Body Language & Communication

This, from a man who was originally uncomfortable with the idea of television because he thought it placed too much emphasis on pictures - read: body language - rather than ideas. He went on, though, to become a pioneer in television news reporting, and appeared to settle in quite comfortably in front of the camera.

Murrow understood the power of the body language and the role non-verbal communications play in the overall message. In fact, he seemingly understood this long before the infamous study by Dr. Albert Mehrabian came long. More on that in a minute.

Verbal & Non-Verbal

First, for the sake of this discussion, let’s break communication into two distinct categories – verbal and non-verbal. There is a sub-category of verbal that refers to the sound of your voice, but for our purposes here, we’re going to call that non-verbal, because I want you think of your verbal communication as the specific words you speak.

Your non-verbals are everything else – the tone of your voice, the pitch, the volume at which you speak, inflection, etc., and physical appearances such as hand gestures, body position, fidgeting, facial gestures, eye movement, etc.

So you have verbal communication – the actual words you speak – and you have non-verbal communication, which, for our purposes, includes everything else described above, and then some.

Mehrabian Communication Theory

So back to Mehrabian. Essentially, Dr. Mehrabian concluded in 1967 that when there is a disconnect between the words being spoken and the way you look and sound, then the way you look and sound – your non-verbals – CAN have more impact on your message than the words you speak.

I’ll say that again –your non-verbal communications CAN say more to your audience than the words you actually speak.

I stress CAN because his findings in no way suggested that this is the rule, but rather a generalization focusing on feelings. But in a nutshell, what you can take away from this is that you need to make sure that your non-verbals are sending the same message to your audience as the words you speak.

Your non-verbals are extremely important in conveying your attitude about what you are saying – whether or not you believe what you’re saying, or whether or not you have “buy-in” to what you’re saying.

If you don’t believe what you’re saying, neither will your audience. If you have no buy-in, why should your audience listen to you and believe that you can be trusted?

The Tell-Tale Signs

Think of a person who you know is obviously lying. How do you know they are lying? There are usually tell-tale physical, non-verbal signs and body language such as sweating, not looking you square in the eye, hand-wringing, shakiness in the voice, etc.

Or as Edward R. Murrow noted, “A blur of blinks, taps, jiggles, pivots and shifts… the body language of a man wishing urgently to be elsewhere.”

Pay attention to your non-verbals – your body language – and make darn sure they are sending the same messages to your audience as the words you speak.