All across the country in companies large and small annual reviews occur between a manager and the employees reporting under him or her. In the course of conducting this performance review, one of the areas that almost all performance appraisals include is how well the manager and employee communicated.
Whether the person being evaluated gets a very good score or something less, the inevitable result is that the evaluation will leave room for improvement and will include suggestions to that effect.
But what if you find yourself involved in communication that is not intended to get things done, at least in a way that will advance the goals and objectives? What about communication that does the opposite? Communication isn’t about getting things done in work environments where conflict goes unresolved. These individuals begin talking over each other, going around each other, and working at cross purposes. The consequences of unresolved conflicts is significant.
Communication becomes the vehicle by which the combatants in a conflict build their defenses. They defend their positions in a conflict before any consideration about how it affects the work. Any criticism or complaint, no matter how small, becomes an imperative that must first be defended against and then challenged.
In this environment, encouraging and positive statements must be maximized, and body language must fully complement the language being used. When there is a disconnect between the words and the speaker’s body language, any effort to deconstruct the defenses of employees in a conflict will quickly lose credibility.
Social scientists have developed a significant body of empirical data showing that nonverbal communication often sends messages more clearly than words. When clients ask me to assist in resolving workplace conflicts, this is one of the areas I focus on almost immediately. I emphasize the importance of choosing carefully how words are used, by whom, and where, and review nonverbal elements that can undermine their efforts.
There are many ways that body language can undermine someone’s efforts to resolve a dispute. One of the suggestions I frequently make to managers and supervisors is always to hold those discussions where everyone sits in a straight-backed chair. Nothing robs a manager’s credibility quicker than the parties in conflict sitting in the manager’s office in “visitor chairs”, and the manager is in a chair where he ca swivel and look away or lean back. Nothing creates a more powerful message of “I am not as involved in this as you” or even worse, “I am really being patient here, so let’s hurry it up”.
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