Have
you ever asked your significant other if they are okay and they say something
like “I’m fine” yet you know that in reality they are not? Sometimes what we
say doesn’t match what we actually mean. We may say one thing but mean
something completely different. What I am talking about isn’t sarcasm. Sarcasm
is intentionally distorted and the point being made is obvious. For example, “Oh,
I just LOVE waiting in line at the DMV!” Nobody would actually believe that
someone loves waiting in line at the DMV. But what if someone said something
much more subtle? Perhaps something like, “I am really looking forward to this
dinner party tonight”. With a statement like that, what would indicate if I was
truly interested or not? In the written text, it is easy to interpret. However,
we are always communicating nonverbally as well. According to McKay, Davis, and
Fanning (2009), only 7% of what we communicate is in the words that we use. 38%
of our communication comes from vocal variances (tone, pitch, tempo, volume,
etc.) and 55% of what we communicate comes in the form of body language. As
organizational leaders today, we may be losing the art to effectively
communicate face to face. I believe that a large part of the reason for that is
the reliance on electronic communication. Again, when something is in writing,
it is usually easy to decipher the meaning. In written communication, one
cannot hear the paralanguage which is vocal part of speech including “pitch,
resonance, articulation, tempo, volume, and rhythm” (McKay, Davis, &
Fanning, 70). What’s more, it is near impossible to pick up on the metamessages
which are messages that have dual meaning – one is the series of words and the
other is the attitude and feelings.
One of
my favorite television shows is “The Office”. The old British version was okay
but I LOVE the U.S. version. In season 8 or 9, the company has been bought out
and a new CEO named Robert California takes over. (The character is played by
James Spader.) There’s an episode where he runs into the office and says that
his wife is about to walk into the office looking for a job but under no
circumstances is she to be hired. The problem is that his body language completely
contradicts what he is saying. I found a brief YouTube clip of it if you want
to see. Just scroll forward to 6:28 in the video and then again to about 10:56
for the second part (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd8NUVUUuoA).
Though it isn’t the whole episode, you can see that his body language and
paralanguage were interpreted incorrectly and his metamessage was not received.
(Also, I am very proud of myself for incorporating every assigned point of thought
for this particular blog assignment into a single sentence. My mother would be
extremely proud. And, as she is one that routinely reads this blog, I will just
go ahead and publicly give her credit for teaching me how to do things like
that.)
Do you
know where I really think that we lose our ability to effectively communicate
as organizational leaders, though? I think it is in the paralanguage. Body language
is natural. It is going to happen on its own. Even those that are visually
impaired use the same body language as the rest of us when they are agitated,
interested, sad, etc. So long as our words are matching our feelings, it is
hard to misinterpret that. But where I think that really miscommunicate is in
our paralanguage attributes. It’s probably a terrible idea to ever discuss
politics at work but we do it all the time. One of my coworkers is extremely
liberal and another is extremely conservative and they get going with the
politics all the time. With the currently political climate and upcoming
election, my coworker that is very liberal loves to get going on the “evils” of
Donald Trump and loves to just gloat about how awesome Hillary Clinton is. He
gets excited and defensive and his voice goes up by about a third of an octave.
His volume raises. His tempo – it’s like he’s speaking a million words a
minute. The problem is that he gets so excited and so emotional that he ceases
to communicate real messages. It’s slightly humorous because the one that is
conservative seems to be so much better at controlling how he communicates.
When he speaks, everything becomes calm again. Everything slows down. And my
liberal coworker becomes agitated. I really should probably put a stop to it
but it is free entertainment. But that is a great example of how we have to
learn to control our paralanguage to convey a sense of urgency and sincerity
without going overboard with it.
I will
go ahead and close with this. As leaders, we can’t control how others
communicate with us but we can control how we communicate with them. Again, I
do believe that the body language comes naturally but we have to be aware of it
as 55% of what we communicate is with our body. As far as the rest, we can get
better with practice. That is why organizations such as Toastmasters
International exist. How we communicate man not change overnight but, with
practice, we can ensure that we are communicating the exact message that we are
meaning to communicate.
Miranda, J. (2014). Robert California compilation [Video
file]. Retrieved September 02, 2016, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd8NUVUUuoA
McKay, M., Davis, M., & Fanning, P. (2009). Messages:
The Communication Skills Book. New Harbinger
Publications.
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