Communicators rule

CLEARLY, leaders, whether in the public or private sector, know by now that communication is vital in a pandemic. Whether it is for an information drive, education, closing sales, online or traditional media, influencing decisions, advocating a position and the like. These days though, nonverbal communication is leading the way what with the minimum health protocol on wearing face masks and face shields, maintaining physical distance and washing hands. The nonverbal signals are aplenty: tone of voice, eye contact, facial expressions, body language and expressions that define our communications today. Nonverbal communication encompasses space and touch, which has been redefined because we cannot get close to someone or allow them to get close. A culture of embracing, kissing and holding are now looked unkindly upon because of the danger of Covid-19 transmission.

The use of language to stand in for the courtesy we would otherwise show nonverbally is being built anew as a set of norms as we adjust going into the different phases of the pandemic. Communication is “process by which information is exchanged between individuals through a common system of symbols, signs or behavior” or “information communicated, information transmitted or conveyed.” In the traditional sense, communication is a process of sending and decoding information from sender to receiver. As we are being pushed to an existence online, we need to rediscover creativity in order to communicate with people in the same space rather than be pinned in our own devices.