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Jan 8, 2019
Brenda Smyth
The most effective communication is face-to-face. That’s because only a tiny part of communicating depends on the actual words we use. Eye rolls, frowns, cheery tones, attentive postures and a million other little cues tip us off to the real meaning of what’s being said.
In fact, only 7 percent of a message is based on the words. UCLA psychology professor emeritus and researcher of body language Albert Mehrabian, notes that intonation accounts for another 38 percent and facial expression or body language is 55 percent.
Additionally, there are neural differences between face-to-face communication and other types of communication. Through brain scans, a 2012 study at Beijing Normal University revealed that face-to-face communication (particularly dialogue where both participants speak in turn) has special neural features that other types of communication (back-to-back dialogue, face-to-face monologue or back-to-back monologue) do not.
But obviously it’s not really practical to have in-person conversations every time you’ve got information to share, is it? And phone calls, email, texts and social media give us a variety of convenient options for communicating at work.
Any time there are emotional issues, you need to have an open discussion, you’re trying to convey importance or you’re trying to establish trust, suggests Anne Field for businessinsider.com. Here are some specific instances:
We’re all comfortable drafting a quick email or text to communicate in the office. But remember that in certain circumstances, having a conversation in person is more effective. Don’t use text and email to avoid a difficult conversation or simply because you don’t want to listen to the push back.
Brenda Smyth
Brenda Smyth is supervisor of content creation at SkillPath. Drawing from 20-plus years of business and management experience, her writings have appeared on Forbes.com, Entrepreneur.com and Training Industry Magazine.
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