How to improve Nonverbal Communications Nonverbal Communication is behavior, other than spoken or written communication, that creates or represents meaning. In other words, it includes facial expressions, body movements and gestures.
Nonverbal Communication is talking without speaking a word. It is very effective sometimes than a speech. Research has shown that Nonverbal Communication has taken a large percent of our daily interpersonal communication. People can communicate information in numerous ways; so one needs to pay attention to things like eye contact, gestures, postures, body movements, and tone of voice. By paying closer attention to other people??? s nonverbal behaviors, you will improve your own ability to communicate nonverbally as nonverbal communication can be multi-channeled and ambiguous. As part of the essay, I had to interview three persons on how they are able to improve their nonverbal communication skills.
First person I interviewed was my sister Indu Ward, a Pharmacist at Kmart pharmacy. Her job requires a lot of nonverbal communications including eye contact, with the customers she interacts every day. Since she interacts with customers on one-to-one basis, she has to have a very pleasant face (mask feelings) even if she had to deal with a bad customer prior to that. She said she always tries her best to keep a very friendly face whatever the circumstances are. In the beginning, she had inhibitions on how to interact well with the customers but in the mean time she learned the art of nonverbal communication very well by observing fellow Pharmacists since her job is very demanding. But she still feels that she could make some improvements in controlling the quality of her voice while communicating with customers. Second person I interviewed was my elder sister Sindhu John, who had a Masters in Organic Chemistry and currently pursuing a career in Pharmacy. She commented that she would mask her feelings whenever it is not required or around strangers irrespective of emotions such as anger, anxiety, concern, disgust etc.
Also, she needs improvement in areas such as using hand gestures while talking and fervent usage of uh; um; err; well; ok while conversing with others. She said can improve this by observing others and taking an extra effort from her side to change these mannerisms. The third person I interviewed was Janet Shiny, working as a Chemical Engineer in Caterpillar who is a great friend of mine. She said she needs some improvement in gestures since she uses hand gestures often in her conversations with others.
Also she finds her as soft-spoken and that tend people to believe that she is a timid person sometimes. But she always make it a point to show that she is not timid at all especially at workplace. Other than this, she is pretty confident in the way she carries herself.
About me, I am trying to pursue a career in Nursing. I need to improve my nonverbal communication skills in many areas. Most of the time while I am talking I noticed people are unable to hear me well since I am talking in a very low volume. I would like to improve on this aspect since I don??™t want anyone to interpret this as I am a person with very low self esteem. I use lot of hand gestures and I find it hard to have eye contact with other person so I try my best to avoid face to face communication when it comes to the posture. I find it difficult to stand on two feet too. Also I need to improve on my facial expression.
Anyone can assume from my facial expression whether I am happy, upset, angry, upset or in panic. I need to learn the art of masking my feelings! I often use uh; um; err; ok in my conversation. Now I am aware of the nonverbal behaviors and I hope this communication class would help me how to improve my skills while interacting with others! Like I said earlier, nonverbal communication is major component of inter-personal communication in our everyday life with others. Sometimes our verbal message can clash with our nonverbal communication so that people can get an entirely different message which can break friendships, can create problems at workplace and even at home with spouses and children as well. Hence it is very essential to improve our nonverbal communications skills.
