The communication iceberg: how much the 'unspoken' weighs in business
Discovering and appreciating hidden language and unexpressed emotions can improve productivity and the quality of working relationships
by Luca Brambilla*
"The essential is invisible to the eyes". This famous quote from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince reminds us of a law that is not only of the heart, but touches the core of communication. In a world like the corporate world where the latter is sometimes reduced to a transaction of data, the difference can be played out on almost completely unexplored ground: the invisible, in fact. This is confirmed by the iceberg effect: what emerges in professional relationships, job interviews and negotiations is just 10% of reality; the remaining 90%, essential for success, remains submerged beneath the surface of the 'unspoken'.
Quoting Sigmund Freud, we can say that 'man is not master in his own house'. In the sense that our mind does not appear to be completely under the control of consciousness but is decisively influenced by the unconscious (desires, fears, hidden impulses): just as thought gushes into us like water from a rock, we cannot probe 100 per cent of the communication of others, which remains, like water, largely karstic. Yet this share of mystery and indeterminacy is not a limitation, but the necessary space for the continuous discovery of the other in the relationship.
The challenge: increasing the visible
Let us start with a fact. Improving communication can increase productivity by up to 20-25%, since the 'unsaid' fuels ambiguity, latent conflicts, and lost decision-making time. The challenge then is to increase that 10% of visible language.
How? Invisible language can be measured through the study of para-verbal and non-verbal channels. If the verbal chooses the words, it is the paraverbal that defines the so-called emotional verticals: that surplus of emphasis or pauses or gestures that reveals the interlocutor's real priorities. An example? A contract clause accepted with an uncertain tone weighs because the paraverbal encodes an emotion that the text ignores.
The use of strategic demand
In strategic communication, the transition from interaction to structured relationship occurs through the management of three pillars: I, You and Context. A fundamental paradox emerges here: he who wants to know more speaks less. The strategic use of questions in fact allows one to map the other's world, avoiding the error of judging external data according to one's own subjective parameters. A technique, this one, that already allows that initial 10% to grow.
