By Dave Kaster for Mentors Guild
Sims Wyeth & Co, helps us understand how to communicate more effectively through a variety of courses, coaching and skills training. In this adaptation from the blog entitled: “Communication skill includes words, voice, and body language”, we learn that words just don’t say it all.
“The key idea is that words, by themselves, are necessary but not sufficient to create meaning. The listener creates meaning through hearing the word, passing it through a filter composed of her prior experiences, and then interpreting the cues that are coming from the speaker, such as voice, and body language.”
To gather the meaning from words, we all try to put together the puzzle pieces of the entire performance surrounding the words: puffs of air, hand gestures, facial expressions, tone of voice and body language. These transmissions of meaning still involves primate mechanics worked out in the Pliocene era. This is why context is crucial.
Once we have this, then we tend to employ prior experience and the storehouse of the past that each of us carries.
The reason understanding this is crucial is because we have to learn to tell people what we are saying in addition to what we are not saying. By doing this, we have a better chance of being understood.
Adapted from: Sims Wyeth & Co, article: “Communication skill includes words, voice, and body language.”
This story was written by Dave Kaster for www.mentorsguild.com