An Effective Non-Verbal Communication

An Effective Non-Verbal Communication in Business
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Table of Content
Items Pages
Introduction …………………………………….……..…………………………………….3
Pros and cons of body language……………………………………………………………...4
Different types of body language………………………………………………………….....5
How body language affect business communication……………...……………………….....5
Reference list……………………………………………………………………………….…7


Introduction
Nonverbal communication constitutes the overall body language as well as body posture and appearance as a form of communication with others. Rather than uttering words, people can still communicate using eye contact, facial expressions, and nonverbal gestures. John and Steven (2007) explain that in a business environment, people interact with one another throughout business hours using body language and verbal communication. In actual sense, the way people communicate nonverbal messages can be vital just like verbal communication. Illustrations of nonverbal communication constitute what people wear, how they wear clothes, eye contact, body posture, facial expression, posture, voice, and the distance between an individual and others (Riggio and Feldman, 2005). Nonverbal cues (signals) have an impact on how people understand what people try to communicate, including the response how they convey message. A person’s nonverbal communication normally affects response of others.
Pros and cons of body language
Body language is particularly important in intercultural situations, and therefore can be significant in business environment and workplace (John and Steven, 2007). Many intentions and feelings are communicated nonverbally than verbal communication. Only 35% of information is communicated through verbal communication, with the other 65% is conveyed through body language.
It follows that body language has several functions or advantages. Oliver (2004) views that an employee can use body language to complement a verbal communication by adding nonverbal cues to the meaning of the verbal message. For example, the employee can pat a colleague offended at the back as a way of saying sorry to the colleague. Secondly, message can be easily delivered in nonverbal communication through using silent, audio-visual, and visual means of body language (Neha, 2013).
Body communication is communication without using words. It is anything somebody does in which somebody else assigns meaning. Not all signals that an individual sends are intentional, and they are often multichannel, subtle and complex. Messages are normally conveyed by different body signals especially attitude and emotional states to oneself and others. The sender of the message may be aware or unaware of the message being sent and the receivers may not always be aware of the signal the sender sends (Furnham and Petrova, 2010). Body language can be carefully displayed and practiced, though also can be physiologically uncontrollable. It can let an individual down by disclosing true behaviors and beliefs of the person, although can assist to get across a message. Body adornments and clothes, tone of voice, physical proximity, body contact, gaze movements, gestures, and facial expressions are forms of body language.
Body language implies more than physical posture. Gesture and posture say a lot about a person. Understanding body language can help people to get ahead not only to act assertively and exude confidence, but also on how to look beyond on what people say to what they mean (Eggert, 2012). By means of body language, people can convey what they feel, think and want. Since people subconsciously use body language in their dealings with others, people often tend to take it for granted. Body language is used to reinforce, replace, and occasionally contradict a verbal message. Body language is about emotion. Ribbens and Thompson (2001) identify that it is easy to match and recognize facial expressions and corresponding emotions. Some emotions seem to be universal and innate like disgust, happiness, and fear.
Body language has certain limitations. First, body language is imprecise and vague because there is ...