By Steve Capps, Director, SCAO Friend of the Court Bureau
Think back to events or holidays you enjoy. What do you remember? Chances are the things you remember are sights – lights and colors – feelings, sounds, or smells. Maybe you remember feeling the warmth of the sun at the ballpark or the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field for those of you in the UP. You might recall sounds like laughter, songs, and cheers. You might think of the smell of a feast being prepared or hot dogs on the grill.
Humans perceive things with all their senses and use those senses in communication. When it comes to communication, we are multidimensional. In fact, between 60 and 90 percent of all communication is nonverbal.
Because of the lack of social cues in the video conference environment so common today, it is easy for misunderstandings to happen. A touch of sarcasm or an attempt at humor can take on a whole new meaning without the social cues. The lack of social cues leaves more of the interpretation to the individual. This can lead to miscommunication and disagreement that might not have occurred in person. Even silence can be interpreted the wrong way. Silence can be the result of focused attention, a person tuning out, or even problems with technology.
Virtual meetings take away not just nonverbal cues but also team socialization, and it makes the team feel more disconnected. Psychologist Bruce Tuckman's stages of group development states that teams go through four stages: forming, storming, norming, and performing[1] :
- At the beginning, team members need to know and understand each other – “forming.”
- Next, conflict arises, and the team must work through it – “storming.”
- As the team has worked through the conflict – “norming.”
- And finally, the team can begin “performing.”
Without nonverbal cues and socialization, it is easy to get stuck in the first two phases and not develop the trust necessary for the final two phases.
In video calls you have to work harder and listen harder. You have fewer nonverbal cues to pick up on, and you also have fewer nonverbal cues to give others to understand your meaning. To make up for the loss of non-verbal cues, you can replace them with substitutes.
Make word pictures. When you are in a remote meeting and trying to communicate, try to describe the setting if it is not obvious: who is present; what the room looks like; describe who is reacting in what way and how you are reacting. Try to describe feelings, emotions, and reactions to give meanings to the words.
If you are an enforcement officer meeting with someone who isn’t paying, you might paint a word picture to engage the person. The payer is probably going through a lot of emotions that are exactly the opposite of what you are trying to accomplish. “What is going to happen to me? I’m scared! I’ve failed!”
Rather than saying: “You haven’t paid support in 6 months,” or “You are $1,500 behind,” you might start by explaining that every week you run a report, and it tells you when someone who used to be paying support stopped paying or is falling behind. You might say: “When we got this week’s report, it said you made payments every other week for over 8 months, and then suddenly the payments stopped. What happened?” This describes a process leading up to the meeting that removes judgments about the payer and paints a picture of your need to understand the payer’s situation rather than condemn the payer for bad behavior. And the final “what happened” question invites the payer to provide information.
There are a number of pictures you can paint to focus the conversation on where you want it to be. Maybe: “It can be tough to catch up on payments after you fall behind,” or: “I’m sure you are concerned about your daughter having everything she needs.” What you are doing is adding emotional depth and context to the interaction that invites communication.
Shared experiences. Almost everyone has an inside joke with someone. You say a few words and they convey an entire situation based on your mutual experience. I can go to almost any gathering of child support workers in the entire country and address them as “you people,” and we all laugh having been there ourselves. With remote communication, it is helpful to build on shared experiences. In meetings with each other, it helps to tie in mutual experiences when you are talking about something.
Some common experiences prevent communication. With payers, you might want to first reflect on common experiences and emotions of payers so when you are communicating, they do not hear you in the wrong context. For instance, you might focus on the common feeling of fear that they may go to jail, or a helpless feeling if they do not have employment. If that is their emotional focus, they might not hear what you are saying until you address it directly. For example, you could say, “I know that a lot of payers think the FOC will put them in jail if they miss a payment. That’s not why we’re talking today. I want to hear from you what’s going on and see if there’s anything I can do to help get you back on track with financial support for your child.”
Fill the communication gap with gestures. If you lean forward it can emphasize interest or agreement. Leaning back can convey you disagree. But be careful. When these occur unintentionally, miscommunication and misunderstanding increases. It is important to match your nonverbal behavior to what you want to convey. In a virtual meeting, nodding your head in agreement and waiving your hand for goodbye may work fine. Even some hand gestures can emphasize your points such as using your hands in an open way to promote the idea that you are receptive. However, remember you are confined to a medium that can turn gestures into distractions because the speed of the camera may not keep up or when your gestures seem odd because the camera emphasizes things closer to it.
Accenting. Accenting is a way of emphasizing your words. You can accent what you say by, for instance, smiling when expressing enthusiasm or praise. Again, be careful to be consistent in your accenting or you can kill your message. Smiling while telling a payer she may end up in jail sends a very different message than smiling when telling a payer you are glad he is making a good faith effort to resolve the nonpayment.
Mirroring. Mirroring the other person’s physical stance or tone of voice, whether intentionally or subconsciously, can communicate a genuine effort to engage.
Slowing down. Without other nonverbal cues, it may take longer for people to process what you are saying. Slowing down a conversation and providing lengthy gaps between individual points can be helpful. When you make a point, pause and give people time to process what you say. When someone asks a question, a pause before you answer conveys that you are really considering that question.
Inflection. Inflection can help emphasize the more important points you wish to make. Higher pitches can convey excitement. Lowering your pitch can convey seriousness. However, varying pitch for the sake of varying pitch can create a sing-song effect or change the meaning entirely. The pitch should match the message.
Whichever communication strategies you use, use them naturally. If you do not feel comfortable using a strategy, practice it until you do. If you cannot use a strategy naturally, don’t fake it – the message you convey will probably be seen as insincere. If you are unsure whether the communication strategy worked, change the method. E-mails or letters confirming understanding can ensure communication was successful. And, above all, remember that with every challenge there is an opportunity, and the opportunities we have today far exceed anything we had in the past.
For more insight on this topic, please refer to this September 2020 webinar from the Friend of the Court Bureau and Michigan Judicial Institute: Communication Skills in a Zoom World.
[1] Tuckman, Bruce W (1965). "Developmental sequence in small groups". Psychological Bulletin. 63 (6): 384–399. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0022100. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14314073/.
