Nonverbal Communication And Effective Communication

Communicate clearly to transform your business, social and personal relationships. You can get your message across through nonverbal behavior because only 7 percent of your message involves words, says Albert Mehrabian in "Silent Messages." Communication fails when your muddled message leads to misunderstandings and errors. Effective communication helps your listener to understand what you mean, not just what you say.

History

In 1872, Charles Darwin described how humans and animals show emotions. Mehrabian went further in 1971, suggesting that humans understand 55 percent of a message through facial expressions and body language and another 38 percent from the manner of speaking, with the remaining 7 percent being the actual words themselves. John Grinder and Richard Bandler's neuro-linguistic programming, described in "The Structure of Magic" in 1975, involves improving the message through better nonverbal communication.

Identification

To communicate a message, according to Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver in "The Mathematical Theory of Communication," you code it into both words and nonverbal messages. You then pass it through a communication medium such as speech, signals or the written word. On receiving a message, you decode it to extract and understand its meaning, then give feedback by acting on what you understand. The context of time, place, experiences and attitudes all affect the quality of your communication.

Types

Your nonverbal activity helps or hinders the clarity of the message you send. SimplyBodyLanguage.com describes how your facial features convey silent meaning. Your eyebrows, eyes, lips, forehead and cheeks all move as you frown, smile or wrinkle your nose. You shift your whole body, standing closer to or further away from your listener, and you use hands and arms to gesture. Your voice rises up or sinks down to convey a question or give a command. You talk loudly or quietly, fast or slow.

Function

Use nonverbal communication to build rapport with others, suggests Sue Knight in "NLP at Work." Make your listener receptive to what you say by matching your body language to his. To ask a favor, sell something or get to know a stranger, try nodding when she nods, smiling with her and harmonizing your body positions. Communication breaks down when you give nonverbal signals that contradict the words you say. Scowl as you tell someone you agree with him, and he will not trust what you say.

Expert Insight

You often understand nonverbal information without being aware of it. Children learn early to look beyond the words they hear. For some, nonverbal behavior remains a mystery. If a family member has a communication difficulty such as autism or Asperger's syndrome, she may misunderstand situations because she decodes words, but not behavior. The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association explains how studying nonverbal signals can help to improve her communication.