What are you saying?

I returned from a professional conference this week. out of the fifteen or so sessions I attended two of them were on nonverbal communication. I work with students all day, not to mention coworkers, and have a lot of customer service type interactions. Our office manages a couple of initiatives that are rather unpopular to certain populations of students, i.e. students with low grades or who don't want to take math. Consequently, we often times have to listen to the hard luck stories of students, or try to defuse their anger. As one of the presenters mentioned, we are communicating constantly, particularly when we don't say anything. Regardless of what we do we are sending a message. Even if you are wearing a "blank" facial expression your body is sending messages.

Both presentations brought up the extend of non-verbal communication. Most people just think of body language (kinesics) and voice intonation (vocalics), but the list also includes: appearance and adornment (what you look like and wear), use of space (proxermics), touch (haptics), eye contact and facial expressions, environment and artifacts, and even your use of time (chronemics). One of the things that both presentations brought up, and something that many people are aware of if they've traveled, is that different cultures have different standards and customs that. Things you may suspect to be universal are not. With that said, their are seven universal facial expressions. You'll notice that most of them are differentiated by specific but limited attributes. There are lots of ways you can embellish those expressions, but it's clear when the prime attributes are absent.

I am all for people being individuals. I like to be myself and afford others the same opportunity. With that said, often people are communicating one thing while their words say something else. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "Who you are speaks so loudly I can't hear what you're saying." When we consider that our appearance and what we choose to wear (or not wear) is a very real part of what we communicate, I wonder why people get such elaborate facial tattoos. Also, consider what Howard Tayler pointed out in his wonderful "Charisma is not a dump stat" blog post from several years ago. To quote the gist of the post (you should read the whole thing):

If you want to be a professional writer, illustrator, or other creator, you may be enticed into believing that your dress, demeanor, and interpersonal skills are less important than they are in other fields. This is patently false. ... If you're trying to...get an editor to read that 200,000 word manuscript, you cannot afford to be anything other than easy to get along with and inoffensive to the other senses. 

The importance of appearance, proxermics, and chronemics are often missed. The presenter of one session played a clip showing the impact of the "close talker" on people. How close you stand to people says something, as does if you are on time or late whenever you meet with them. Do you have a friend that is "flaky," a person who makes plans but consistently falls through? That says something about them.

I need to note the importance of intent vs. impact, which I've usually heard in regards to sexual harassment prevention workshops. What you intend to say with your body language is can be misunderstood by the person "listening" to you. In the end, it doesn't matter what you intend because what is important to the other person is how it affects them - the impact of your non-verbal communication. While we can never have complete control over how our language is interpreted, it is important to make sure that the non-verbal communication we are sending is purposeful. Be mindful that you are communicating, particularly when you are not talking.