Why is it awkward for us to have serious conversations over the phone or through email? When you need to break any kind of news, good or bad, why do we prefer to do it in person? There’s only one explanation for these scenarios – as humans, verbal communication simply isn’t enough. We crave eye contact.
Part of the reason we crave this contact is because eyes don’t lie. They can’t. They reveal all emotions from happiness to sadness and from calmness to despair. When people wear sunglasses on cloudy days or in crowded restaurants, it’s usually because they don’t want people to pick up on what they are thinking or feeling.
Eyes are used by athletes to psyche out their opponents, in sales to communicate trust and credibility, and they have the power to deter would-be attackers. Eyes are, by far, the most important tools we have for communication.
Eyes also play a most critical role in Active Listening. If you’ve ever had the experience of talking with someone about a problem only to sense their mind was a million miles away, even though they were looking directly at you, you likely felt cheated and offended. If you’ve ever had conversations with people who acknowledged what you we’re saying with the occasional head nod, uh-huh and m-hm while checking their email, texting or some sort of fidgeting, you probably became frustrated. If you don’t understand how important the eyes are in communication, try this little experiment: Invite someone into your room or office and have them sit looking away from you, and then engage them in a deep conversation. Wait to see how long it takes for the person to whip their chair around. (They will probably ask you why you had the chair facing the “wrong” direction.) Another experiment to try is to cease all verbal communication with your family for an entire day, and only communicate through your eyes. You will be amazed at how important eye communication really is. The fact is, we cannot truly listen, feel empathy, or understand what people are telling us without establishing eye contact.
In leadership training, you will learn that approximately seven percent of communication is verbal, thirty-eight percent is tone, and fifty-five percent non-verbal. If you’re wondering if these percentages are valid, just recall a time when you asked someone if everything was okay, and they said everything was “FINE!”
If you would like to learn more about eye communication, purchase the book, The Power of Eye Contact by Michael Ellsberg. You will find it to be a very interesting read.