Online Working and Non-Verbal Communication
I Lead-in.
A.
Take 1 minute to think about your associations
with the phrase ‘body language’ and write down your ideas.
B.
Compare your lists of associations with other
students. What similarities and differences do you have?
C.
What role does body language play at work?
What body language (gestures, posture, etc.) do you expect a boss or a leader
to have?
II Vocabulary focus. Match the words to their
definitions. Use three words in your sentences.
|
1.
|
redundant |
A. |
looking
like gloomy and pessimistic scenes or figures in the paintings of L.S. Lowry |
|
2.
|
emergent |
B. |
relating
to people who work in offices |
|
3.
|
to furrow |
C. |
to
give characteristic to someone |
|
4.
|
to infuse |
D. |
showing
no interest or emotion in eyes |
|
5.
|
to gaze |
E. |
the
way someone holds their shoulders, neck, and back |
|
6.
|
to foster |
F. |
a
part played by a person in bringing about a result |
|
7.
|
to confer |
G. |
to
fill someone with emotion |
|
8.
|
bigwig |
H. |
to
appear as a large and frightening shape |
|
9.
|
contribution |
I. |
carefully
organized (scene) |
|
10. |
obvious |
J. |
the
level at which something starts to happen |
|
11. |
incredulity |
K. |
to
form a wrinkle on a brow because the person is angry, unhappy, or confused |
|
12. |
white-collar |
L. |
to
encourage the development of feelings |
|
13. |
threshold |
M. |
to
look at something or someone for a long time |
|
14. |
glassy-eyed |
N. |
to
be successful |
|
15. |
Lowry-like |
O. |
easy
to understand |
|
16. |
to loom |
P. |
an
important person |
|
17. |
set-piece |
Q. |
no
longer needed or useful |
|
18. |
to
pay off |
R. |
the
state of being unable to believe something |
|
19. |
posture |
S. |
coming
into view |
IV Look through
the article. Seven sentences have been removed. Read the
article and choose from the sentences (A-J) the one which fits each gap (1-7).
There are sentence fragments that you
do not need to use.
A.
If your camera is in the wrong place, you may think you are looking
meaningfully at your team but you are actually just giving them a view of your
nostrils.
B. A second problem is that
people look for different things from their bosses.
C. Even when workers
gradually return to their offices, some employees will keep working remotely
for at least part of the week.
D. There’s a common
perception that people who touch their faces when answering questions are
signalling deception.
E. To get the fastest relief
from even mildly stressful situations, we touch our faces (chin, lips, cheek,
nose, forehead) where a calming effect is most easily accessed.
F. And although faces fill
the videoconferencing screen, meaningful eye contact is impossible.
G. But posture is not
leadership.
H. And body language is an
essential part of communication.
I. They nod; they touch
others but not themselves; they gesture; they furrow their brows; they hold
themselves erect; their facial expressions are more animated.
J.
It’s a posture I’ve seen employees display as they interact with their
boss.
Communication
is an essential part of leadership. 1) __________. There is a mini-industry of research and advice
into how executives can influence and encourage without needing to say a word.
The pandemic has made much of it redundant.
Plenty
of studies have looked into the nonverbal behaviour that marks out “emergent
leaders”, people who do not have a specified role in the hierarchy but
naturally assume a position of authority in groups. 2) __________. Other research suggests
that, to win votes in an election, candidates should deliver speeches with their
feet planted apart. The second-most popular TED talk claims that two minutes of
private, hands-on-hips “power posing” can infuse a job candidate with
confidence and improve others’ perceptions of them.
Gazing
can foster a sense of psychological safety as well as confer authority: in a
recent paper, researchers from Harvard Business School found that receiving
more eye contact from a bigwig led to greater participation in group
interactions. Leaders who adopt open body positions, with arms and legs uncrossed,
are also more likely to encourage contributions.
There
are three problems with this body of research on nonverbal communication. One
is that so much of it is obvious. Nodding at someone rather than shaking your
head in incredulity when they are speaking to you — this does indeed send a
powerful signal.
