3 ELEMENTS OF COMMUNICATION

 A famous communication study was done by Professor Albert Mehrabian of UCLA on the relationship of the three elements that are communicated every time we speak. Mehrabian measured the difference between the believability of the verbal, vocal, and visual elements of our messages.

The verbal is the message itself—the words you say. The vocal element is your voice—th...e intonation, projection, and resonance of the voice that carries those words. The visual element is what people see—your facial expression and your body language.

Mehrabian’s research determined that the degree of consistency between these three elements was the factor that determines believability. Here are the percentages he found to be the average:

Visual - 55%
Vocal - 38%
Verbal - 7%

Since visual elements of communication are so important, we will concentrate on them during the month of July!

Making Time for the Unexpected...

Have you made time for the unexpected? Chances are something is going to come up this week that you didn't anticipate. While this is a common occurrence, it doesn't have to wreak havoc on your schedule. Research shows that highly effective people have learned how to expect the unexpected and make it a habit to:

•Leave open time each day on the calendar to handle unforeseen matters
•Do the most important things first before something else comes up
•Re-prioritize twice a day to adjust for changing demands

Planning for the unexpected is a great way to stay on schedule and reduce everyday stress.

The Benefits of Effective Communication

One of the job skills that employers desire most is effective communication. When people communicate effectively, they are able to build productive working relationships, solve problems, supervise others, and create trust in the workplace.

The Cost of Poor Communication - Communication gaps are caused by the failure to convey and/or understand the information, intent, or meaning of another, especially between individuals with different perceptions.

Barriers to Effective Communication
•Attitude of sender or receiver
•Emotional climate
•Hidden agendas
•Body language
•Semantics
•Interruptions
•Hot buttons

If you have the desire to become an effective communicator, you’ll be willing to do what it takes to make it happen. The real challenge in communicating is accurately sending images to others as well as accurately receiving images from them - to convey things exactly as you see them and to receive them exactly as others see them. Make effective communication a way of life.  Mastering connecting, conveying, and checking responses comes only with practice. Growth takes time.  You need to be patient with yourself while you incorporate and develop your new skills.

Making A Lasting Change

Learning any new behavior or skill begins with awareness. Yet knowing, and even openly admitting, we have a deficit will never improve it. Self-development is a combination of awareness, action, and discipline. Once you have decided you want to enhance yourself or your performance, consider the following:

• What do you want to change and how?

• What actions or training can you take to change it?

• What will your practice or discipline be to reinforce the new skills or behavior?

Keep in mind that most change comes with some form of resistance. Before you give up on your practice think about pushing through it. Learning new skills and productive behaviors improve our quality of work, helps reduce stress and generally enhances our personal satisfaction. Well worth the effort!

Nine Things Successful People Do Differently

Why have you been so successful in reaching some of your goals, but not others? If you aren’t sure, you are far from alone in your confusion. It turns out that even brilliant, highly accomplished people are pretty lousy when it comes to understanding why they succeed or fail. The intuitive answer — that you are born predisposed to certain talents and lacking in others — is really just one small piece of the puzzle. In fact, decades of research on achievement suggests that successful people reach their goals not simply because of who they are, but more often because of what they do.

Read the rest here.

By: Heidi Grant
Published by: The Harvard Business Review

Learn more about the science of success with Heidi Grant Halvorson’s HBR Single, based on this blog post.

Sometimes the Best Thing to Do is Nothing at All!

There comes a time in everyone’s life when things start coming at them from all directions. It’s easy to get distracted when you have more than a couple of options from which to choose. The more choices we have, however, the more difficult it is to take the right path. That’s when it is most important to just sit still and take your own sweet time to make a decision. Lots of people say they listen to a still small voice that comes from deep down inside. Some call it intuition. Others merely call it a gut feeling. Many years ago, mythologist and scholar Joseph Campbell put it very succinctly… follow your bliss.

No matter what you call it, everyone will at one time or another reach a point in life when they must do what little children are taught to go through, which is an exercise similar to the steps taught to them when learning to cross the street … stop, think, look, listen, think again and then make your move. Moving too fast or taking a particular action in reaction to a situation or someone else’s opinion of what you should do will almost always lead to disaster.

When faced with lots of choices at one time, the best thing you can do for yourself and the people closest to you – even if they do not agree with your decision – is to step away from the situation. Isolate yourself for a few days if at all possible, and let your conscious be your guide. It may sound trite, but that’s the only way to come to a healthy conclusion.

Listening to your own inner guide is ALWAYS the best way to solve a problem. Allowing your inner guide to take the lead will take you to the place where you are supposed to be in order to be your best and to have the best that life has to offer you. Far too many people are unhappy simply because they are living their lives based upon other people’s needs, wants, desires and beliefs about what they should be doing.

By taking control of your life and following your bliss, we avoid the traps so many people fall into that result in elevated blood pressure, stress related illnesses, depression, substance abuse and an untold number of chronic conditions, all of which could be reduced or eliminated altogether by listening to our guts rather than other people.

When Is It Time to Yield?

Has the strong opinion of another persuaded you to change your point of view? The tactics of others can at times alter our position. Yet, when is it appropriate to yield and when do we hold on to what is true for us? This is not an easy question to answer and frankly I'm challenged to do it in just a few short bullets. But here I go. Hold on to your point of view when...

•You have fully listened and remained open to the ideas of others, and your point of view still makes the most sense 
•The persuaded point of view goes against your core values, ethics or morals 
•The losses in the persuaded point of view are far greater than the benefits 

Holding on to our own opinion is important to foster the right moves for ourselves and our companies.  We need to hear everybody's voice and be appropriate and conscious when choosing a direction.