Body Language

Many subjects have created waves in our quest to learn who we are and why we behave the way we do. One such subject which continues to fascinate people is that of Body Language- the science of studying non-verbal communication. It is one of the most important aspects of communication and fashions interpersonal relationships.

Filed under: Books and Authors, Communication , body language, Communication, Julius Fast

Top 10 Nonverbal Communication Tips

Good communication skills can help you in both your personal and professional life. While verbal and written communication skills are important, research has shown that nonverbal behaviors make up a large percentage of our daily interpersonal communication.

How can you improve your nonverbal communication skills? Look at the following top 10 tips for nonverbal communication from Kendra Van Wagner in the Psychology site of About.com.

The tips are simple, yet effective and can be put into use almost immediately by anyone who wishes to improve their interpersonal relations by having better non-verbal communication.

Filed under: Communication , Nonverbal communication

More Stress through Emails

Emails are very much a part of our work life. We can no longer imagine a world without email.

Researchers at Glasgow University and Paisley University in the UK, found that 34% of the workers questioned as part of their study admitted to checking their inbox every 15 minutes.

Though 64% of the workers said they looked at their emails more than once an hour, monitoring software showed that it was more like 40 times an hour. At least 34% of the workers also said that they were stressed by the sheer number of emails that come in, and the need for a speedy reply. Another 28% admitted that they were “driven” after checking their mails because of the pressure to respond.

“Our survey indicates the astonishing extent to which email is embedded in our day-to-day lives,” the researchers, are quoted as saying. “Females, in particular, tended to feel more pressure to respond than males,” they added.

Some figures about stress inducing emails:

• 6 trillion business email messages sent worldwide in 2006
• 49 minutes spent managing emails each day by the average office worker
• 4 hours spent managing emails per day by senior management worker
• 80 % of emails sent are actually ’spam’ – unsolicited adverts, many of which are fraudulent or otherwise illegal
• 62 % of workers check business emails while at home or on holiday

Use email as a productivity and convenience tool. Don’t become a slave to it!

Filed under: Communication

7 Ideas for Success- Conducting Meetings

“Meetings, Bloody Meetings” was the title of an old John Cleese video which showed how terrible meetings could be and how we could make them more effective.

Meetings are an inescapable part of business today. We attend many types of meetings:Formal, informal, sit down, stand up, internal, external, planned, impromptu- the list goes on. It is estimated that approximately 11 million meetings occur in the U.S. each and every day. Another estimate indicates that most professionals attend a total of 61.8 meetings per month. Many feel that over 50 percent of this meeting time is wasted.

No wonder then that many consider meetings a terrible waste of time. However, a well-conducted meeting can be invigorating, motivating and have a lasting impact on attendees.

Here are my 7 Ideas for Success for Conducting Effective Meetings:-

1. Have a meeting only if this method is the best to achieve objectives
2. Call only those who will add value
3. Have an agenda with start and end times ( time budgets)
4. Don’t have too big an agenda
5. Be sensitive to all meeting participants and their needs
6. Help meeting participants summarise take aways
7. Release action oriented minutes as soon as possible

Filed under: Communication

Downsides of Email

You must have heard of Daniel Goleman? He is the renowned author of “Emotional Intelligence” which was on The New York Times bestseller list for a year-and-a-half; with more than 5,000,000 copies in print worldwide in 30 languages.

Read what he has to say about email in the New York Times.

Email undoubtedly has many advantages -” it’s quick and convenient, democratizes access and lets us stay in touch with loads of people we could never see or call. It enables us to accomplish huge amounts of work together”

However, it can never capture the emotions of the sender as well as a personal interaction can.

“One reason for this is that we tend to misinterpret positive e-mail messages as more neutral, and neutral ones as more negative, than the sender intended. Even jokes are rated as less funny by recipients than by senders”

As Professor Clay Shirky an adjunct professor in New York University’s interactive telecommunications program puts it “Social software” like e-mail “is not better than face-to-face contact; it’s only better than nothing.”

Think about this before you dash off an email to the guy in the next cubicle or to the girl down the corridor.

Filed under: Communication

Networking Tips

Scott Bradley writes of the value of asking questions to enhance the success of networking.

I agree the right questions can help in opening a conversation and in building a relationship. I feel these questions have greater impact only if they are reinforced with the right body language. Eye contact, posture and tone of voice do add immensely to the value you get from these questions.

Filed under: Communication

83 % of all email is Spam!

Shocking revelation in USA Today. We knew it was bad…but not this bad. According to the report as much as 83 % of all email is Spam.

“Unwanted commercial e-mail is growing by electronic leaps and bounds: An Internet-buckling 60 billion to 150 billion messages per day.”

I don’t know if it helps but I was advised never to unsubscribe to Spam as my email id gets further circulated. Any truth in this?

Filed under: Communication

Congratulations,Vikas Jhingran

I do not know Vikas Jhingran personally but wish to congratulate him on his splendid feat.

He recently won the first prize in the Toastmasters International World Championship of Public Speaking . Vikas, a graduate of IIT, Kharagpur, is a Doctoral candidate in mechanical and ocean engineering at MIT.

This year’s competition featured 10 finalists, each of whom presented a seven-minute original speech to a panel of judges. Contestants were judged on content, speech organization, voice quality, gestures and delivery.

The event is called the Olympics of Public Speaking . Jhingran presented “The Swami’s Question”, a speech about finding himself through meditation and about getting into MIT, his dream school.

Filed under: Communication

Write Better: Use the Fog Index

In a recent program, I spoke of the need to write in a more understandable manner. The objective is not to confuse the hell out of your readers but to make them understand what you are trying to say.

The Fog Index is a matrix that gives you an idea of how easy or otherwise your written matter is for others to read. It was devised many years ago by Robert Gunning, an American businessman.

Whether you use the Fog index or not, do read your written matter from the point of view of your reader. Would most people find it easy to understand? Are you being more verbose than necessary? Is there excessive use of needless jargon? Are you using simpler words to convey your thoughts and ideas?

Filed under: Communication

Body Language counts.

It’s true. Body language counts. Even in the US Presidential elections.

CNN writes of the “for the first time ever debates” held recently on YouTube . This was to help viewers decide their choice for the Democratic Party’s candidate for the US Presidential election.

Sen. Hillary Clinton was said to have made the most positive impression based on her body language.

Many years ago, as a kid, I read about the Kennedy-Nixon debates in 1960. There was no TV in India then. We read that one of the most important reasons for Kennedy’s winning was his positive use of body language. He came out as being confident of the future and a go-getter. He demonstrated this when he was elected the President soon after. Nixon came out to be more cagey, which was proved by subsequent events when he became the President many years later.

Filed under: Communication