EMOTIONAL COMMUNICATION
As a generalisation, Men and women differ markedly in their approach to conversation. For women it is a sharing exercise - the objective is to obtain resonance with each other, so that all parties feel the same thing. For men on the other hand, the primary purpose of communication is to pass on information, be that important facts or jokes, or to solve problems.
It is this fundamental difference in objectives that can lead to difficulties between the genders. For example, when women express an issue, they are not always looking for a solution to it - they are often looking for understanding and sympathy. When a man either dismisses it as unimportant or proposes a procedure, there is mutual frustration, from the female perspective that the man is cold and distant and from the male perspective that the woman is emotional and irrational.
Understanding this emotional undertone is a powerful tool if you know how to use it. But men are not immune to emotion, and just as with women, the way they are spoken to often has far more impact than the actual information does. For both male and female audiences, the impact of what you communicate is largely dependent not on the value of the information, nor on the technical quality of the delivery, but how your communication made them feel.
If you want to communicate effectively, it is critical that you understand the emotional impact of both what you are saying and how you are saying it. A good way to see this in action is simply by studying adverts. With only a few seconds to grab your attention, all adverts work the same way. They present a desirable image to their target audience, appealing to the primal instincts, and then suggest that their product will supply it.
The bottom line is that we are not motivated by logic or reason, but by fear, love and desire. Any communication to be effective needs to tap in to these primal drives at some level in the right way. Any word spoken, even the most ordinary, evokes an emotional reaction when it's received. This needs to be clearly understood by every communicator and consequently the words in every and any message need to be chosen carefully.
Of course, there is another critical factor - the control of your own emotions. If you are powerfully affected by your audience orare very emotional yourself, this will affect what you communicate, so learning to manage your own emotions is essential if you want to comminicate well and influence the emotions of others.
