16 Responses

1. Sceptical
   I’m hugely sceptical of figures like these. I suspect that if any “research” exists to back them up that it will be of equal value to Dr Gillian McKeith’s mail order PhD.

   How anyone could run a standardised and useful test to gain “7 out of every 10 minutes we are communicating, 45% of time is spent listening, 30% of time talking, 16% spent reading and 9% writing.” I don’t know.

   The same goes for a scientific definition of listening and hearing that would then be measurable.

   Along with the old chestnut that x% of communication is body language, y % is tone, and z% is the message (sometimes 70/20/10 but other variations occur with monotonous regularity). Where no research was ever conducted to come up with these spurious figures – which I am ashamed to say I actually used when I first started training.

   And to be honest, who in their right mind would want to conduct research into which forms of communication we use most often in 10 minutes? Is there any real commercial application for this data?

   So good luck with your hunt – but I’m not sure you really need statistics to make your point about how important some things are…

2. yes and no
   Susan
   I side somewhat with Nik on the prospective validity of any figures in this area…so much depends on the message, the messenger and the mentality of the audience.

   Perhaps you might be better served to ask the delegates to consider occasions when they know they (were) “heard” but didn’t “listen” (weren’t listened to) or vice versa.

   Nik may be alluding to the data contained in Albert Mehrabian’s oft misquoted work “Silent Messages”….though the exactitude of the statistics is always open to question, it remains a truism today that non verbal behaviours convey much of the interpretaion, and residual impression, of most of our face to face communication.

   I hope this helps a bit

3. Previous thread on learning statistics may be of interest
   Hi Susan

   Try https://www.trainingzone.co.uk/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=149079&d=680&h=608&f=626&dateformat=%25e-%25h-%25y

4. Listening figures
   Susan
   I am not sure why you might want such figures but I would be cautious about where you get them from and how you use them. Some good general points – and figures – can be found at http://business.enotes.com/business-finance-encyclopedia/listening-skills-business but I have no idea what research was done to base this on.
   I would also add that listening and hearing are not seperate items. There is a continuum from hearing background noise (almost continuous), incidental listening (hearing your name in crowded bar), deliberate listening (eg to the radio), passive listening (listening to a person without intervention or active demonstration of listening) and active listening (with engagement, nods, eye contact, etc.). Each has a part to play in our lives and we move frequently along the scale. Knowing the relative average percentages might be interesting, but in an organisational (and training) context I think it is more crucial to be able to adopt the right focus and skills at the right time.
   Incidentally, I agree with Nik’s sentiments below about body language and tone but not on his assertion that it is not based on research.
   In fact research has shown that people derive only about 7% of the meaning of a communication from words, about 38% is based on tone of voice and a massive 55% from body language (which includes facial expression).
   Albert Mehrabian and colleagues conducted a series of experiments with college students in the 1960‘s. They wanted to test the power of tone of voice and the power of body language, like facial expressions, compared to the power of words alone in communicating attitude and feelings – particularly when there is an inconsistency between verbal and nonverbal clues.
   In the first series of experiments, only one tape recorded word was spoken to the students to communicate a speaker‘s attitude of liking, disliking, or neutrality toward the listener. Three words, “honey,” “dear,” and “thanks” were used to indicate liking. Three other word, “brute,” “don’t”, and “terrible” were used to denote disliking. Finally the words “maybe,” “really,” and “oh” were used to represent neutrality. The speakers were instructed to vary their tone of voice while speaking each of these words. Their tone of voice was to reflect disliking, liking or neutrality. The results showed that tone of voice was far more important in influencing the subjects’ judgements of the true feelings of the speakers than the words themselves were. They went on to do further similar experiments substituting pictures of facial expressions for tone of voice.
   Mehrabian himself has acknowledged the limitations of this work and has commented on the misinterpretation and misapplication of his findings. Nevertheless, this was seminal work in raising the awareness of the importance of body language.
   Graham

5. Stats that matter
   Hi Susan, the only stat that really matters (in my view)regarding listening is that we have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak. I am also reminded of two quotes of Calvin Coolidge, 30th USA President; “No man ever listened himself out of a job” & “I have never been hurt by anything I didn’t say”.
   Basic points but sometimes the basics are the most important and most overlooked. Kind Regards, Chris

6. The ‘Scientific Facts’ – Again.
   Nik Kellingley wrote: “Along with the old chestnut that x% of communication is body language, y % is tone, and z% is the message (sometimes 70/20/10 but other variations occur with monotonous regularity). Where no research was ever conducted to come up with these spurious figures.”

   Really? Read this research Nik by Mehrabian, Albert, and Wiener, Morton. “Decoding of Inconsistent Communications,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 6, No. 1, May 1967, pp. 109-114.

