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Article added or updated:
05/12/2012 |
Listening Effectively
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Only 7% of what we say is
verbal! The other 93% is nonverbal! How do you think Dr. Phil got his
start? Reading the nonverbal communication of prospective jurors as a
jury consultant. And that's why he's not afraid to call someone on a lie
on his program! He's reading their body language--their nonverbal
communication! And Dr. Phil knows he's right because your body language
says so much more than you ever will!
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Verbal, written or even sign language talks to "content." You're just
listening to the words and that's it! Nothing else
enters the picture. This is probably one of the biggest issues with
married people. The wife might say, "You never listen to me." The
husband says, "Of course I do!" and continues reading
the paper. The wife probably wants to see body language from her husband
that says, "I am here for you; you are very important to me; I will
always take the time to be here for you." If he's
reading the paper, he's not communicating this to her in a way
she can see and understand.
If you're in sales or have any projects where you have to "sell" someone
on something, do you know what your body language is saying to the other
person? Try selling something to someone
without saying a word! You might say it's impossible but it's not. You
probably do more selling with nonverbal communication than you do with
verbal. Remember that song about "you say so
much when you say nothing at all." Well, that singer/writer was right!
Think of a time when you were feeling upset, frustrated, angry and
someone came up to you and asked if you were doing OK. You probably said
YES but your body language said NO! Which
communication do you think they're going to believe? Scientists
have proven that whenever there is a conflict between verbal and
nonverbal communication, we tend to put a question mark by the verbal
communication and believe the nonverbal communication.You probably don't
even think about doing that but that's exactly what you're doing!
Body language has gone underground. In other words, we don't even think
about it. We just do it. It has become subconscious behavior to us and
when someone points our body language out to
us, we seem surprised. When I work with people on body language and
point out the different "language" that they are using, they might try
to justify their actions if they were sending out
defensive signals or congratulate themselves if they were using
positive signals. The trick is to know what your body language says
about you and what another person's body language says about them. It's
the same behavior or actions we tend to react or
resist in other people and not even notice in ourselves.
You all have probably experienced stress at one time or another in your
life . You might even be experiencing it now as a
reaction to this article. Stressed out people have very definite body
language. I can spot you a mile away. Other people
can too, they just might not know why they are having a reaction to you
(your stress!). Look at people around you (at home or at work). If
they're eyebrows are raised, their shoulders scrunched up around their
ears, the hand clenched - chances are they're stressed out about
something. If you're having a meeting with them and don't recognize
their body language then the meeting might get tenser because you might
mirror their body language and get stressed out yourself. It's not
healthy for you and it creates a lot of tension, turmoil,
confrontations, frustrations and disagreements - all because you didn't
read and respond to their nonverbal communication. They subconsciously
sucked you into their net of stress, worry and upset and THEY GOT YOU!
Now, what about you? Did you know that most Americans hold their stress
in the upper part of their body? And because we do, people can read us
so easily. Consider the signs I mentioned in
the last paragraph. People can "pick" up on us so easily just as we can
pick up on them! We like to be in proximity to other
people because we can read them as they can read us! I had a marketing
consultant that wanted to become a coach. Her biggest goal was to stop
traveling so much and at the same time her biggest challenge was to take
up telephone coaching where she wasn't in the presence of her clients.
She didn't believe she could figure out what was going on because she
couldn't "see"
the other person or in fact, read the other person's body language. Body
language is that powerful. Because it's that powerful, everyone should
be familiar with it and understand the
positive and defensive postures. When you do, you understand what's
really going on with the people around you - either at work or in your
personal life - because we all, at some time or
the other speak in double messages.
It's important to understand double messages, which we hear/see all the
time. Why? Because whenever we receive a double message, we tend to put
a question mark behind the spoken message and believe the unspoken
message. I've said this before and I want
to re-emphasize it again! Double messages make us incongruent.
How do adults learn best? When they are in a congruent environment. If
you're going to be effective, learn the 2 most
important languages: the spoken and the unspoken word.
(c) 2005, Linda Talley. All rights reserved.
Linda Talley is a Houston-based businesscoach, speaker and author of
Business Finesse: Dealing With Sticky Situations in the Workplace for
Managers and The Daily Win-Building Success One Step at a Time. Sign up
for her free enewsletter, ASK THE COACH
by emailing us at linda@lindatalley.com, online at
http://www.lindatalley.com or at 713-668-9659.
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