Debunking the myths of nonverbal communication

93% of communication is non-verbal. Everybody knows that, right?

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard this in sales training sessions or read about it in books, articles, and blogs. Sometimes the stats are further qualified, for example:

“A UCLA study indicated that up to 93% of communication effectiveness is determined by non-verbal cues. Another study indicated that the impact of a performance was determined 7% by the words used, 38% by the quality of the voice and 55% by non-verbal signals communication”.

Sounds awesome.

The problem is that is not true.

Let’s think about it for a minute: how can you possibly get 93% of the communication without the words? If you watch a movie in a foreign language, look at the body language and listen to the vocal tones, can you really understand 93% of it? I certainly can’t.

The truth is that the experiments at the origin of this myth (carried out by the researcher Albert Mehrabian in the 1970s) focused on very specific areas of communication -namely, the communication of feelings and attitudes- not on communication in general.

As Mehrabian himself points out:

“Note that this and other equations related to the relative importance of verbal and nonverbal messages were derived from experiments related to the communication of feelings and attitudes (i.e., like-dislike). Unless a communicator is talking about your feelings or attitudes, these equations do not apply.

Furthermore, the construction of the experiments was not an accurate reflection of real-world communication conditions. In one of the core experiments, for example, participants were read single words (either positive words like “thank you,” neutral like “maybe,” or negative like “no”) in positive, negative, or neutral voices. In another, the words were combined with photographs of people looking positive, negative, or neutral. Participants had to judge whether the words were positive, negative, or neutral based on the word/tone or word/image blend combinations, which is where the statistics come from. He highlighted how the tone of voice or facial expression often nullified the meaning of the word when it came to conveying a positive or negative sentiment.

Of course, in the real world, we don’t normally communicate with a single word. And usually we’re not just trying to communicate feelings either. But what has happened is that these important but limited findings from the experiments have been taken out of context, repeated, misunderstood, repeated, confused, etc. – to the point where “93% of communication is non-verbal” has been accepted as fact.

So what is the “real” percentage of communication that is non-verbal? Well, let’s pause and think about it for a second.

The question really doesn’t make sense.

What does “communication rate” really mean? Do you mean the percentage of the actual message that was heard and understood? Or do you mean the percentage of intended emotion that was conveyed? The concept of “communication rate” is so simplified that it no longer makes sense.

Furthermore, there are so many different types of communication that it is impossible to give a single number or average that has any meaning. Even if you could calculate a “communication percentage” that was non-verbal, it would be so radically different, say, for a lecture on mathematics to an impassioned speech on third world poverty that giving a blanket figure would be misleading.

In my experience, the only real answer to the question “how much of the communication is non-verbal?” it’s “probably more than you think, but less than some coaches and so-called experts would have you believe.”

So what does this mean for sellers?

Well, nonverbal communication is certainly important, but don’t take the 93% rule too seriously. The words you use are vitally important: they are the core of your communication. Your non-verbal expressions mainly serve to support what you say by conveying your feelings: your passion, your empathy, your truthfulness. How do you make sure your nonverbals are providing adequate support? Well, critically, don’t pretend. Despite what some trainers may try to convince you, it is actually almost impossible to deal with “techniques” through body language. Nonverbal communication is very complex, too complex to try to act out or replicate without seeming stiff, but most people are really good at reading so they’ll spot any fakery very quickly. Instead, make sure you really believe what you’re saying, and proper non-verbal communication will follow naturally.

And of course, if you are in a training course or reading an article and you read the phrase “93% of communication is non-verbal”, then think twice about the credibility of the trainer or author. They haven’t done their homework properly on this, so what else have they skimped on?