Suzy Lamplugh Trust Update

For those who have been following the saga of my attempts to get the Suzy Lamplugh Trust to correct an (inadvertent, I am sure) error on their website, here is the latest instalment.

But before that, give me a second to bring new readers up to speed. I blogged a while back about the Mehrabian myth, the notion that  the words in a verbal communication account for  only 7% of the meaning we receive; the rest being voice (38%) and body language (55%).

I came across it again when being trained for the voluntary work that I do, and was told that the source of their (mis)information was the Suzy Lamplugh Trust. So I looked on the Trust's website and found  and they do not quote the figures there, but they do say  'The majority of communication is through body language, a lot through tone of voice and only a little through words.' (Their emphasis). I blogged about it here, including why it is so worrying in that context, and also wrote to the Trust.

In due course, I received a reply, which I thought might just be fobbing me off; so I resolved to re-visit the site after a while, and see if they had actually changed anything. They had not. So I wrote to the Chair of the Trustees, and this week received his reply.

Thank you for your email to me of 4th March. Having looked into this I really don't think that the information on the Trust's web-site is either misleading or dangerous. To the contrary, it is making an important and correct point: that body language is often more important than what one says and that it is important to be aware of one's body language if one is to defuse aggressive behaviour. As you have noted yourself, our web-site doesn't use the (often misquoted) Mehrabian percentages. Accordingly, I am satisfied that the responses you have previously received from the Trust's staff were appropriate and that they reflect the Trust's policy. I am grateful to you for bringing this issue to the Trust's attention. As a result of you doing so we have now reviewed this matter twice. However, we do not propose to review it again, at least not in the immediate future. Accordingly, we not intend to correspond with you further about this.

Beneath the formal courtesy, that sounds like a clear 'get lost.'  I note that at no stage has anyone from the Trust maintained that the statement is true, still less given any reference to support such an assertion.

However, never one to give up too lightly on helping people to learn, I tried one last shot:

Thanks for your email. I have no intention to waste your time, and do not expect a reply to this. 

However, I would point out that there is a vast difference between these two statements: 

 'The majority of communication is through body language, a lot through tone of voice and only a little through words.’

 'body language is often more important than what one says and [that] it is important to be aware of one's body language if one is to defuse aggressive behaviour.'

My only intention was to help you correct this inaccuracy - if you changed the wording on the site to what you wrote in your email, that would be telling the truth rather than telling an untruth. 

Perhaps it is my training as a linguist that makes this seem important to me. Try telling any student of a foreign language that 'The majority of communication is through body language,’ and you will see what I mean. 

I have little hope that it will do any good, but I will revisit their site occasionally, in the hope that the change will be quietly made.

And I continue to wish them well with the important work that they do.

If you agree with me that they should correct the site, you might choose to drop them a courteous line to that effect.  If you think I am wrong on this, you could drop me a line, of course.

Reply from the Suzy Lamplugh Trust

In my recent post about the misrepresentation of Merhrabian's research (that stuff about words being only 7% of the way we understand communication), I mentioned that I had been told it was sourced from the Suzy Lamplugh Trust. I looked at the Suzy Lamplugh Trust Website, and found it did not, in fact, quote these percentages, but did make the claim in words. I gather the text on the WWW is taken from their leaflet Keeping Safe: Dealing with Aggression. I concluded my last post by saying that I would write to them about this.

Therefore, I emailed as follows:

On your website, (here) you say that 'The majority of communication is through body language, a lot through tone of voice and only a little through words.’ (your emphasis). I assume this refers to the work of Albert Mehrabian, but he himself distances himself from such claims, and puts important caveats on how his research is interpreted and applied. 

I think you should re-consider how you present this. If you are interested in my particular thoughts, I have just blogged about it here. 

I am writing to you, as I think the work you do very important - and therefore want to help you to do it as well as possible.

I heard nothing, so wrote a follow up,  

Did you receive the email below? 

I see that your website remains unchanged. 

As I said on my blog on the subject (here): I find this misrepresentation of Mehrabian's work bad enough in corporate life; but in the context of safeguarding, it is worse. For instance, if it becomes widely accepted as fact, what is to prevent a rapist claiming that, although his victim said No, 93% of her communication was saying Yes?... That cannot be a justification that the Suzy Lamplugh Trust would accept.  

I got an apology: my email had apparently been misrouted, and the promise of a fuller reply in due course. Eventually I received this:

Thank you for your email. Suzy Lamplugh Trust is a personal safety charity and we work to reduce the risk of violence and aggression for everyone. The information provided in the leaflet you have referred to aims to help individuals who are in stressful or difficult situations to understand the options available to them. The specific quote to which you refer seeks to highlight the need for workers who undertake difficult and/or stressful tasks to be aware of how their behaviour may be interpreted by the people they are interacting with. This will enable them to complete a dynamic risk assessment and take measures to defuse, de-escalate or exit a situation if necessary. This information is given to educate and empower individuals.  

Whenever a crime is committed, Suzy Lamplugh Trust is clear that the responsibility for that crime lies solely with the perpetrator. Everyone has the right to live their lives safely.

I hope that this alleviates your concern however if you have further questions please get back in touch.

I did not think that really addressed the issue I had raised, so I wrote again:

Thanks for your reply. 

I think you misunderstand my concern. I am well aware of the excellent work and reputation of the Trust. 

My concern is very simple. Your wwwsite says: 'The majority of communication is through body language, a lot through tone of voice and only a little through words.’
I believe that to be untrue, and think I have understood and indicated the source of the error.  

I also think that publishing untrue information may have unintended negative consequences. 

I am sure your intentions are honourable, etc. However what I am not clear about is whether you think that the information is in fact true (in which case I would be fascinated to know your sources); or whether you think it untrue (or simply don’t know), but are happy to publish on that basis in pursuit of a good aim?

Today, I received this further reply:

Thank you for flagging your concern. We regularly review the information on our website and will take your comments in to (sic) consideration when we next revisit our website material. 

So I will re-visit their site occasionally, and see if they make any changes. But if this is a polite brush-off, then I will take it further up the chain, as I believe it to be a serious issue.