Several books and theories have influenced the way I’ve learnt to communicate.
One theory I recall is Professor Albert Mehrabian’s communications model (1971) shares with us that generally individuals put the amount of “weight” into the following in face-to-face exchanges:
- words = 7%
- the way words are said = 38%
- facial expression = 55%
This is simplified. For a precise definition, visit the link above.
These add to my experience of living in Japan for quite a few years and learning to look past words to gestures, eye contact, subtle warmth or coldness of interaction, tension in the body and depth of bowing after a meeting given the lack of body language. The key learning was looking out for little nuances to get a better sense of how the other party felt about the exchange.
There are other social studies done and various opinions on Professor Mehrabian’s model but all these reaffirm that we interpret communications through a multitude of stimuli and cultural differences in Asia, Europe or even Africa add further complexity to getting an accurate interpretation.
Some food for thought when it comes to two basic building blocks of communication words & listening:
Words
I often lament that given the harried & accelerated pace of today we don’t take as much time to craft our correspondences now as we did in yesteryears. In the past, an exchange of any form between two people was cherished and an art with time and effort spent crafting each sentence, analysing the possible reactions and repercussions to the different words used. Studying literature taught us that sometimes changing one word in a sentence could mean the difference between praise and sarcasm.
Most people put paper to pen or text message with much less thought today.
Choosing the rights words is really important and a book a close friend gave me entitled “Words That Work” by Frank Luntz deals with this amazingly well with great insights.
Frank shares that choosing the rights words also mean being able to put yourself on the hearing end and being able to understand how your audience will hear and interpret the combination of words chosen, the sequence in which things are heard and also highlight how perception towards words shift with history & culture.
My Associate Creative Director recently shared with a new copywriter that words can come together to to make a sentence or a phrase energetic, passive, moody or klunky and unwieldily.
Words carry even more weight when a person is unseen and unheard. Not being able to hear the inflection or tone of the voice, people often project these into what is read and this is where misinterpretation and misunderstanding can occur.
I recall thinking I was being given lip as I chatted with much younger staff through MSN one time. When I brought this up and he told me to chill as he didn’t mean any disrespect. It was just the way people of his generation chatted online. These days, I try not to project too much into the manner used in text and MSN messages. If unsure of anything, I thinks its best to make a point to clarify so as to overcome age, cultural and other contextual differences.
Listening
The more we listen, the more attention we give to listening, the better we become at hearing and understanding. Being able to truly hear what is being said is something that I’ve come to value more and more. I’ve been coming across repeatedly people who don’t seem to listen completely to what is said. Conclusions are jumped to before a sentence is finished and they’re off running down a thought pathway that wasn’t intended. Or sometimes people contribute to a conversation in a different tangent and I’m wondering if they had heard how the conversation had moved to a different topic already.
Given the speeding up of exchanges, I feel it is even more important to develop a discipline of pausing, listening to or reading carefully & understanding what is intended by the speaker or writer. Sometimes in our rush to get a message across, we forget to listen to someone before we speak or listen to their response after we speak.
I’m putting together my blog post about the other building blocks of communication so do come back again soon.
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{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Communication is made shorter, more compact given the new media of today. Can we really blame some who jump into conclusions before listening to the entire story, given the shorter and shorter attention span we have today?
Perhaps a movement to do more reflection is good.