How we communicate is so important, no matter what job you do. It is near impossible to not have to communicate in some way or another. But how we communicate can be very different. The words we say are only 7% of what people hear, 38% is our tone or volume, and 55% is non-verbal, which takes place? in your facial expressions and gestures.
But then if you are speaking a second language and the words you say are incorrect and taken up the wrong way, the words can account for more. Or what if you are on a phone call and cannot see the person, does the 55% still count? Or, how most of the new generation children communicate via social media mostly, what way does it work then? Adding in not only different languages but different cultures can make communicating difficult and you have not even said anything yet!
I am going to break it all down first, so let us start with what is non-verbal communication and why is it so important?
Non-verbal is everything else that does not use words; so how you listen, react, and move. Below are some words to describe non-verbal communication, but it is not limited to just this list;
- Eye contact
- Facial expressions
- Gestures
- Posture
- Body language
- Touch
- Silence
- Proximity
- Reaction
- Body movement
- What words you use, although technically a verbal technique if you were to use certain words it could make someone feel, more, or less relaxed. For example, if I was talking to a non-native English speaker and speak in slang or with big words that are rarely used, the other person is going to struggle to understand me and it may make them feel uncomfortable.
So, if you are on the phone it works a little different. Non-verbal can still be picked up even with the absence of sight. A blind person can still pick up on non-verbal communication in the same way. The voice and the tone play an important part in communication. If your voice is too high or too low, it can tell if you are interested in the call. If you are talking quickly, it could show you are not interested in the conversation. You can also tell if the person is sitting up and engaged, so thus telling more about their body language than you think.
Because both physical and technological communication can be taken up in different ways like I have just mentioned, from here I am going to split the article in two and this week discuss face to face contact and then next week discuss contact via media platforms, so I can discuss both in depth.
Let’s add culture into that mix then. I am not sure if it was my naivety growing up or my lack of regard for how others didn’t always live the same way I did, even though I had worked with Indigenous people in Ireland, I had grown up knowing their culture. As a shy 16-year-old with my first job in my local shop, I was told I needed to make better contact with the customers. So, I spent the next number of years making myself, make eye contact and conversations with strangers. Even though eye contact can still make me uncomfortable it is part of building connection and social norm, right? Then I moved to Australia and had an amazing experience of working with different indigenous groups. One of the first families I worked with, the first time I met them, the child ignored me and hissed at me and the mother looked away when I spoke to her. I was so annoyed that I was there to help them, and they would be rude like this. Later I found out that the child thought I was British and had a dislike towards Brits because of the history between them. I guess I can understand it in ways, I have seen studies that show hurt from your ancestor’s past can affect you even if you have never met them. With her mother, for her to look me in the eye would have been confrontational, so out of respect, she was looking away. My lesson from that is, I should not have made it about me, and I was the rude one after all.
Living in the Middle East it would be rude and disrespectful for me to put my hand out to shake a man’s hand. If he offers it to me it, it is okay, but part of their culture is to not touch another woman apart from their wives and immediate female family members. Now I have made the mistake a few times in the early days and I am sure the other person has seen it on my face when it would click while my hand was in the air, and I haven’t had any issues.
I love to travel, and I do have a great dislike for my ignorance of not speaking any language fluently enough when I go places. But I have managed with no major issues apart from this one time on a train in Germany that I clearly didn’t know split into three trains at a point. That time I was very glad for the woman who could speak English beside me and that she had picked up on my normal non-verbal of panic on my face. But everything else I could manage with non-verbal techniques no matter where I have travelled to, sometimes it is even nice not having words as it makes you more aware of your non-verbal and how to use them and to pick up on how people in different environments, cultures and settings use non-verbal communication.
I have worked with many children that find themselves in some form of crisis and at these points of meltdown, words are not being heard. I remember one day a teacher coming to me and asking to help with a student who would not get up off the ground. I got to the position they were in and there were lots of adults standing around him telling him to get up and return to class. He was crying hysterically and not hearing anything, and not able to say what he wanted to say. So I lay down on the ground beside him, it took some time for him to calm down and some support after but by me coming down to his level, I told him I am here for you and we are equal, without saying a word.
There is another component of crisis intervention training that involves handling a child, it is not meant for restraining or punishing but for offering a child a secure connection to someone else when their emotions are all over the place. It is also the last resort and if the child is in danger to themselves or someone else.
Guess I went a bit off-topic there, but relevant none the less for explaining why non-verbal techniques are so important. If you consider dogs for example, they are very intuitive. They have a sixth sense when it comes to non-verbal communication. If I were to approach a dog that did not know me, with my palm facing down and to pet them straight away, the dog could respond defensively towards me. Where if I approach the dog with my palm facing up the reaction is likely to be different. In the first case, the dog picks it up as feeling threatened, where in the second he is seeing it as I am opened to allow him to come to me. It seems simple, right? Especially if you are a person who likes dogs and around them a lot. They say animals smell fear, I am no animal expert, but I would believe more along the lines from our non-verbal communication we allow the animal to know our discomfort. If we can understand it simply with animals why is it difficult for us to understand the importance as much when it comes to person to person contact?
Over the last 20 years I have really learned how important communication is. Since working in so many different settings and countries I have learned more about communications than I did in 4 years of studying it as part of my degree in University. I have also learned how important it is to not only know the importance of non-verbal communication but to apply it adequately to every interaction you make with people.
As the world changes so much every decade, we are now in a world where we communicate more via social media, messaging, video calls, phones, emails, and many other ways I probably have not of even heard of yet. I do be a little behind when it comes to what is the thing to use these days. It has got to a point now that all initial parts of dating for most is through different apps, I have myself used these too and met some lovely people through it. But, how are all these changes affecting how we now communicate with each other?
Check in next week to see how this continues.
