Non-Verbal Communication Enhances Effective Communication

Improve your communication skills in business and relationships through non-verbal communication.

As you well know, communication is key to our professional and personal development. Whether we are at work, interacting with our colleagues, or our employees, or our employers, our clients, or with our family members and friends at home, we need to be able to impart our ideas and get our message through effectively if we are to build and sustain our relationships with others.

Muovo well understands that as simple as communication  may seem, much of what we try to communicate, and essentially, what others try to communicate to us, gets misunderstood. This can lead to conflict and frustration in our personal and professional relationships.

What do we understand by effective communication?
Nowadays, we live in a digital world, where we have to send, receive, and process information via a huge number of messages every day. Effective communication is yet much more than just exchanging information. It requires you to be able to comprehend the emotion behind the information.

In this way, it can improve relationships at home, at work, and in social situations by deepening our connections to others and improving teamwork, decision-making, caring, and problem solving. It enables us to communicate even negative or difficult messages without creating conflict or destroying trust.

Effective communication combines a set of skills, as follows:
a) nonverbal communication
b) attentive listening
c) the ability to handle stress, and
d) the capacity to recognise and understand your own emotions and those of the person you’re communicating with.

In this article, we will be discussing the need for non-verbal communication and how it could enhance effective communication.

But first, let’s ask: What is non-verbal communication?
Non-verbal communication is an integral part of interpersonal communication is the non-verbal communication, which comprises two dimensions, namely the environmental (relating to space and territory), and the personal (referring to paralanguage, gaze and kinesics).

Non-verbal messages interpret the internal states of others, and are used in pursuit of one’s communication goals. These messages provide a good example to the extent to which communication often operates at low levels of awareness and is yet functional. This relates to the concept of social cognition, which refers to what we think about the people and situations we encounter in our communicative commerce.

Some tips:
a) You can enhance effective communication by using open body language—arms uncrossed, standing with an open stance or sitting on the edge of your seat, and maintaining eye contact with the person you’re talking to.

b) You can also use body language to emphasise or intensify your verbal message—by giving a pat to your friend on the back while complimenting him on his success, for example, or by pounding your fists will emit different messages. The first may show your contentment whilst the second may give the idea that you are jealous of his or her success.

Muovo will be writing more on how to read other people’s non-verbal cues and how to improve your own non-verbal communication in the upcoming posts!

Nikita Pisani at Muovo

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