What you say is important. How you say it is more important.

Back in my college teaching days, my favourite module to teach was on non-verbal communication (NVC). I would start the class by delivering a short energetic rant in French. The students always looked non plussed, given that English was the standard language of instruction, but I knew what I was doing. And, once I explained myself, so did they.

In an oral situation, communication is delivered by three components: the words we speak, the body language we use, and the tone we employ. After I had finished my rant in French, I would ask the students if they knew what I had been saying. Most usually, the would say no, they had no idea. Then I would ask them if they could tell whether I was happy or sad or what. That they knew: I was clearly angry, they said. How could they know that if they didn’t understand what I was saying? Well, they would say, your voice was raised, your hand was pointing, and your face was animated. Indeed. My tone and my body language gave it all away; even without the specific words, the students knew I was presenting as angry. 

It’s an important core lesson about communication: Only seven percent of our message comes from the actual words we use; a full 58 percent comes from our NVC; and an important 35 percent comes from the tone we employ. 

As a follow up, I would ask the students to say “I love you” in as many different ways as they could and to hear the different message they were delivering when the NVC and the tone was not loving. It is remarkable how much can be conveyed by a difference in tone even when the words are exactly the same. Try it: add in a twist of sarcasm; lace it with anger; whisper it out of fear; raise your voice at the end to make it nervous or questioning. In the classroom, the experiment always ended in laughter and learning.

In a recent webinar I attended, I was reminded of just how important that lesson is — and how many people haven't learned it or haven't been taught it. The speaker at the webinar was likely an expert on the day's topic. Certainly, compared to the attendees, she knew more about it, given that she is working in the field and we, on the other side of the screen, are merely wannabes. But I took her tone as superior, as more “I am here as the expert and you are not” than as friendly mentor, as encouraging teacher, as sisters in the field (though currently in different positions). 

As an adult learner, I don’t want to sit at the feet of a master, hanging on to their every pearl of wisdom. No, I want to be welcomed into the field of knowledge by a presenter who shares their expertise and experience with the confidence that they are ceding no ground by offering information generously, that there is always plenty of room for new capable players on the field of their expertise, and that even we newbies might have something to offer the expert — a different perspective, a new tool, a comment that sparks an idea. 

An us-and-them attitude is counter productive in a learning context and is off-putting to someone who genuinely wants or needs something from the person who has it to give. I can easily bring to mind the feeling of shame and incompetence I felt at the tone with which a civil servant at an employment insurance (EI) information seminar spoke to the group of applicants around the table: He had what we did not have but desperately wanted — a job. When outlining the application process and qualifying requirements, his tone implied that it was our fault that we needed any of it at all; that we were in a sorry state and too bad for us. This happened almost 20 years ago after I had been laid off from a corporate job, but I can picture the setting and feel the emotions as if it had happened yesterday. 

Knowledge matters. Words matter. But, actually, tone and body language matter more.

To be noted: Of course we bring ourselves and our predisposition(s) to any communicative encounter, so I bear a share of responsibility for my experience in the two examples I cite above. Nonetheless, the speaker holds the floor and must, therefore, take the lead in setting the tone (literally) for what transpires. 

..............................................................................................................

To receive my weekly blogpost in your inbox, email fiveyearsawriter at gmail dot com. Simply put SUBSCRIBE in the subject line. 

Land acknowledgement: I respectfully recognize that I live on the original lands of Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota and Dene peoples, and on the homeland of the Métis Nation.

Photo — not of me in my college teaching days — by Immo Wegmann on Unsplash