3) __________. Frowning is
seen as a mark of emergent leaders but not of supportive ones; the reverse is
true of smiling. A recent paper found that male recipients regarded bosses who
used emojis, a form of not-quite-verbal communication, in an email as more
effective, but that female recipients perceived them as less effective.
The
third problem is newer. Almost all of the research on body language dates from
a time of in-person interactions. 4) __________. Zoom will remain integral to white-collar working
lives. And if there is one thing for which online interactions are not suited,
it is body language.
That
is partly because bodies themselves are largely hidden from view: whatever
language they are speaking, it is hard to hear them. You will know the
partners, pets and home-décor choices of new colleagues before you will know
how tall they are. 5) __________.
Once
past a basic threshold of attentiveness — for example, not looking down at your
mobile phone — most people have the same glassy-eyed stare. If several faces
appear on screen, these participants have no way of knowing that you are gazing
specifically at them. 6) __________.
Animated expressions are hard to spot, particularly when people attending
hybrid meetings in the office are Lowry-like figures seated metres away.
There
are no good ways to compensate for these problems. One tactic is to go all in
on expressiveness, nodding furiously and gesturing madly — a small tile of
locked energy somewhere in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen. Another
is to do a “Zoom loom”, placing yourself so close to the camera that you will
give everyone nightmares.
The
simpler option is not to think too hard about body language. At a few specific
moments, like job interviews and set-piece speeches, first impressions matter
and a bit of self-conscious posing pays off. 7) __________. If you want to give people a break
from staring at a screen, turning off your camera is a good way to do it.
V Comprehension
check. Mark the sentences as True (T) or False
(F). Correct the false statements.
1.
Leadership
potential is essential for effective communication.
2.
Leaders
can influence and encourage employees using body language.
3.
“Emergent
leaders” are company bosses and top managers.
4.
“Emergent
leaders” tend to have more animated facial expressions, but they do not gesture
or touch others.
5.
Politicians’
body language can help them to win votes in an election.
6.
Job
candidates may rely on nonverbal behaviour such as posing to feel and look more
confident.
7.
Gazing
creates a sense of psychological tension as well as confers inaction.
8.
More
eye contact from a boss encourages employees’ participation in group
interactions.
9.
Leaders
who adopt a body position of authority, with arms and legs crossed, encourage
greater participation in group interactions.
10.Much of the
research on nonverbal communication is too complex to understand.
11.People expect
that their bosses would frown a lot and look angry or dissatisfied.
12.A recent paper
found that male and female employees differ in their attitudes to various forms
of non-verbal communication.
13.Previously
studies on body language analysed in-person interactions.
14.Zoom has little
opportunity to read other people’s body language.
15.When workers
return to their offices, they will stop using Zoom.
16.Meaningful eye
contact is difficult on Zoom.
17.The main problem
with videoconferencing tools is that people are not attentive and they tend to
look at their phones most of the time.
18.Nodding furiously
and gesturing madly is a good way to compensate for the problems of
videoconferencing and absence of eye contact.
19.“Zoom loom” is
the term used to describe the situation when people go from gesturing too much
to sitting still.
20.The article
suggests that people should not worry too much about body language.
21.Body language and posture are essential
only for leaders who should never turn off their cameras while talking to
employees.
VI OVER TO YOU. Think about your experience of using Zoom or similar video conferencing tools and discuss the questions with other students.
A. What
uses of body language did you notice when you looked at other participants
during an online meeting or class?
B. Did
you rely on nonverbal communication (for example did you smile or gesture or
nod) when you took part in video conferences or online classes?
C. How
does your leader (your teacher or your boss) use body language to encourage
contributions and participation?
D. What
recommendations concerning the use of body language would you give to other
students or other employees? Do you think it’s a good idea to smile or gesture
more? Should they turn their cameras off from time to time to let other
participants have some rest?
