Retiring the rule that never was

The verbal, vocal, and visual aspects of presenting

As I pen my 43rd post since starting this venture nearly 500 days ago (that’s 11.63 days on average between posts for the data nerds on my list), I realize it may be useful to return to the basics of oral communication, the heart and soul of my work with leaders around the globe. For years, many of us in my field taught the “7-38-55 Rule.”

From Jan Tore Knutsen in Science in HF Consulting – or are we too lazy?

Misrepresenting the work of Dr. Albert Mehrabian at UCLA, this “rule” claims that 7% of our understanding of a speaker comes from their words, 38% from their vocal tone, and 55% from their body language. Perhaps because communication is so nuanced and complicated, many of us in the field treasured having a simple, memorable, rule to guide us. But truly, none exists.

As Tuvya Amsel terms it, this “urban legend” has taken on a life of its own far beyond what the original research ever intended. He urges us to forget it and take it out of circulation.

Even Dr. Mehrabian has urged, at times begged, communication educators and coaches to stop misusing his research as a rule of any sort.  His research merged two different experiments, each with fewer than 40 participants, and was focused on communicating feelings.

Yet, like many urban legends, it persists. My extensive research (just moments ago) found that no less than 103 images of the rule appear on the first page of Google Searches alone. I shared the one above that most often occurs, the pie chart (in 3-D, no less, sorry Cole Knaflic!).

With just a bit of critical thinking we should be able to see that language cannot carry only 7% of the weight of communication. If that were true, shouldn’t we be able to understand 93% of a talk delivered in a foreign language?  The exploding pie chart above further shows that these three aspects of communication are distinct and separate, as if there was a moat around each of these components. Can any of us, with any certainty, verify that it was merely somebody’s word choice, or vocal tone, or body language that made us trust them? Or distrust them? Of course not.

So, a few years ago, while writing Communicate with Mastery, I made the decision to stop quoting this research in my classes and workshops. A recent piece in Big Think, The 7-38-55 rule: Debunking the golden ratio of conversation, reinforced the wisdom of this decision for me.

Yet, there is one value from this now-retired part of my teaching canon: I love the alliteration of talking about the verbal, vocal, and visual aspects of oral communication. While clearly, a presenter must do all three, in coaching them to improve their work, it’s helpful to deconstruct with this aspect of the framework.

In fact, I urge presenters to review themselves on video at least three times, analyzing:

• Verbal – the words you spoke, the transcript of the talk*

• Vocal – the energy you placed in speaking, the audio track of the talk

• Visual – how you looked while you spoke, the silent movie of the talk

(*Services like rev.com use AI to produce a reliable transcript from audio files which can include fillers like “umm,” “uh,” and “yeah” to provide evidence of verbal graffiti.)

Each slice of a presentation provides the speaker with insights about what worked and what could be improved. Ultimately, then, we must reconstruct these elements back into a coherent and compelling “whole” again. But it’s an incredibly useful way to engage speakers in the painful process of self-analysis, to do the work needed to get to the next level.

So the next time you hear somebody claim “more than half of all communication is non-verbal,” gently let them know this research no longer holds up, and in fact likely never did.

Burt Alper and me celebrating Allison Kluger’s MSx Program Teaching Excellence Award. These two may have begun as my proteges but are now clearly my peers.

Finally, gentle readers, a few of you shared that you don’t exactly understand my work these days since leaving academia full-time nearly four years ago. While not a sales pitch, I thought a snapshot of the highlights of the past two months might give you a sense of the diverse variety of projects that now occupy my time.

• Taught and coached founders in two different accelerators for healthcare startups: One Mind and the Epilepsy Foundation.

• Co-presented an SRO workshop with my colleague and former student Ben Leff on Driving Results with Effective Data Stories at Qualtrics Annual X4 summit.

• Prepared several photojournalists to deliver compelling talks and panels at Catchlight’s Visual Storytelling Summit.

• Taught two half-day workshops on storytelling with impact for the John S. Knight Journalism Fellows at Stanford.

• Accepted an advisory board seat on a recovery-based startup still in stealth mode. More to come on this adventure when it’s public.

• Submitted grades for my spring students at USC’s Annenberg School and began co-teaching a new (for me) course in Communicating Strategy and Change.

• Prepared one of my private equity clients to step outside their comfort zone to moderate a fireside chat in front of 300 peers with a nationally known journalist.

• Saw one of my earliest coaching clients, Dr. Jim Doty celebrate the publication of his eleventh book, Mind Magic, with a compelling fireside chat and book signing.

• Continued my thought leadership teaching and coaching with six rising stars of mental healthcare innovation at top medical schools around the nation.

• Expanded my coaching practice to now include leaders in athletics, cybersecurity, supply chain management, data science, metabolic psychiatry, dermatology, higher education, private equity, neuroscience, data architecture, philanthropy, and sustainability.

• Interviewed a first-time author, Bruce Brackett, to help launch his book How to Breathe While Suffocating: A story of overcoming addiction.

• Accepted long-term consulting projects: analyzing and designing leadership curriculum for one organization and co-creating a long-term strategic communication and marketing plan for another.

• Secured a developmental editing team to help me finally complete my memoir. [working title] The Bridge Back — My Journey from the Edge of Death to the Center of Life will detail my 21-year journey of recovery from addiction, depression, and suicide.

I’m truly blessed to work on some engaging projects with talented individuals from a wide range of industries and experience levels. Each day is different and provides me with both challenges and rewards. While it’s easy to simply say, “I’m a communication coach,” in truth, I do so much more than that. If you think there may be a way that I can help you or your organization, drop me a note and let’s chat about it. If I’m not the right fit, I’ll bet I can find somebody who will be.

JD’s Recommendations: what I’m reading, hearing, and seeing:

• Reading:  I’m devouring my friend and client Dr. Jim Doty’s latest book Mind Magic: the Neuroscience of Manifestation and How it Changes Everything.

• Hearing: As the proud son of a WWII veteran, I loved this amazing performance of The Last Goodbye by Lifein3D, a sibling trio whose work always moves me.

• Seeing:   The family thoroughly enjoyed seeing Ryan Reynolds’ new film, IF. Check out the trailer and consider seeing it before it leaves theatres.

PS: I’m delighted to be hosting a fascinating event that I will tell you more about next week.  For now, I simply invite you to save the date, Thursday, June 20, from 3:30 to 5:30 pm. If you’re in the Bay Area, join us in person. If not, we will be sharing a Livestream. Think “TEDx meets Gay Pride in a way-cool amazing historic space.” We’ve lined up a remarkable group of speakers to share their Journey of DISCOVERY: Answering the Call to Authenticity. You won’t want to miss this.