Listen Between the Words

When was the last time you had this conversation with somebody?

You: What's wrong?
They: Nothing.
You: I can tell something is wrong. What is it?
They: I said, nothing. I am fine.

According to the words you hear, the person is fine. And yet somehow, through non-verbal clues and the tone of their voice, you know that they are not.

Albert Mehrabian, a pioneer researcher of body language in the 1950's, found that the total impact of a message is about 7 percent verbal (words only) and 38 percent vocal (including tone of voice, inflection, and other sounds) and 55 percent nonverbal. These ratios were derived from experiments dealing with communications of feelings and attitudes (e.g. like-dislike).

The conversation above is a simple and obvious example of this theory in action. At work, we encounter many highly complex situations where we miss the lack of congruency in the message being said, not paying attention to the clues in front of us.

On a project I recently completed, we presented the visual design of a new application to a client and heard the words that the design was good, give or take some minor tweaks. A couple of months later, the tweaks shaped into a major redesign effort, which could have been avoided, had we listened between the words in that meeting and caught the clues that the client wasn't fundamentally happy with the look and feel of the application.

So, what's in it for you beyond awareness? Here are some tips that can help you become a educated listener attuned to verbal and non-verbal clues:

1. Trust your intuition. If you are feeling that something is off, it is because your brain is processing all of the signals it's receiving, comparing them to each other, detecting incongruity between them, and trying to alert your conscious mind.

2. Check with your colleagues. If you have other people in the meeting, talk to them afterwards and ask for their observations and feelings. If they walk away with the same feeling as you, the chances are your perception is reality.

3. Read some books on neuro-linguistic programming. It'll provide you with an understanding of how you can read and decipher non-verbal clues.

4. When preparing for a meeting, make a mental note that you'll pay attention to the non-verbal language of other people. This will help heighten your sense of awareness.

5. Watch for people's eye movements, posture, and hands. Armed with the theoretical knowledge from the reading and trusting your instincts, you'll be amazed at how much non-verbal clues can tell you.

6. Ask non-threatening questions to validate your assumptions. Circling back to the example at the beginning of the post, you could put yourself in the other person's shoes and say something like this: "If I were you, I think I would feel [adjective], because [reason]. How do you feel about it?" This turns the situation around from confrontational to empathetic; the other person realizes that you are on the same wavelength with you and will be more likely to verbalize what you already suspect.