   Or if you can’t be bothered you could read this:

   http://www.bradburyac.mistral.co.uk/nlpfax17.htm

7. In defence of bad research?
   Hi Garry,

   You’re right I couldn’t be bothered to read the publication (because it would be very difficult to source a copy here in the Middle East) I did however read the link.

   This is a piece that attacks a regarded scientist for pointing out how bad the methodology of the original experiment was and therefore mocks the conclusions.

   If we allowed every dubious method employed to “calculate” the incalculable. We would believe that there is a formula for making a joke work, the perfect angle for dipping a biscuit and that Dr. Gillian McKeith is a qualified nutritionist.

   Unfortunately none of these things are true.

   If you can show me – sensibly how you quantify how much of a message is sent by one part of a communication and show me that the method you use is sound then you might have a starting place.

   How do you come to x% for non-verbal communication, do you get the person to act it out without them speaking and see how much of the message the recipient can guess? Oh it was about half right so let’s put that down as 55%…

   The trouble is that bad science is endemic in our society – people are desperate to believe in what they want to believe in and any “evidence” no matter how spurious they cling to with all the faith of a religious zealot.

   Unfortunately, real science doesn’t work like that. It’s about sound methodologies, repeatable results, meaningful quantification,and testing hypotheses. But the tabloid press and those who can’t be bothered to tell the difference grab on to their preferences with both hands irrespective of the requirements for proof.

   For the record smoking is bad for me (it’s been proved), passive smoking however may be bad for me but no-one has ever proved it (there’s a lot of positive correlation but none that stands up to examination). I believe it is bad for me, but that doesn’t make it so.

   And Dr. Gillian McKeith has a mail order PhD and is a professional certified by a body that once certified a dead cat – and no matter how much people believe in her, she has no basis in science.

   Thanks anyway,

   Nik

8. Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics
   Nick, when you read the linked piece you will of course have recognised that it does not mock the conclusions of the original research, which is what is implied by your posting; Bradbury cautiously supports Mehrabian, and does not denigrate the research he performed. It does however mock the cocked up interpretation and application of the original findings by Oestreich in exactly the same way you berate poor use and application of science within training. The irony!

   You also wrote: “If you can show me – sensibly how you quantify how much of a message is sent by one part of a communication and show me that the method you use is sound then you might have a starting place.”

   Fortunately Nick I don’t have to show you anything. Despite being in the Middle East I believe it is still possible to get hold of books and magazines, it may be difficult, but it’s still possible and failing that do some research on the internet. I believe it is important before you malign research you undertake some yourself, you apparently don’t and certainly haven’t provided a critique of the Mehrabian research, merely a general denigration based on a set of beliefs and no evidence, hardly a scientific approach.

   In a previous posting on MBTI you did exactly the same thing, you were asked to supply sources upon which your deprecation of the model and questionnaire was based; we are all still waiting for those sources, and also if I recall correctly reasons why being a mere ‘housewife’ was such a bar to undertaking good research? Personally I also have reservations about MBTI but before I dismiss it wholesale I like to have the scientific facts, an approach you will of course be sympathetic to.

   As to what is proof and what is not proof, even Scientists can’t fully agree on this. Is evolution proved, some Scientists say yes, other no. I for instance fully accept the conclusions of Dr Vivienne Nathanson, head of science and ethics at the British Medical Association that passive smoking creates a very real risk of disease or illness. She quotes from three different research studies and personally I am satisfied that this is sufficient ‘Scientific Proof’ to prove the link, of course there are studies which prove another result, but these are in the minority, that’s my judgement.

   You for instance may not agree that the Mehrabian or MBTI research is correct but your criticisms lack any quantative or qualative depth and so I can only dismiss it as unsubstantiated. You can understand this can’t you, approaching this situation from a Scientific stance as you do?

   P.S.
   Who is this Dr. Gillian McKeith you keep mentioning and what relevance is it here?

9. Useful Web Sites
   Sorry Susan, your thread got hijacked here, but here are some sources you might draw from:

   Mehrabian’s own site: http://www.kaaj.com/psych/

   Related Mehrabian sites focussing on the study:

   http://www.businessballs.com/mehrabiancommunications.htm

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Mehrabian

   http://www.dhemery.com/cwd/2004/05/mehrabian.html

   Have a view of course; positive or negative, but don’t just accept what your told, especially when all it’s supported by is rhetoric or anecdote.

10. Confusing Apples with Oranges
    It’s rather late in the day, but in case anyone comes wandering through and mistakes Nik Hellingly’s last post for an informed comment:

    1. The research Nik is so disparaging about actually consists of two sets of studies, the first by Professor Albert Mehrabian at the University of California, first published in respected scientific journals in the late 1960’s and later detailed in full in a book entitled “Silent Messages.”

    The basic information was subsequently confirmed in the early 1970s by Professor Michael Argyle and his team at the University of Oxford in the UK – his results also appearing in respected scientif jourmals.

