Let’s Empower Our Communication Skills - Learn Rule 7%, 38% & 55%

Friends, Thank you very much for taking out time from your very busy schedule to read my blog(s). Sharing PR knowledge with you with finesse has become my passion now and I really feel encouraged after reading your feedback in the comments column.  Friends, I’m happy to present 73rd blog “Let’s Empower Our Communication Skills - Learn Rule 7%, 38% & 55%”. 

Public Relation is more than managing the flow of information between an organization and its publics. It is a communications discipline that engages and informs key audiences, builds important relationships and brings vital information back into an organization for analysis and action. It has real, measurable impact on the achievement of strategic organizational goals. - PRSA

Friends, good communication is not only about good vocal variety or good body language. Good communication is concise, consistent, and credible delivery of well thought out content. Spoken words make up our verbal communication, and this can take place face-to-face or through other media such as a telephone, web-enabled conferences, Facetime, etc. Non-verbal communication is comprised of many forms of transfer, including but not limited to, tone of voice, body language, gestures, eye contact, facial expressions, proximity and touching. There is no doubt that non-verbal communication is also a dominant and powerful form of communication.

In any inter-personal communication, one to one or many, the words used by the communicator to communicate his or her point of view have 7% impact on the listener(s), 38% impact is created by the pitch and tone of his or her voice, the speed, rhythm of the spoken words, pauses between those words and the remaining 55% impact is created by his or her body language i.e. gestures, posture, pose and facial expressions that conveys a variety of subtle signals. These non-verbal elements can present a listener with important clues to the communicator’s thoughts and feelings and thus substantiate or contradict the communicator’s words. 

UCLA Prof. Albert Mehrabian who is the pioneer of “Rule 7% 38% 55%” affirms that 7% of our communication is in the words we say, 38% is in our tone the way we say it, and 55% is in our body and our posture as we deliver it.  In his study he suggested that we overwhelmingly construe our feelings, attitudes, and beliefs about what someone says not by the actual words spoken by him or her, but by their body language and tone of voice. In fact, Prof. Albert Mehrabian quantified this tendency: words, tone of voice, and body language respectively account for 7%, 38%, and 55% of personal communication. As per him non-verbal elements are particularly important for communicating feelings and attitude, especially when they are in congruent i.e. if words and body language disagree, one tends to believe the body language.

If a speaker’s words and body language differ, listeners are more likely to believe the nonverbal communication of the speaker, not his words. For example, suppose a person states, “I don’t have a problem with you!” while avoiding eye-contact, looking anxious, and maintaining a closed body language. Irrespective of the person’s internal monologue the listener will probably trust the predominant form of communication, which according to Prof. Mehrabian’s findings is non-verbal (38% + 55%), rather than the literal meaning of the words (7%.) As per this example, non-verbal cues can be more valuable and telling than verbal ones. Therefore, to be effective and persuasive in our verbal communication in presentations, public speaking, or personal communication it is essential to complement our words with the right tone and voice and the appropriate body language.

Three basic elements: 7% 38% 55% rule

According to Prof. Albert Mehrabian, interpersonal communication model consists of three elements:

 

1.      Words spoken (Verbal) - That is what literally being said. The spoken word is part of the verbal communication in this and the intonation and body language are both part of the non-verbal communication.

2.      Intonation (Vocal) - How something is said (use of voice). Intonation is the vocal factor and body language the vocal factor.

3.      Body language (Visual) - Which posture, facial expressions and gestures someone uses.

Dominant - The non-verbal elements in the 7% 38% 55% rule of Communication show a person’s feelings and opinions. When someone says something, their body language and intonation could be dominant, as a result of which there is no agreement between what they say and what they radiate.

Congruence - Apart from interaction, communication is also about the fact that the verbal and non-verbal elements support one another and that these are congruent.

To conclude;

Prof. Albert Mehrabian believes that there are three core elements in the effective face-to-face or inter-personal communication of emotions or attitudes: non-verbal behaviour, tone of voice, and the literal meaning of the spoken word. These three essential elements, Prof. Mehrabian argues, account for how we convey our liking, or disliking, of another person. His particular focus is on the importance of such non-verbal ‘clues’ when they appear to conflict with the words used and/or the tone in which they are spoken. Prof. Mehrabian believes that the person receiving a communication trusts the element which most accurately reflects the communicator’s true feelings towards them. From his research study it appears that more is conveyed by the non-verbal ‘clues’ than by the spoken word.

While his research study is under debate, there’s one thing certain and those reading this blog would agree with me that all the three elements i.e. Spoken words, Tone of voice & Body language are most definitely at play while communicating, and they need to all say or convey the same message. In fact, when the message is not consistent, you can know that there is an underlying disbelief or concern that isn’t being expressed. This is where we, as communicators, need to be extra mindful of everyone’s communication so that we don’t get ahead of ourselves and draw conclusions too early in conversation.

Friends, the secret to success of our communication is three-fold;

1.  Become acutely aware of our regular verbal and non-verbal deliveries. Learn to manage our communication / talk / presentation from start to finish interactions for a more productive outcome.

2.    Become an active, empathetic and nurturing listener to the thoughts and feelings of others, using well-developed questions as our primary means of connecting with others; because active listening is an attitude, not simply a communication technique.

3.  Become aware of how the comfort / discomfort paradigm plays out in our interactions with others. Remember that comfort cannot exist without discomfort and vice versa. Whether it is empowering or not, depends on the interpretation and paradigm.

 

Thanks for reading the blog.