Business Communication Today: An Analysis (part 4)

Recognizing Nonverbal Communication
by:
Charles Lamson

You have been tuned into nonverbal communication since your first contact with other human beings. However special attention to these signals in the workplace will enhance your ability to communicate successfully. Moreover, as you interact with business associates from other cultures you will discover that some nonverbal signals do not necessarily translate across cultures. The range and variety of nonverbal symbols is almost endless but you can grasp the basics by studying five general categories:

• Facial expression. Your face is the primary site for expressing your emotions; it reveals both the type and the intensity of your feelings. Your eyes are especially effective for indicating attention and interest, influencing others, regulating interaction and establishing dominance.
• Gesture and posture. By moving or not moving your body you express both specific and general messages some voluntary and some involuntary. Many gestures - a wave of the hand, for example - have a specific and intentional meaning. Other types of body movement are unintentional and express a more general message. Slouching, leaning forward, fidgeting and walking briskly are all unconscious signals that reveals whether you feel confident or nervous, friendly or hostile, assertive or passive, powerful or powerless.

• Vocal characteristics. Your voice always carries both intentional and unintentional messages. Consider the sentence "What have you been up to?" If you repeat that question changing your tone of voice and stressing various words you can consciously convey considerably different meanings. However, your voice can also reveal things of which you are unaware. Your tone and volume, your accent and speaking pace and all the little um's and ah's that creep into speech say a lot about who you are, your relationship with the audience and the emotions underlying your words.
• Personal appearance. People respond to others on the basis of their physical appearance, sometimes fairly and other times unfairly. Although an individual's body type and facial features impose limitations, most people are able to control their appearance to some degree. Grooming, clothing accessories, style - you can control all of these. If your goal is to make a good impression, adopt  the style of people you want to impress.
• Touch. Touch is an important way to convey comfort and reassurance. In fact, touch is so powerful that it is governed by cultural customs that establish who can touch whom and how in various circumstances. For exampe, in the United States and Great Britain, people usually touch less frequently than people in France or Costa Rica. However, even in each culture's norms, individual attitudes toward touch can vary widely. A manager might be comfortable using hugs to express support or congratulations, but his or her subordinates might interpret those hugs as either a show of dominance or sexual interest. Touch is a complex subject. The best advice: when in doubt, do not touch.

• Time and space. Like touch, time and space can be used to assert authority, imply intimacy and send other nonverbal messages. For example, some people try to demonstrate their own importance or disregard for others by making other people wait. Others show respect by being on time. The manipulation of space works in a similar way. When top executives gather for lunch in a private dining room, they send a strong signal to all the employees crowding into the cafeteria downstairs. The decision to respect or violate someones private space is another powerful nonverbal signal. Again attitudes toward time and space vary from culture to culture (Business Communication Today 8th ed. by Courtland L. Bovee and John V. Thill; pgs. 53 - 54).

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