    This is a far cry from the details of Gillian McKeith’s activities, and if Nik can’t tell the difference – and is willing to dismiss these studies simply vbacause his knows too little about them to understand how they reached their results, I guess that says far more about Nik than it does about any one or any thing else.

    JMO.

11. That’s alright then
    OK, that’s fine someone with the title of “Dr.” publishes research in respect journals and then in book format so it must be true.

    Except it probably isn’t – a few things that everyone knows is true, and have been published as scientific fact in the last few years.

    “Fat people die younger, than thin people” – err.. well they don’t do they, in fact actual research rather than small sample studies which have been used to dictate policy shows that only extremely fat people die younger than thin people and that fat people live longer than thing people.’

    “Cannabis increases the chance of developing schizophrenia” – except the very small scale studies, haven’t established a cause and effect, it may be that schizophrenics are more likely to smoke cannabis than people who aren’t schizophrenic (see Dr. Ben Goldacre’s column on the Guardian website – Bad Science for more details).

    “Dr.” (in quote marks because she’s not legally allowed to call herself “Dr.” in the UK anymore) Gillian McKeith has published “research” papers in the UK and elsewhere – that are utter junk and full of lousy references.

    Garry who loves to be anti-smoking, refuses to accept research conducted in the US by the anti-smoking lobby that shows the effects of passive smoking are in fact either non-existent or extremely limited. And so on…

    Science requires a bit more than is offered in this profession as “proof” and actual measurements of this kind are nonsense by definition, it is impossible to isolate scientifically the “content” absorbed by 3 different communication methods as part of a whole communication – end of story.

    One of the best researchers in the training business – Neil Rackham, shows in his excellent work on SPIN sales how difficult it is to isolate cause and effect in communication and prove anything (despite an awful lot of work to do so).

    Belief is not science, other people writing things down in technical jargon is not science, and this is frankly not science.

    Social Sciences, and Biology are often regarded by those actually work in the “sciences” as psuedo-science because 1+1 only equals 2 in some cases. Caveat emptor!

12. A Gillian McKeith amongst us?
    Nik Kellingley wrote: “Garry who loves to be anti-smoking, refuses to accept research conducted in the US by the anti-smoking lobby that shows the effects of passive smoking are in fact either non-existent or extremely limited. And so on…”

    This isn’t quite true:

    1. I don’t ‘love’ to be anti smoking. I am simply against smoking in public, recreation or working environments. What people do in their own time and in their own home is a matter entirely for them and I would support those individuals in being able to do it.

    2. I don’t ‘refuse to accept’ the passive smoking studies, though I have no idea which ones you are referencing as you don’t detail them. However, on balance looking at the research undertaken both by pro and anti smoking groups I’m satisfied that there is a correlation which is significant between cancer and other illnesses and passive smoking. You may not, but science as you have so clearly pointed out is never absolute and in the end some of us make a judgement based on an overall pattern of research and findings. I am fairly certain the world is not flat, I base this belief on the research I have been presented with to date whilst of course recognising there are still ‘some’ reservations by ‘some’ people.

    3. Your own argument that so many respected journals publish material that is subsequently proved wrong can be equally levelled at your unreferenced passive smoking studies, I don’t believe they are exempt from this occurrence. So as argument it’s somewhat flawed.

    4. Rather than generalisations which don’t address the issue, what were the specific flaws in the Mehrabian and Professor Michael Argyle’s research schemes and their framing of the % figures? You must know? Otherwise Nick you are merely promoting *your* beliefs as the gold standard by which the rest of us should be making our own judgements, based apparently on no research or data. Essentially this makes you the Gillian McKeith of TraingZone, congratulations.

13. Echo
    Garry – if you refer back to the long and rambling debate we have already had on passive smoking you will find the reference on the results of the tests conducted to demonstrate the inhalation of “passive smoke” in a closed environment it’s an OSHA study – I’m sure you won’t mind trawling back for it as you do for every other debate you participate in.

    My problem with the research is the quantification of 3 “separate” messages within communication – as this is a nonsense – the rest is a nonsense, I’ve said it again and again. You just don’t seem to want to hear it.

    Science – is a quantification of the exact, psuedo-science is a guesstimate of what will be the most probable outcome of an action. This is pseudo-science, your belief in the effects of passive smoking is pseudo-science and Dr. Gillian McKeith isn’t even that good…

14. First view the evidence
    Nik Hellingly wrote:

    “OK, that’s fine someone with the title of “Dr.” publishes research in respect journals and then in book format so it must be true.

    “Except it probably isn’t – a few things that everyone knows is true, and have been published as scientific fact in the last few years.”

    Firstly, we’re talking about TWO “Drs”, plus their research teams, at two very reputable universities, whose results were published in highly reputable journals not given to printing junk research.

