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How do we miss the message? November 19, 2009

Last week I discussed the idea of non-verbal clusters. If you read it, you probably said to yourself, “Of course”. Yeah, you’re an intelligent aware human, you know this basic stuff. So how come we so often miss these clusters until after the fact?

You might have had the experience, but I’m sure you know someone who has: After some particularly bad experience you (or your friend) say something along the lines of, “how could I be so blind?” How could you miss obvious signs of lying?

Chances are you’re listening too much to what is being said. Maybe the person is telling you exactly what you want to hear:

“You’re good looking.” (While they smirk and shake their head.)
“I like and respect your opinion.” (Said while reading an email.)
“I trust you to do some tasks.” (While their shoulders shudder and their voice wavers.)

I’m not suggesting that what is said is not important. It is very important. However, it’s no more or less important than the rest of the message. Forget the well known research that says that only 7% of the message is verbal. While that’s true (for a very select type of communication) the communication itself is worthless without that 7%! Just try and communicate with someone who doesn’t speak your language to know how critical that 7% is.

So how do we train ourselves to not get caught by the words? As with most things – practice. We’ve practiced (even trained) to only listen to the words. Breaking that habit can be hard. It is possible.

Start with watching their eyes. When they talk, notice where their eyes go. Once you can keep watching their eyes while listening fully, notice the connection between where they look and the words they speak. When they pause to think, do they look in the same direction every time? Where do they look when talking about themselves, about others, about events, about places?

Yeah, this is a basic, but if you’ve not done this before it can be tough. Stick with it and you’ll pick up much more than just their eye movements.

Feel free to comment about your experiences below!

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