Communication: Words, Voice, and Body

Our final week of Supermorning Relationships will delve a little deeper into the science of communication.

The main theme this week will be that words are a surprisingly minor part of our conversations; voice tone and body language matter much more. 

Only 7%?

The most often quoted breakdown of verbal communication looks like this: 

  • Words: 7%
  • Voice tone: 38%
  • Body language: 55%

It seems impossible that words can be such a small fraction of the total message. And yes, when things sound impossible, it’s often because they are. 

But the accuracy of the 7% figure is not the point. The point is that voice tone and body language are critical elements of communication that are often neglected. 

Why the voice and body matter

Humans are not robots. We don’t emit and receive audio signals with the logic and efficiency of a computer. Instead, both the emission (talking) and reception (listening) of audio signals go through a wide array of emotional filters, massively affecting the efficiency at which the message is transferred. 

Maximizing the efficiency of communication is the role of voice tone and body language.

If everything lines up perfectly, we can transfer abstract ideas between each other’s minds with ease. This is crucial in our modern world where progress requires many minds to work together. 

On the other hand, if body language and voice tone are all wrong, our words quickly become useless. In some cases, they can even have the direct opposite effect to what we intended. 

A shift in focus

We often obsess over what we say in conversations. However, the smarter approach is to focus on three other areas. Here they are in order of priority:

  1. What you do with your body
  2. The tone of your voice
  3. How much you speak relative to others

The actual words you use only come in fourth. In fact, word selection and sentence construction, being mainly subconscious processes, are greatly influenced by these three elements. 

Over the next three days, we’ll cover these three crucial communication avenues in more detail.