Nonverbal communication speaks louder than words

Nothing is better designed to grab and hold a person’s attention than nonverbal communication. Nonverbal signals convey emotions more powerfully than words. The impact and forcefulness of wordless communication originates from our earliest moments of life. As infants, nonverbal cues were our lifelines to survival. The expressions on the faces we first saw; the sounds we first heard; and the quality of touch we first felt formed the vocabulary for a powerful, nonverbal mother language shared by all human beings. This nonverbal language remains central to the quality of relationships throughout life—long after you’ve learned to use words.

In our fast-paced, goal-driven lives, it's easy to disconnect from the physical feelings and emotions that enable us to communicate nonverbally—especially if they didn't play a positive part in our early life experience. But when we are caught up in our heads thinking about something, it is very difficult to accurately pick up and send the subtle emotional cues that constitute nonverbal communication.

How your nonverbal communication affects others 

It takes more than words to create productive, exciting, and secure relationships. Nonverbal signals communicate your interest and investment in others. Maneuvering the pulley of nonverbal communication can be a powerful tool, but too often we send signals we don't intend to convey. When this happens, connection and trust are lost.

Ted, Arlene, and Jack are all articulate speakers who say one thing while communicating something else nonverbally, with disastrous results in their relationships:

These smart, well-intentioned people struggle in their attempt to connect with others. None of them are aware of the nonverbal messages they communicate.

The nonverbal communication cues with the greatest impact

Nonverbal communication is emotionally-driven communication that answers the questions: “Are you listening?” and “Do you understand and care?” We answer these questions in the way we talk, listen, look, move, and react. These nonverbal cues will either produce a sense of interest, trust, and excitement, or they will generate confusion, mistrust, and disinterest.

By observing thousands of examples related to the way babies and mothers interact, researchers have discovered the most important nonverbal cues.

Nonverbal Communication: The Most Important Nonverbal Cues
Eye contact	The visual sense is dominant for most people, and therefore especially important in nonverbal communication.
Facial expression	Universal facial expressions signify anger, fear, sadness, joy, and disgust.
Tone of voice	The sound of your voice conveys your moment-to-moment emotional experience.
Posture	Your posture–including the pose, stance and bearing of the way you sit, slouch, stand, lean, bend, hold and move your body in space-affects the way people perceive you.
Touch	Finger pressure, grip and hugs should feel good to you and the other person. What “feels good” is relative; some prefer strong pressure, others prefer light pressure.
Intensity	A reflection of the amount of energy you project is considered your intensity. Again, this has as much to do with what feels good to the other person as what you personally prefer.
Timing and pace	Your ability to be a good listener and communicate interest and involvement in impacted by timing and pace.
Sounds that convey understanding	Sounds such as “ahhh, ummm, ohhh,” uttered with congruent eye and facial gestures, communicate understanding and emotional connection. More than words, these sounds are the language of interest, understanding and compassion.

These nonverbal elements are experienced much more intensely in the pauses between words. Interruptions in the flow of language offer us the best opportunities for emotional communication.

Nonverbal communication requires your full attention

Nonverbal communication is a rapidly flowing, interactive process. As you send nonverbal signals, you must then pay attention to the signals you’re receiving in turn and adjust accordingly. To do this effectively, it is necessary to clear your mind of all distractions. If you are planning what you’re going to say, thinking about something else, talking to yourself, or analyzing the other person, then you aren’t paying attention to the moment-to-moment experience where nonverbal communication takes place. You won’t have the presence of mind to pick up on nonverbal cues or fully understand what's going on in the conversation.

Typical nonverbal messages and cues include:

• "I don't understand" or "I don't fully understand" – Evidenced by subtle changes in the expressive lines around the eyes and mouth and perhaps the entire head leaning slightly to one side.
• “What you are communicating is upsetting me” – Evidenced by the subtle way the shoulders have hunched up, a look in the eyes, and a rise in voice pitch.
• "I love being here with you” – Evidenced by the congruency between a smile on the lips and an expression in the eyes, as well as the slight (or not so slight) lean forward.
• "Something is wrong here!" – Evidenced when the words you hear don't correspond to the nonverbal cues you are receiving; your emotional intelligence is at work!

