Subtleties
of Communication and Hidden Messages
The concept of body language
has always intrigued me but I never went into any details of the study and
application. I know it is widely used character study and analysis in many
different organizations as well as government. Criminals are studied for
behavior prediction and lie detection. Almost all big organizations have people
who are master of body language. Body language study can be very useful for any
leader for interaction with other leaders as well as with members of their own
organization. Body language can tell a lot about the state of mind of the
person you are talking to and also what they are thinking about the current
conversation. A leader can use this to their advantage and take better control
of the situation and better understand the people they are interacting with. The
book has a few chapters dedicated to body language communication and hidden
messages which I would normally fail to understand. Hopefully this will me more
aware and increase in improving my self awareness and social as well as
emotional intelligence.
It was quite
interesting to see that body language consists of 55 percent of the message
being conveyed. I can study the facial expression and figure out what the
person is going through but I need to understand better body movements such as
arms and hands, legs and feet as well as breathing. Some are very obvious but
the deep understanding lies in the subtleness of these movements which I fail
to capture in a conversation because I am not aware of what to look for.
Spatial relationships are not too difficult to figure out and are
understandable. It is much easier for a woman to walk into anyone’s space and
get away with it than a man. There is a comfort level of personal space that we
all are accustomed to and can handle but there are moments when people walk
into our personal space and make us uneasy. A big example can be our bosses.
They just feel they have a right to enter anyone’s personal space and the other
person should feel good about it. I have seen at Boeing one old manager making
many women feel very uncomfortable by being in their personal space too often
and with much ease.
Paralanguage and Metamessages
is what we do on daily basis, sometimes intentionally and most of the times not
even being aware. Now knowing about these I can definitely relate to
paralanguage being a part of my daily communication. Pitch, articulation, resonance,
tempo, volume and rhythm are some factors that I can observe in my dealing with
kids at home and co workers at work. Now I can say with confidence that after becoming
more observant about the surroundings around me, I can notice the paralanguage
and Metamessages. I have noticed while playing cards, players do talk in Metamessages
to convey messages to their partners. I can recall numerous moments when I did
not catch the metamessage and only figured out later when the time had passed.
I believe I can become a much better communicator if I can get used to looking
for such subtle hints. I think by nature women are much more aware and powerful
in understanding and conveying these metamessages to each other and whoever
they think can understand. Nature has bestowed this gift to women, men are just
too careless.
Hidden agendas are used
by us and the people around us all the time. These are intentional and people
just have the habit of doing so. I can relate to all the agendas with a number
of people in family and friends. We do get bombarded with incongruent messages
all the time and if we are not able to translate those messages to our
advantage we can lose important deals and pieces of information that can benefit
us. Even management in big companies provide subtle hints to employees and see
how much aware the employee is and if they can figure out what the management
is looking for, especially when someone wants to get promoted. I try to be
aware of what is expected out of me and what action I should be taking in
different circumstances, but sometimes I fail to notice subtle messages. But
now after this module I will try to be more aware of what is thrown at me and
how to become better at communicating with others. I do believe in sincerity
and congruence in communication and so most of the times become oblivious to
hidden agendas. I feel this will make be a much better leader for future.
No comments:
Post a Comment