The 3 Elements of Communication

/ The Leadership & Legacy Group/

We communicate using words, body language and tonality.

When you are on the receiving end of a message, what element do you think provides you with the most information?

Allow me to answer a question with a question:

Have you ever asked a colleague how their day was going and they replied “fine” in a flat voice with their arms crossed?  You don’t believe them for a second!

Body language and tonality tell us way more about what is truly being communicated in a message than the words themselves. Broken down into percentages:

  • Body Language accounts for 58% of a message
  • Tonality accounts for 35% of a message
  • Words account for 7% of a message

I was recently teaching a workshop on networking, and a participant asked if social media networking was more effective than person to person networking. My Marketing Director responded with:

“If you don’t have an actual network, you don’t have a social network.”

I couldn’t agree more. Think about it. We completely lose body language and most of tonality when we communicate via email, or on LinkedIn. 93% of our ability to communicate the nuances of our messages flies out the window. Computers are a great tool to help share information, but it is not the ideal tool to foster meaningful relationships. There is no replacement for face to face contact with your network.

Which reminds me, if you are getting ready to retire or sell your business and you have found value from my blog…you have only tapped into 7% of with The Leadership and Legacy Group has to offer. Call me at 336.458.9939 to get the next installment of 35% of what we have to offer, and schedule an in person meeting to get the final 58% of the value we could bring to planning your next phase in life.