Building the foundation for nonverbal communication

How well you are able to communicate nonverbally depends on your ability to manage stress and to recognize your own emotions as well as the other person's. These two skills—which are the first and second tools of emotional intelligence—form a solid foundation for successful nonverbal communication.

Stress management is crucial to nonverbal communication

People who are overly stressed are not able to successfully send or receive nonverbal cues. When you’re upset, agitated, or frightened, you act and react differently than when you feel "just right." Stress tends to make you focus on yourself and lose connection to others. Stress can also make it more difficult to absorb see, hear, and experience sensory information. This makes nonverbal communication much more difficult—even impossible if the upset is sufficiently great.

The following may happen when you are overcome by stress:

• Old knee-jerk behavior patterns replace newly learned patterns. You may become absorbed in old thinking styles and internal dialogues, freeze, or space out.
• It is difficult to accurately convey your true feelings. Although it may be untrue, others tend to perceive you as angry or afraid of them.
• It is more difficult to successfully understand emotionally intelligent communication. You tend to be distracted from the reassuring messages or cues others may be sending you.
• The capacity to influence or accurately read others is impaired. You are more likely to make "bad" rather than "good" impressions on others.
• Your upset easily triggers upset in others. Upset is very contagious.

Because of the way stress derails nonverbal communication, you must first learn how to mange stress before you can expect to effectively send and receive wordless signals. 

Emotional awareness strengthens nonverbal communication

In order to send accurate nonverbal cues, you need to be aware of your emotions and how they influence you. You also need to be able to recognize the emotions of others and the true feelings behind the cues they are sending.

Emotional awareness enables you to:

• Accurately read the emotional cues others send, picking up on worry, sadness, grief, or anxiety.
• Respond with nonverbal cues that reflect emotional understanding, indicating that you notice and care.
• Be congruent and avoid confusing others with nonverbal cues that contradict what you’re saying. 
• Know if the relationship is meeting your emotional needs, giving you the option to either repair the relationship or move on.

Improving your nonverbal communication skills

Before you can improve any behavior, you first have to learn to recognize it. The following two exercises can help you become more familiar with the nonverbal cues you and others send.

Exercise 1: Observing the nonverbal Pulley

Watch people interacting with one another. Go wherever you are apt to find people casually spending time together, such as shopping malls, family restaurants, or parks. You don’t want people to be aware of your presence because that would inhibit them and alter their behavior, so be discrete.

Rather than paying attention to their words, focus on their nonverbal communication. Avoid bringing judgment or criticism into the process and record your observations.

• Eye contact: Is eye contact being made? If so, is it overly intense or just right?
• Facial expression: Are the facial expressions mask-like and unexpressive, or emotionally present and filled with interest?
• Tone of voice: Do their voices project warmth, confidence, and delight, or are they strained and blocked?
• Posture and body language: Are their bodies relaxed or stiff and immobile? Are shoulders tense and raised, or slightly sloped?
• Touch: Is there physical contact? If so, do both parties seem to be comfortable with it?
• Intensity: What is the level of intensity? Do the nonverbal signals seem flat, cool, and disinterested? Are they over-the-top and melodramatic?
• Timing and pace: Is there an easy flow of information back and forth? Do nonverbal responses come too quickly or too slowly?
• Sounds that convey understanding: Do you hear sounds that indicate caring or concern?

Exercise 2: Exploring the give and take of nonverbal communication

In this exercise you are paying attention to your own nonverbal cues –even as you are speaking and interacting with someone else.  Interact with people at work and at home throughout the day.  Stay attuned to what you see, hear, and feel. Continue this process until you become more aware of the cues you are sending to others.

In addition to the questions from Exercise 1, some additional questions to ask yourself are:

• What kinds of nonverbal messages do I send my colleagues at work?
• What nonverbal messages do I send my loved ones?  
• Do people generally respond positively to my nonverbal cues?
• When people don’t respond positively to my cues, what do I do?

Next Step – Go to Video Lesson 3: The Pulley