7% of communcation is butchered statistics

How many time have you heard this one? Only 7% of communication is verbal.

It is usually asserted with a stress on the only. I’ve heard it most frequently when attending presentation skills/leadership/making-an-impact type courses.  It is most often used by those who seek to sell you some advice on how to be more successful but don’t want to talk about the specifics of what you do. Or by those who need to compensate for a lack of content and meaning.

So where does this little factoid come from?  As is often the case with commonly quoted stats there is a genuine study behind it, the meaning and result of which has long been ignored in the rush to glibly support some simple notion that style is more important than content.  The Study in this case was conducted by Albert Mehrabian (currently Professor Emeritus of Psychology, UCLA) and consisted of 2 parts:

• In part 1 the subjects listened to a woman saying ‘maybe’ in three tones of voice to convey liking, neutrality and disliking, they were also shown photos of female faces conveying the same emotions and then the voice and the photos together.  The result of the study was that the photos got more accurate results in identifying the intended meaning.
• In part 2 the subjects listened to nine spoken words, three conveying liking (honey, dear and thanks), three conveying neutrality (maybe, really and oh) and three conveying disliking (don’t, brute and terrible). The words were spoken with different tones to convey different categories i.e liking, neutrality and disliking so for example “honey” would have been spoken is a tones intended to convey liking, neutrality and disliking respectively. The subjects were asked to say what emotion was being expressed in each case.  The result of the study was that the tone carried more meaning than the words themselves.

The key point about the study is that the results hold when there is conflict or ambiguity in the content and the way the content is being presented.  We all know this instinctively.  If I say “I’m going to kill you” it will very much depends on how I say it as to whether you will consider this a mild rebuke or serious threat on your life.  For example. if I scream “I’m going to kill you” whilst brandishing a machete you may think there is a good reason to run.  Here, it is obvious that Mehrabian’s study describes the phenomena very clearly.

However, if I am trying to teach you how to prove Einstein’s special theory of relativity, my ability to get you to understand will be influenced by my style, my ability to convey excitement in the subject etc. but ultimately it will be conveyed in the words, the diagrams and the content.  Here the content is not in conflict with the style, nor is what I am saying ambiguous enough that you have to rely on other sources of information to imply the meaning.  Lets put it another way, if I said nothing whilst trying to prove E=mc^2 (I know that s General relativity but give me break) but instead relied on style, mime, charisma, smiling, whatever, do you think you would understand 93% of the theory?

In this way the study’s results are most often abused. The 7% refers to  outcome of the study that said  “Total Liking = 7% Verbal Liking + 38% Vocal Liking + 55% Facial Liking”.  This is not the same as saying only 7% of meaning comes from the words.  However, it is often misappropriated this way to promote some product or service that means you should stop worrying about that measly 7% of content but worry about the far more important bling around your content (some examples)

Does this mean to say that the study has no impact when trying to convey information?  Absolutely not.  The key is to ensure you think about your content and your style.  Thinking about one without the other is pointless.  Content, is important, but if you want to be successful, thinking and working hard on how you are getting your content across can be the difference:

• Are you thinking about who you are communicating to?
• What do they want to hear?
• What do they care about?
• What do they need to be convinced of?
• Are you saying things like you believe it?
• Have you thought about the structure of your content?
• Are you presenting it in a way that brings out the key points and makes it easier to understand?

These are far more difficult questions to answer than simply writing off content as a minor part of what you are trying to convey.  So, be careful and always be wary of someone who mentions the dreaded 7%