On Communication

Heidi Schleffer in a presentation on effective communication, said that “effective communication occurs only when we talk and listen with the mouth of our mouth, eyes of our eyes, ears of our ears, the head of our head and the heart of our heart.” Today we are constantly bombarded with the admonition that Social Media is the “new communication.” I object! While I am not against social media and all it can do for us, I am really concerned and you should be too that it is nowhere close to being the effective communication tool it is touted to be. Why do I say that? Simply because there is NO substitute for 1 on 1, face to face communication. Depending on which source you cite, between 83 and 90 percent of communication is delivered through body language, voice tone, volume, inflection etc… and less than 10 percent through words. The words take on meaning through the body language and voice delivery. If you accept this as true, it is then virtually impossible to think that accurate, effective communication can take place via, voice mail, email, Instant Messenger, Twitter, Face Book or other such technology. Stated simply, little things take on big meaning in communicating effectively. Consider the fact that it takes only a sixth of a second to recognize a person’s facial expression and that we can process expressions from as far away as 100 yards. As humans, we aren’t as demonstrative as some creatures like chameleons that change colors. We are capable of discerning subtlety of expression and are aware of voice intonation and body language idiosyncrasies. We pay attention. We want to know and understand the full message and its meaning. We pay attention to what is important and body language and expressions are indicators of what a message really is.
The next time your wife or mother-in-law asks you how you enjoyed the meal they prepared and you respond that you “enjoyed it, and it was good” you had better remember that they are paying attention not only to what you say but to the other messages you are communicating as well. This simply cannot be done through technology.
I believe it is easy to “hide” behind technology in communicating through email, voice mail etc…. I believe the real meaning of messages can be masked and therefore gaps in what is said and what is really meant to be heard too often occur. Research by Notarius found that when senders and receivers display sensitivity in their communication and can discern the power of subtle changes in demeanor find up to 20 percent greater satisfaction with their communication than those who do not.
“In describing today's accelerating changes, the media fires blips of unrelated information at us. Experts bury us under mountains of narrowly specialized monographs. Popular forecasters present lists of unrelated trends, without any model to show us their interconnections or the forces likely to reverse them. As a result, communication like change itself comes to be seen as anarchic, even lunatic.” Alvin Toeffler