Looking out to an audience of 20 face-masked individuals at the start of the COVID-19 Pandemic is something I will never forget, as an experienced facilitator and learning professional.
This was a first for me, and even as we head into 2022, I suspect it is probable that the wearing of face masks, where social distancing is not possible, for our health and safety will continue, as we wage this battle against COVID-19.
In my 30 years of delivering learning programs, presenting workshops face-to-face with audiences of all shapes and sizes, it was truly a cathartic moment, when I realised that I was speaking from behind a face mask, so how could I really be sure anyone was listening to me?
My participants were also wearing masks, so how could this possibly be an effective communication exchange, I wondered? I just couldn’t tell by looking.
George Bernard Shaw (Irish Author & Humourist 1856-1950) said it best with his famous quote: ‘the single greatest problem with communication is the illusion it has taken place.’
Or, as William H. Whyte described it in an article titled, ’Is Anybody Listening?’, published in “Fortune” magazine in 1950, ‘The great enemy of communication, we find, is the illusion of it. We have talked enough, but we have not listened. And by not listening we have failed to concede the immense complexity of our society–and thus the great gaps between ourselves and those with whom we seek understanding.
As a conscious communicator, and someone whose field of work relies heavily on both speaking and listening, I am well aware of the many barriers that make communication challenging for both the sender and receiver of messages.
So, when public health orders forced us into a corner, mandating the wearing of face masks where social-distancing was not possible (and this included training rooms), I could never have anticipated the challenges I would face in my attempts to facilitate workshops filled with people wearing face-masks.
What did I discover through this masked-up facilitation experience? Quite simply, it was these three (3) things:
From behind a mask, it’s difficult to read a person’s eye communication.
I immediately noticed that a ‘masked’ person’s eye contact can be either minimally expressive, excessively expressive, or anywhere on a broad spectrum of expressions, including micro-expressions of the upper facial region, such as a frowning brow, squinting eyes, or fluttering of eyelashes.
Without the additional clusters of facial expressions, such as lip movement, mouth movement, cheek movement, teeth showing, or not. Without pursed lips or an open beaming smile, without the nose and cheekbones, or a slightly dimpled cheek to go by, I found it so very difficult to pick up on the usual body language cues I have traditionally become accustomed to. This mask-wearing workshop was extra-hard work!
What did this lead to? It naturally led to both me, and the participants, asking a lot more clarifying questions, checking in with each other to see if we’d understood, and interpreted each other's communication correctly.
That was fine, except those conversations felt so much more stilted and awkward, and they lacked a natural flow. This was particularly evident in the earlier parts of the conversation, when building rapport. It was so difficult to feel a sense of ‘connection’ with my audience; so much more challenging than I’d ever encountered before.
My confidence as a communicator was deeply affected by a masked-up audience. Did this mean those I was communicating with were also feeling uncertain about me being masked up?
How did I know my audience was listening to me? With my face mask on, my audience was also relying solely on my tone of voice, very limited eye communication, and facial expression. All they had was my other body language movements and gestures, which I might have intentionally or unintentionally sent mixed signals their way, without factoring in the lack of facial expressions to support my intentions.
I realised pretty quickly, in the past I’d kind of taken for granted, that people were listening and understanding me, and with face masks on, well, I just couldn’t be sure any longer.
To manage this, I felt it was best to address ‘the elephant in the room’ with my audience, reminding them to be courageous, and speak up if they missed out on something being said, or if they felt they’d been misunderstood, to simply clarify their point. I made a point of setting the pace by paraphrasing and checking my understanding with them much more often as well. This approach quickly paid off, making everyone, including me, much more comfortable from the outset.
I was reminded of that old saying when someone tells you that they’ve misunderstood your message, and they say: It’s not what you said, but HOW you said it!
How did I know people were listening, if they couldn’t fully read the ‘HOW’ of my communication, and how could I successfully read theirs?
A very famous study, known as Silent Messages, by Albert Mehrabian (1971) tells us that our face-to-face communication impacts those receiving our messages in three (3) ways:
Through the words they hear from the speaker (i.e. the verbals);
Through the tone of voice they detect from the speaker (i.e. the para-verbals); and
Through body language signals (i.e. the non-verbals).
Meharabian reported that, in a face-to-face communication 93 percent of our communication is interpreted through non-verbals, and the remaining 7 percent through our words (verbals).
His study reminds us that our verbals and non-verbals must be congruent - they must match. Because, if the receiver is uncertain, they will interpret the non-verbals as ‘the’ message. This means we must consciously work to ensure that what we say is supported by our para-verbals and body language, including the full range of facial expressions.
With the wearing of face masks during my workshops, participants couldn’t see all of the expressions on my face, and I definitely couldn’t see theirs. So, how much were they relying on my remaining non-verbals, or body language signals, such as hand gestures, movement and stance?
Was my tone of voice, coupled with my words and minimal facial expressions enough to ensure my communication was understood?
All I could do was check in with my participants, even more than I usually would. I clarified, questioned, and paraphrased what I’d heard from them, even more than I’ve ever done in my whole life! To say these workshops were exhausting is quite an understatement. If it was like that for me, how was it for them, I thought?
When I concluded my final face-to-face workshop before going into lock-down, in late March 2020, I was both physically and mentally drained, and to be honest, very concerned about the future of face-to-face workshop learning.
Most concerning was that my participants also seemed to have lower energy than they would usually have during my workshops, and I could only put this down to the wearing of masks.
As a career learning and development professional, it truly brought into question: What is the future of workshop learning, during COVID-19?.
In these ‘masked-up’ workshops, I was working so much harder as a communicator, or was this added feeling of exhaustion occurring just because I was communicating in a new way, and over time I would simply, get used to it?
Would my audiences ever be able to return to these types of learning experiences again, I wondered?
Fast forward two years down the track, and I must be honest, I’ve become more comfortable wearing mandated face masks and I am absolutely a Convert to using Zoom for virtual workshops, not as a substitute, but as an alternative to face-to-face workshops.
But, I do look forward to the day when my Face-to-face workshops will return to allowing everyone to benefit from being able to communicate face-to-face, taking into account as many or all of the non-verbals, para-verbals, and verbals we so naturally rely upon as effective communicators.
Finally, one of my highest values, as a learning professional, is human connection and I truly feel that masking up during the Pandemic has deprived me and others of this to a large degree.
I yearn for the day when, once again, I get to ‘feel’ the energy of the participants in my workshops; where I get to look out to a room full of faces and truly ‘read the room’, once again.
What have you discovered about the impact of your communication with others, being masked up during the COVID-19 Pandemic? I’d love to hear your stories, your challenges, and importantly, how you overcame them.
R:-)