Tips to improve nonverbal communication

It is rightly said "practice make a man perfect". Similarly one can improve their nonverbal communication with practice. Below are some tips and a video with can help you to improve nonverbal communication.

• Pay attention to nonverbal signals:  Pay attention to unspoken words. people act though eyes, gesture, body movement etc observes that movements. 

• Look for in congruent behavior:  Sometime we speak don't match with our body language. it is said in this case person try to lie. 

• Voice Tone:  Concentration on your tone of voice when speaking because voice can reflect the energetic or dull mood immediately. 

• Eye Contact:  It's the act of looking in another's eyes. Continued eye contact can be treated as flirty. Too less of eye contact may be considered as lack of attention. So according to experts, an eye contact of 3-4 minutes is recommended.

• Ask questions about nonverbal communication:  Ask question in case in case someones non verbal signal is not understood. Don't assume. You can do so by asking, "So you mean to say that........"

• Look at signals as a group:  A single gesture may mean a lot or nothing. So wait for a couple of more gestures to reach a particular decision.

Reference:

http://psychology.about.com/od/nonverbalcommunication/tp/nonverbaltips.htm

Disadvantage of nonverbal communication:

No doubt, nonverbal communication helps a person a lot in conveying message more effectively but it has some drawbacks over verbal communication. Below are some disadvantage of nonverbal communication.

• Vague:  As nonverbal communication include no words so it has no dictionary meaning. Moreover it varies from culture to culture even person to person

• Continuous:  One can stop his words but it is nearly impossible to stop nonverbal clues even when it is not needed in some circumstance.

• Multi-channel:  Like Hand and eyes moments many other movement happen all together at a same time. So it is difficult to understand all together non verbal clues.

• Culture bound:  Some gestures are universal but it differs from culture to culture. Gesture can be seen as positive in one culture but may not in another culture.

• Long conversation are not possible:  In nonverbal communication, long discussions and fundamental clarification are impossible.

• Difficult to understand:  Nonverbal communication involve gestures, facial expression etc which is not clear and need repetition hence difficulty in understanding.

• Not everybody prefer:  Some people don't like using nonverbal communication. Some people think verbal communication is more effective than nonverbal communication.

• Lack of formality:  Nonverbal communication have structure neither any set of rules, so it is a kind of informal communication.

Reference:

businesscom. (2013). Advantages and disadvantages ofnon-verbal communication. Retrieved fromhttp://thebusinesscommunication.com/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-non-verbal-communication/#