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Communication and the Challenge of Technology

Face-to-face communication has always been challenging enough. Now, thanks to the convenience of modern technology, it is possible for even good relationships to turn sour and for your problems with people to go from bad to worse with unprecedented speed! In Chapters 4 through 6, we discussed the importance of looking and sounding like you’re on common ground with someone under the basic assumption that “No one cooperates with anyone who seems to be against them.” Face-to-face communication offers numerous ways to send and receive signals that indicate this common ground. However, phone and e-mail communications block some of these signals, and they emphasize others, offering some important advantages and disadvantages.

In this section of the book, we will reveal the nature of the problem, and offer strategies to reduce conflict and improve communication by phone and e-mail.

The “Numbers of Meaning”

Back in 1967, Dr. Albert Mehrabian, a professor at U.C.L.A., did a study on the relative importance of verbal and nonverbal messages when people communicate their feelings and attitudes.* He observed that most people send mixed messages much of the time and wanted to gain understanding into how it is possible to make sense out of them.

Mehrabian devised a study that involved filming people who were communicating about their feelings. He then produced three different versions of the same interaction in that film and presented these versions to a group of people. They viewed a copy of the film with no soundtrack. They listened to a soundtrack that had been run through a synthesizer that made the words incomprehensible, but left the tone, volume, and speed intact. Then they read a written transcript, containing the actual words spoken by the people in the film.

He found that most of these people thought they were experiencing three different interactions: A business meeting, people angry with each other, friends talking. They were quite surprised to discover that all three versions were from the same interaction. Based on their responses he concluded that:

55 percent of the meaning people make in any communication about feelings and attitudes is based on what they see.

38 percent of the meaning is based on how it sounds (tone, volume, and speed)

7 percent of the meaning is based on the actual words that are spoken.

This is what we affectionately refer to as the “55, the 38, and the 7,” or if you prefer, “Numbers of Meaning.” We believe these Numbers of Meaning are important for understanding communication in general.

Now, in many ways, these percentages should come as no surprise. After all, common expressions such as “Seeing is believing,” and “Action speaks louder than words” point to the stronger influence of the 55 percent, the visual component of nonverbal communication. Television directors seem to be aware of this too! Perhaps you’ve seen episodes of the original Candid Camera television series. Host Allen Funt created amusing scenarios of mixed messages, and then filmed unsuspecting people dealing with them. In one show, he filled a doctor’s waiting room with actors and actresses reading magazines waiting for the doctor, but they were dressed only in their underwear. Real patients walked in the room, had a moment of shock, and then got undressed and picked up magazines to read while waiting for the doctor! This just goes to show (pun intended) that the visual element of our interactions with others is profoundly compelling, which is why some parents must resort to the futile admonition, “Do what I say, not what I do.”

The 38 percent of communication, the way someone sounds when they talk to you, usually reflects their emotional state and sends an ego message. It is a personal message about you, and plays a significant role in how you make sense of mixed messages.

As mentioned in Chapter 7, people take your tone of voice personally. The tech support person on the phone may be giving you excellent advice, but his voice seems to say, “You moron!” You may be giving a friend reasonable directions to your party, but your rushed tone makes it sound like you’re saying, “Could you at least try to catch up? I’ve got more important people to talk to and things to do than talking with you!”

And while the actual words we use may constitute only 7 percent of the meaning of a particular communication, we all know that just one small word can serve as a trigger, or “buzzword” that sets entire chains of reaction in motion!

We once had a patient who told us about the neighborhood kids who tormented her when she was a little girl. They gave her the nickname “Moose,” and were relentless in repeating it. Thirty years later, she was at a cocktail party with fellow professionals. The word “moose” came up during a casual conversation, and her whole experience of the party changed in the blink of an eye. Her feelings about the person who used the word became negative, and all she could think of was getting away. While this reaction made no sense to her consciously, unconsciously it had brought up a whole realm of insecure feelings. For this reason, many adults are reluctant to share their childhood nicknames with others.

The greatest value of knowing about the 55, the 38, and the 7 is in helping you to remember the order of priority by which people make sense of each other, and how it is possible that mixed messages produce misunderstanding.

Anytime there’s a difference between what you see, what you hear, and what is actually said, there’s a potential for people problems. Even in face-to-face communication, a common mixed message occurs when there’s a difference between what is said and how it sounds. If, in an argument, a husband declares his love for his wife by screaming, “I love you! Don’t you get that???” she probably won’t. Yet if we examine the words by themselves, “I-love-you-don’t-you-get-that,” they seem all right. Add an angry tone and loud volume, however, and the behavior just doesn’t match. And when there is a mismatch, people tend to respond to the higher number.

Tone of voice tends to reveal a person’s emotional state, even when the person is trying to keep it hidden. Suppose you’re having an intense emotional response to something you’re seeing or hearing. You may want the interaction to be a positive one, and your good intentions may attempt to keep your feelings pushed down, shoved aside, and out of the way. The problem is, while your conscious mind is busy selecting the words you’ll use to express yourself (the 7 percent), your suppressed emotions tend to leak out through your tone of voice. Unfortunately for you, the receiver of your communication may ignore your carefully chosen words and respond only to your voice tone. Why? Because whenever there’s a mixed message, people tend to respond to the higher number in the 55, 38, and 7.

Something Lost, Something Gained

When you’re talking on the phone or communicating in writing, you lose access to the subtle visual clues that would help you to account for what you’re hearing. You can’t see how the other person looks, and she can’t see you. Some people know they’re being listened to when you look them in the eyes or nod your head while they’re talking. But those signals don’t transmit over the phone line. As a result you could be nodding your head, and for all the other person knows, you’ve gone for a cup of coffee! In written communications you lose 55 percent and 38 percent and only the words remain. It is quite natural to hallucinate freely how the other person sounds, and even to react to that hallucination as fact.

In communication, just as in life, when something is lost, something may be gained. In this case, phone and written communication have some profound advantages that outweigh the seeming disadvantages. If you are aware of and utilize those advantages, you can expand your communication success.