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12 Improve your Communication Skills Action Information Relationship Figure 1.4 The three levels of understanding As managers, we tend to focus on action as the reason for communicating. Yet, as people, we usually communicate for quite another reason. And here is a vital clue to explain why communication in organisations so often goes wrong. Relationship: the big issue of small talk The first and most important reason for communicating is to build relationships with other people. Recent research (commissioned from the Social Issues Research Centre by British Telecom) suggests that about two thirds of our conversation time is entirely devoted to social topics: personal relationships; who is doing what with whom; who is ‘in’ and who is ‘out’, and why. There must be a good reason for that. According to psychologist Robin Dunbar, language evolved as the human equivalent of grooming, the primary means of social bonding among other primates. As social groups among humans became larger (the average human network is about 150, ( c) 2011 Kogan Page L imited, All Rights Reserved.
13 What is Communication? compared to groups of about 50 among other primates), we needed a less time-consuming form of social interaction. We invented language as a way to square the circle. In Dunbar’s words: ‘language evolved to allow us to gossip’ (Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language, Faber and Faber, London, 1996). Gossip is good for us. It tells us where we sit in the social network. And that makes us relax. Physical grooming stimulates production of endorphins – the body’s natural painkilling opiates – reducing heart rate and lowering stress. Gossip probably has a similar effect. In fact, the research suggests that gossip is essential to our social, psychological and physical well-being. We ignore this fundamental quality of conversation at our peril. If we fail to establish a relaxed relationship, everything else in the conversation will become more difficult. Building rapport The first task in any conversation is to build rapport. Rapport is the sense that another person is like us. Building rapport is a pattern-matching process. Most rapport-building happens without words: we create rapport through a dance of matching movements, including body orientation, body moves, eye contact, facial expression and tone of voice. Human beings can create rapport instinctively. Yet these natural dance patterns can disappear in conversations at work; other kinds of relationship sometimes intrude. A little conscious effort to create rapport at the very start of a conversation can make a huge difference to its outcome. We create rapport through: • verbal behaviour; • vocal behaviour; and • physical behaviour. ( c) 2011 Kogan Page L imited, All Rights Reserved.
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198 Appendix Steven Mithen’s book
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