Necessary Understanding for Communicating in Difficult Circumstances

Where communication often goes off the rails in regards to reputation health, restoration or reconstruction is its neglect of emotions and the feelings that develop from those emotions. The reality is other people’s emotional experience with you and your communication are critically important to your success and well-being.

Insights by Stanford Business — and Baba Shiv and Matt Abrahams — conversed about this truism and in their talk, invaluable guidance was provided.

Feelings First: How Emotion Shapes Our Communication, Decisions, and Experiences

There’s gold here, I contend, that you will appreciate and from which you can benefit. I hope you can trust me on that assertion.

Baba Shiv is a Professor of Marketing at the Stanford Graduate School of Business

First, the experts: Shiv is a Professor of Marketing at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and Abrahams is a Lecturer of Strategic Communication at the school and also the host of the Think Fast Talk Smart podcast.

Now, the conversation takeaways I’ve gleaned for you:

Did you know, for example, that, “…most of human decisions and human behaviors are shaped by emotion and not by reason,” Shiv says. “And then, if you ask me to put a number to this based on all the evidence out there I would conjecture something like 90 to 95 percent of our decisions, our behaviors are constantly being shaped non-consciously by emotional brain system.”

Emotion. Think about what that means when you are attempting to communicate influentially or gain trust and succeed at persuasiveness. Emotion, not logic, is the foundation and a driving force.

Working from the ground up logically can, at times at least, undermine our chances for success.

“You know, if you think about it from that lens… the first thing to do is to play into the emotional brain rather than the rational brain. That’s the fundamental premise when it comes to neuroscience and communication,” Shiv says.

This comment prompted a question by Abrahams.

“So, when we think about what it is we want to say, and who we want to say it to, and how we want to say it you’re saying lead with thoughts about emotion and really plan from the emotional perspective. Is that what I’m hearing?”

The answer he receives is wise to remember because it’s an error we often make.

“The basic idea,” Shiv responded, “is that if you look at most people, what they do when they’re trying to persuade others and they’re trying to (impress) and communicate to others, they present rational arguments.”

This brings us back to Shiv’s emphasis.

“We fail to recognize that the “rational bit’ accounts for only about five to 10 percent of human decisions,” he states.

“I’m not saying you can ignore the rational side. You have to provide enough fodder for the rational brain to be rational,” Shiv stresss. “But first and foremost, you need to play into what the emotional brain is looking for, and that will actually depend upon the mindset of the individual.”

He goes on to provide important questions to ask ourselves.

“Is that person in a risk/rewards type of mindset or a risk-tolerant, type-II mindset?” Shiv asks.

He explains.

“We all know about the type-I error and the type-II error. The type-I error is a fear of making a mistake. Type-II error is the fear of missing out on opportunities. Actually, it’s not a fear. It’s actually a desire for new opportunity.

“The brain has two separate circuitries. One for risk-adverse behaviors and one for risk-tolerant behaviors. And to really understand where that person is in these mindsets, if it’s a type I or a type II, play in to that,” he says.

We feel that if we focus on objectivity, facts, statistics and hard evidence that will provide proof, we will impact people as we intend.

That can work; no argument there.

Yet it doesn’t always. That approach can fall woefully short of the goal when people are seeking an emotional understanding to connect to your message, maybe even a critical one for you and/or them.

So regularly consider the emotional component, when you can, which is not always, but mostly, when communicating to influence and persuade and especially to prevent big problems or navigate through intense disputes, ongoing conflicts or crisis.

Michael Toebe is the founder and specialist at Reputation Quality, helping successful individuals and organizations further understand reputation as an asset and building, restoring or reconstructing its health and strength.