats while talking may convey nervousness.
- Grammar: Verbal speech has patterns and grammar rules to adhere to, whereas nonverbal communication is more fluid.
- Authenticity: Nonverbal behavior like body movements, mannerisms, or physiological responses (blinking or fidgeting) can influence communication, altering the authenticity of your spoken words or causing them to take on a different meaning. Nonverbal messages can be more powerful than verbal communication, as human bodies can subconsciously deliver messages that they are verbally not conveying— “actions speak louder than words.”
- Emotions: Nonverbal cues are especially powerful when communicating with children. A parent’s facial expressions and tone will often express feelings more clearly than using words kids may be too young to understand fully. Nonverbal communication is also beneficial when communicating emotions through a language barrier.
- Engagement: Nonverbal signals are a great way to communicate attentiveness and engagement to those around you. It’s not enough to verbally tell someone you are interested in what they’re saying, controlling your posture and eye contact will demonstrate to others that you are interested, whereas looking around or at your phone can express disinterest, even if that’s not technically the case.
- https://www.masterclass.com/articles/verbal-vs-nonverbal-communication
Though silent, non-verbal cues can convey our feelings, attitudes, and actions to other people more effectively than speaking. Research has shown that about 80% of how we converse involves non-verbal communication, while only 20% involves verbal communication. Individuals living with hearing loss rely heavily on non-verbal cues. Every gesture adds to how effectively you share your emotions and adds emphasis to spoken words. For example, large hand and arm movements create greater emphasis while smaller gestures can communicate something more specific, like holding up two fingers to indicate the number two. Another example of a gesture is head movements. Simply nodding or shaking your head indicating ‘yes’ or ‘no’ without ever saying a word.
While living in Greece, catching a taxi is easy with hands gesturing direction, and a nod of the head signaling yes or no. Some languages, especially in the Mediterranean are spoken with hands and words. Nestled among the slopes of Mount Ochi to the south of the second largest Greek island, Evia (also known as Euboea), lies the tiny hamlet of Antia, so small that it doesn’t even show up on Google Maps. But this tiny village, tucked away in the remote hillsides of Greece, is home to one of the world’s most fascinating cultural practices: sfyria. Sfyria (also spelled sfiria) is the name given to the ancient Greek whistling language native to Antia, believed to have existed for over 2500 years.
A whistled language? You read that right.
For millennia, the shepherds of Antia have been using whistled speech to communicate with each other across vast distances. This is because whistled sound can travel 10 times farther than even shouting – up to 4km (2.5 mi)! The name sfyria comes from the Greek word sfyrizo, which means “to whistle.” Locals and experts consider sfyria a language, though, technically, it is what linguists call a speech register, akin to whispering or shouting. Rather than being its own language, sfyria is a whistled version of modern Greek, where the letters, words, and syllables are whistled instead of spoken. The grammar and vocabulary all remain intact, allowing sfyria “speakers” to carry on entire conversations – even the most complex – across long distances.
Knowing gestures and what they communicate can be helpful when giving instructions or directions, especially when there is a limited understanding of the spoken words, especially when traveling. The tone of voice, rate, volume of speech, and stress placed on words (collectively known as paralinguistics) are a few more examples of non-verbal cues. Paralinguistics can complement and add to the verbal message, as well as accentuate a verbal message by emphasizing parts of the message.
- https://lexiehearing.com/us/library/verbal-and-non-verbal-communication
- https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/spycatcher/202209/4-everyday-behaviors-ancient-roots
Many of the behaviors that allowed early humans to survive have been passed down to us over millennia through our DNA. We know these are universal behaviors because when we study children who are born blind, they perform the same behaviors although they have never seen them.
Early hominins learned to freeze (like the deer caught in the headlight) when they saw a threat to avoid detection. When the first person in a small group saw a lion, they froze and virtually everyone else in the group did also—no need to ask, “What’s going on?” and alert the predator. This avoided detection, as most predators orient on movement; however, anyone that ran initiated the chase-trip-bite sequence that triggers feline attacks was not so fortunate. This is a legacy behavior we see every day when we hear a loud noise, and we freeze in place. Even when we get bad news, we feel incapable of moving. This is but one of several behaviors that heuristically helped us survive.
Ever notice how, at a catastrophe, a scary movie, or even when a game is closely contested and there are just a few seconds left on the clock, fans cover their mouths with both hands with apprehension, and disbelief? This is also a legacy behavior from our archaic past due to predatory animals. Then there are the ubiquitous two hands to the head we deploy when we can’t believe the ball just got turned over to the other team in the final seconds, or when you return to your parked car only to find someone has thrown a brick through your passenger side window to steal what few belongings you had inside. Those hands that press down on the sides of our heads or even reach for the head, but don’t quite touch in disbelief, are also a legacy behavior. We learned early on to cover our heads when predators were near or attacking and we still do this out of habit. The last behavior associated with large felines and other predators is the covering, touching, or grabbing of our necks. When we are apprehensive or scared, we often clutch our own necks or cover the suprasternal notch (neck dimple) at the base of our neck. No doubt, having seen predators take down untold numbers of prey by attacking the neck, including many humans, we adopted and still deploy this tactic in seeming congruence when we see someone attacked when someone is placed in jeopardy, when something is very disconcerting, or we are fearful. ( Navarro 2008).
In high school, my best friend Debbie and I would say a word and decide to listen to all the extra conversations that were going on in our classes in a small Catholic School. Occasionally we would do the same at the movies, listening to what others say and throwing in a thought-provoking statement. Watching how what you say, what tone you say it is interpreted by the listening party is key to effective communication. This is easy in person, and somewhat easy by zoom or phone. Texts and emails sometimes make it difficult to understand if your message was conveyed.
I encourage you to pay more attention to the non-verbal clues, and see if the effectiveness of your communication improves!