    And the only criticism of Mehrabian’s work by a genuine authority, that I know of, was from a gentleman who unfortunately didn’t read Mehrabian’s book and consequently misunderstood the conclusions Mehrabian published – as have many other people in the last 40 years. See:

    http://www.bradburyac.mistral.co.uk/nlpfax17.htm

    Quite apart from that, this seems like a very unfortunate way of expressing one’s doubts.

    As with any research it is a good idea to actually check the evidence before making denigratory comments. Yet by his own admission Nik has done nothing of the kind.

    I guess these comments tell us a lot more about the superficiality of the author’s own knowledge than they do about the research he dismisses so airily.

15. Beyond Belief
    Nik Kellingley wrote: “Garry – if you refer back to the long and rambling debate we have already had on passive smoking you will find the reference on the results of the tests conducted to demonstrate the inhalation of “passive smoke” in a closed environment it’s an OSHA study – I’m sure you won’t mind trawling back for it as you do for every other debate you participate in.”

    No I don’t mind looking for the facts Nik. I went back through your messages in search of the reference; you don’t actually provide any references in any of your postings about the OSHA study. You may check for your self:

    http://tinyurl.com/3xcnmf

    Your postings are actually url and reference free. You do however mention the findings of a ‘health lobby’, but no reference.

    I *think* the report you are referring to undertaken in the States is outlined here:

    http://tinyurl.com/ahpbn,

    You will find it is soundly criticised for the multiple design flaws it contains. A quote from the web site: ‘American Cancer Society (ACS) – the organisation whose data was used – has strongly criticised the study. The analysis was funded by the tobacco industry and supported by the now defunct Centre for Indoor Air Research (CIAR) – a group funded and founded by cigarette companies.’

    Nik continued: “My problem with the research is the quantification of 3 “separate” messages within communication – as this is a nonsense – the rest is a nonsense, I’ve said it again and again. You just don’t seem to want to hear it. ”

    Oh I hear it alright; you believe and think it is nonsense, because: ‘the quantification of 3 “separate” messages within communication – as this is nonsense – the rest is a nonsense’ ~ Nik, all this tells us is that you *believe* it is nonsense, but provide no explanation of why or how the research is specifically flawed and causes it to be ‘nonesense’. It’s just an expression of your belief based in this instance apparently on no facts, get it?

    And while it’s an answer (of sorts) it doesn’t respond to my question, which was:

    Rather than generalisations which don’t address the issue, what were the specific flaws in the Mehrabian and Professor Michael Argyle’s research schemes and *their* framing of the % figures?

    Have you even read the material and the details of their approach which you are rubbishing?

16. Nonsense is as nonsense does
    Nik writes:

    “My problem with the research is the quantification of 3 “separate” messages within communication – as this is a nonsense…”

    According to whom?

    One persion who hasn’t even read the research says so.
    Not very impressive.

    To help you to understand the material:

    One person, three messages via 3 “channels”: Content, vocal characteristics, body language, as follows:

    A presenter wanders in to the training room, slouched over like he has had no sleep last night.
    He grabs onto the podium like it’s the only thing that can keep him upright

    When the presenter starts to speeak his voice is croaky like he needs a drink of water. He speaks haltingly and repeatedly says things like “you know”, “ermm,” and so on.

    He says: “Hi … ermm … everyone. I, errr, you know … I’m, errr, really glad … to be here.
    I know we’re errr going to have a really … you know … fun day … errr … together.

    That’s three messages in three channels, Nik, as I imagine any reasonably intelligent person can understand.

    The Body Language channel sends the message that the guy is tired and unenthusiastic.

    The Vocal Characteristics channel sends the message this guy doesn’t seem to know what he’s doing.
    (“Thin slice” studies by Rosenthal’s and others have demonstrated how powerful this channel is)

    Finally the Content channel sends the message: This is going to be a great presentation!

    Again, I don’t think it takes a rocket scientist to recognise that the Body Language and Vocal Characteristics channels are sending a very different message compared with that in the Contents channel.

    The same difference would exist if the body language were bouncy and enthusiastic but the other two channels sent negative messages; or if the Vocal Characteristics were warm and enthusiastic but the messages in the other two channels were negative. Or if any two channels were sending positive messages but the third was sending a negative message.

    BTW, since you have absolutely no idea about this research, I should perhaps explain that:

    1. The research ONLY applies where this is incongruence between the messages from different channels. Mehrabian and Argyle’s studies both showed that the relative weightings do NOT apply if all three channels carry the same message.

    2. It only applies where the speaker is offering an OPINION. Mehrabian and Argyle’s studies both showed that the relative weightings do NOT apply if the message is factual.

    As for your reference to pseudo-science, maybe you should check what that is, because thus far you have been using the term completely inappropriately.

    JAT