We communicate before we speak.

Watch what you are not saying but saying!

We often speak about communicating more effectively and I like to share my knowledge of dialogue in these posts. However, what we often forget is that communication starts way before any words are uttered. Our energy and body language speak volumes – up to 70%. So, the tongue comes in a distant third!

Have you ever experienced the proverbial “cold shoulder”, when someone sits down next to you and turns their back on you? You are surprised and taken aback but go with the flow. What is going on? What message is being sent?  Or someone greets you at a big gathering, but as they are greeting you their eyes are darting left and right scanning the room to see who else could be more interesting to talk to? The classic one is where the body is sending out negative signals, but the words and sweet and polite. It is a complex dance that we do every day, and it is best to be aware of the power of body language as it can hurt badly, or it can heal beautifully.

As Stephen Young, author of the book Micro Messaging, says:

No matter what you think you’re saying, your words, gestures, and tone of voice can actually communicate something entirely different.

In the good old days before COVID, I worked in Big Pharma and often would be at gigantic project meetings, where fifty or so people are updating everyone on their part of some gigantic multi-million-dollar project. Boy, was it fun to watch the body language: The Project Manager and his guards sauntering in John Wayne style signaling their power; everyone hurriedly positioning themselves in a line-of-sight zone or hiding in plain sight depending on how their reporting was going to go; daring ones with laptops under the table continuing their work while pretending to listen to the other reports- no wonder things fell through the cracks; consultants and contractors aligning themselves with whoever had hired them and signaling their own importance amongst the half dozen or so other consultants in various ways. It was too funny. Hierarchy and power were physically visible, and everyone worked their part in it. I retired pre-COVID, and often wonder if more democracy returned to the workplace. In fact, one of my Argentinian colleagues in the dialogue community says that leaders want to make their workplaces more humanistic and democratic after COVID’s wake-up call.  That is music to my ears as I was always engaged in rehumanizing the workplace.

Start with Heart

I like to think of our energy field as our intentionality or our intentions. I remember teaching courses on Crucial Conversations (still offered by Cruciallearning.com) in corporate America; the authors who invented this called it a “tool for conversations where the stakes are high”. The first step they would talk about would be to “Start with Heart”. I liked that simple way of making us pay attention to our intention. And as I became a Sufi later, I began to appreciate even more the reference to the “heart” over “mind” to begin a crucial conversation.  It causes us to look within our heart and see if we are sincere and mean well before we start a difficult conversation; the mind would be scheming and plotting its agenda, but the heart is the place to start.

Is our heart soft and intending to be kind and humble in this difficult conversation?

Can we quieten our mind to not cling to past hurts and misunderstandings and explore new pathways towards respect and love?

Beaming Energy

In our monthly Global Peacebuilders Forum, we start with meditation, and then get into deep philosophical discussions. Amazingly, we co-create an energy field together that each person has contributed to and that makes us want to come back again and again. We are from all over the world and have never met physically! For us it is an oasis of peace away from our daily work of dialogue in different applications and contexts.  I have often wondered what created this amazing virtual space, and I think it is our intentionality or energy which amazingly transports across Zoom. Some of us are now eager to meet in person at a retreat in the future!

So, think of the energy you are beaming out whether in person or virtually?

Is it soft yet uplifting, or toxic and charged with stuff from the past?

So, let’s acknowledge the power of the unsaid and intangible, and use it wisely and sensitively, virtual or not!