Learning Objectives
Demonstrate three ways to improve nonverbal communication.
Nonverbal communication is an important aspect of business communication, from interpersonal interactions to public presentations. It is dynamic, complex, and challenging. We are never done learning and adapting to our environment and context; improving our understanding of nonverbal communication comes with the territory.
When your audience first sees you, they begin to make judgments and predictions about you and your potential, just as an employer might do when you arrive for a job interview. If you are well-dressed and every crease is ironed, your audience may notice your attention to detail. Wearing jeans with holes, a torn T-shirt and a baseball cap would send a different message. Neither style of dress is “good” or “bad, but simply appropriate or inappropriate depending on the environment and context. Your skills as an effective business communicator will be called upon when you contemplate your appearance. As a speaker, you aim to create common ground and reduce the distance between the audience and yourself. You want your appearance to help establish and reinforce your credibility.
To be a successful business communicator, you must continually learn about nonverbal communication and its impact on your interactions. Below are three ways to examine nonverbal communication.
Watch Reactions
Market research is fundamental to success in business and industry. So, too, you will need to do a bit of field research to observe how, when, and why people communicate the way they do. If you want to be able to communicate effectively with customers, you will need to anticipate not only their needs but also how they communicate. They are far more likely to communicate with someone whom they perceive as being like them than with a perceived stranger. From dress to mannerisms and speech patterns, you can learn from your audience how to be a more effective business communicator.
Enroll an Observer
Most communication in business and industry involves groups and teams, even if the interpersonal context is a common element. Enroll a coworker or colleague in your effort to learn more about your audience or even yourself. They can observe your presentation and note areas you may not have noticed that could benefit from revision. Perhaps the gestures you make while speaking tend to distract rather than enhance your presentations. You can also record a video of your performance and play it for them and yourself to get a sense of how your nonverbal communication complements or detracts from the delivery of your message.
Focus on a Specific Type of Nonverbal Communication
What is the norm for eye contact where you work? Does this change or differ based on gender, age, ethnicity, cultural background, context, or environment? Observation will help you learn more about how people communicate; looking for trends across a specific type of nonverbal communication can be an effective strategy. Focus on one behavior you exhibit on your videotape, like pacing, body movements across the stage, hand gestures as you make a point, or eye contact with the audience.
Key Takeaway
To enhance your message through nonverbal communication, observe reactions and consider enrolling an observer to help you become aware of your nonverbal habits and how your audience receives nonverbal messages.
Exercises
Watch a television program without the sound. Can you understand the program? Write a description of the program and include what you found easy to understand, and what presented a challenge, and present it to the class.
Observe communication in your environment. Focus on specific actions, such as face touching, blink rate, or head nodding, and write a brief description of what you observe. Then, share your observations with classmates.
Play charades in a group. Pull words from a hat or envelope and act out the words without verbal communication.
Interview someone from a culture different from your own and ask them to share a specific cultural difference in nonverbal communication—for example, a nonverbal gesture that is not used in polite company. Write a brief description and present it to the class.
What do you think are this chapter’s assumptions (explicit or underlying) about nonverbal communication? Discuss your thoughts with a classmate.
This page titled 11.5: Nonverbal Strategies for Success with Your Audience is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Anonymous (LibreTexts Staff), from which source content was edited to the style and standards of the Pressbook platform licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License by Brandi Schur.
