Nonverbal_Communication_in_the_Context_of_Managerial_Communication

Nonverbal communication in the context of managerial communication Introduction Communication is exchanging and sharing information, ideas and message. Each and every day, in every social interaction, we communicate our feelings, attitudes, thoughts and concerns using a definite medium or pattern. Communication has two major forms namely Nonverbal communication and Verbal communication. In our conversation we use both verbal and nonverbal forms to convey and support the message to be sent. Verbal communication can be defined as a primary vehicle that organizations use to maintain contact with their internal and external environment. Verbal communication is divided in written and oral in two parts. On the other hand, nonverbal communication is used to express power and status, love and intimacy, communicate agreement, establish relationship and regulate the stream of communication Managerial Communication: Managerial communication is essential in today’s flourishing and vibrant business environment. Managerial communication must be effective in terms of delivering important message around the organization to meet and achieve stated objective and goals. Communication establishes relationship and makes organization work possible. From the perspective of an organization messages sent by the manager to member of staff has a definite objective like motivating, informing, teaching, persuading, entertaining or inspiring .An effective communication is vital for the organization’s survival goals and mission. It is very important for a manager to have a good knowledge on the communication process. Communication Process: Communication is an all round process. It is not just conveying message to another party. Bettinghaus and Cody (1994) identify communication as “one person transmits a message that is received and acted upon by another individual”. The communication process can be describe by the way information flows from the time it is conveyed till the time it reaches its intended recipient and ultimately gather an answer from the recipient. The fundamentals of typical communication process in terms of logical order are as follows: ▪ Sender: A sender initiates the communication process, e.g. a manager giving instruction to the employees. ▪ Message The message is a transmitted idea, thought or feeling that may be intentional, deliberate or unintentional. It is consists of verbal and non verbal symbols to hand over the meaning to the receiver, e.g. the manager should describe the purpose of the message and construct each message with the receiver. ▪ Encoding The process of translating the intended meaning into symbols (words and gestures) is encoding. The person who gets the thought or idea feels the need to communicate. Idea is encoded when it is formed. Then the encoded idea takes the shapes of message and sent to communicate using proper media. ▪ Channel The medium of delivering the message is called the channel such as printing, mass, electrical, analogue or digital. Speed, cost, convenience, intelligibility, timing, feedback option, documentation etc are some factors to consider while selecting a medium. It is very important to choose the right medium for a particular message as it may highly influence the feedback process. ▪ Receiver Receiver is any person (It is not necessary that the receiver is in the appropriate channel of communication, receiver can be outsider, client etc) who notices and interprets the message according to self-perception, feelings, backgrounds, ideas and beliefs. ▪ Decoding After receiving the message the receiver starts to understand the message by a process of decoding where verbal and nonverbal words and symbols are involved to the message to give a meaning. As differences in perception are present between receiver and sender the message may not be interpreted accurately. ▪ Feedback Feedback is the basic response of the receiver to the interpreted message. During feedback the receiver is the sender. It provides the initial information to the sender about the achievement of the communication. Feedback gives the foundation and chance to ensure that the message was interpreted accurately. ▪ Noise Noise is anything that distorts or distracts the exchange of message through interference or disturbance. Three types of noises are identified as barrier of effective communication: physical, psychological and semantic noise for example car screeching, sunglasses, biases and prejudices, jargon, technical or complex terms. [pic] This figure showing the communication process. Nonverbal communication: The scientific study of nonverbal communication began 125 years ago with the work of Charles Darwin and his book, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872). The term popularized in the 20th century. The way we express ourselves, voice, bodily gesture, movement of eyes, all these are some sort of nonverbal communication. There are many different categories of nonverbal communication namely Aesthetics, Artifacts, Chronemics, Haptics, Kinesice, Paralanguage, Physical Appearance, Proxemice and Oculesics. The most powerful nonverbal communication is body language. Studies done in this says that 55% of communication is done by body language, 38% done by tone or voice and only 7% done by words. There are five types of body language: • Facial expression • Gestures and kinesics • Posture and Body orientation • Movement • Voice and sound (Paralanguage) Facial expression Face is one of the most expressive parts of the body. Facial expression continually changes and mostly monitored. Seven most common facial expressions are as follows: I. Happiness II. Anger III. Fear IV. Disgust V. Interest VI. Sadness VII. Surprise Facial expressions are essential for establishing relationship with people in all culture. For instance, smiling is a powerful cue that transmits warmth, affiliation, liking, happiness, friendliness. Gestures: Another main type of nonverbal communication is gesture. It’s like handshakes, waving, and raising certain fingers to say something. Gesture brings the expression to life. Gesture can’t be avoidable while speaking. Our hands move unconsciously to emphasis or indicate the meaning of our words. Gestures have two broad types namely: positive gesture and negative gesture. We use gesture to emphasize, to point, to reject or to describe things. For example, in modern times thumbs up indicate approval and success, whereas the thumbs down convey the opposite. Posture: The way we hold ourselves is our posture. Posture makes a big contribution to body language and express level of confidence. Body posture can be closed or open. Orienting body towards someone is showing attentiveness whereas leaning back shows a lack of interest. In Japan bow is a formal gesture. Bow conveys different expressions as: greeting, apology, gratitude, humility, respect or remorse. Movement: Kinecics involves the study of bodily movement. Ekman and Friesen (1969) identify 5 different body movements which have communication function: 1. Emblems: Behaviour that has a direct verbal translation, generally a word or a phrase such as the thumbs upward for hitchhiking; the arms wave to say hello or goodbye. 2. Illustrators: It directly linked with word reinforce verbal communication and allow us to accent or emphasize words or ideas. For e.g. pointing figure to emphasize on a specific point. 3. Affect displays: It is body movement which expose our effective or emotional status. A speaker shows enthusiasm and hopes it exudes to the audience. 4. Regulators: A speaker uses body movements to his audiences to search out responses to his message. Example, listener nodding their heads. 5. Adaptors: It is movements that satisfy personal needs and helps adapting to environment. Example, scratching a nose, twisting a pencil etc. Paralanguage: Paralanguage is how we say and what we say. Research states that paralanguage includes grunt, groans, moans, sighs, the volume of sound, speed of speech and also pitch Eye contact: Eye contact is direct and powerful as it is talking all the time. Nothing builds trust and rapport as effectively as eye contact. But staring at someone is threatening. It makes people uncomfortable. Appearance: Physical appearance is what we look like. it’s our personal presentation. It somewhat tells our physical qualities also. Race, sex, hairstyle and size are what we notice what we view for the first time. Silence, Space, Time: Silence is a positive or negative influence in the communication process. It creates tension and uneasiness or a peaceful situation. Proxemices is space and the use of it. People maintain space between each other based on their relationship or based on how they feel about each other. Chronemics is the study of time. The length of time that we spend engaged in an activity reflects our priorities and preference.