Page 87 - ConvinceThemFlip

work your ABC: attitude, body language, and congruence
In face-to-face com-
munication, people give
most credibility to what
they see, next to voice
tone, and least to the
words they’re hearing.
In 1967, at the University of California at Los Angeles,
Dr. Albert Mehrabian published a paper titled “Decoding
of Inconsistent Communication.” In it, he reported that
in face-to-face communica-
tion, 55 percent of what
we respond to takes place
visually; 38 percent is the
sound of the communica-
tion; and only 7 percent
involves the actual words
we use. In other words,
people will first give cred-
ibility to what they see—to your gestures and body
language—then to the tone of your voice, and last of all
to the words you use. When the three Vs—the visual, the
vocal, and the verbal—are saying the same thing, we call
that being congruent—or being convincing.
I recently found myself sitting in the conference room
of a national media corporation giving one-on-one acceler-
ated training to several senior managers. Terry, the vice
president of production, sat across the table from me. “I
know all about the theory of creating rapport with people,
but I can’t make it stick,” he said. Terry was quick to
point out that he had lofty ambitions within the company
but had been passed over for promotion several times.
“People listen to me, but I can’t build relationships.” In
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