Feelings

Hold on, I’m going to get all emotional on you …

A few years ago, a client asked me to help them promote workplace safety to employees. During site visits to two of their production facilities, I quickly realized that they were already doing plenty of communication about safety. Upon driving up to one of the facilities, I was greeted by a 20-ft billboard bearing a brief, charmingly scripted safety message. 

Safety messages were everywhere. One facility even conducted daily safety briefings. What in the world could possibly be left to say? 

Face-to-Face Discovery Matters

After speaking with managers, supervisors and employees, I realized that these people cared very deeply about safety and about keeping others safe. One manager even choked up while relaying to me a story from earlier in his career about a co-worker who was badly injured on the job. I think I saw his eyes tear up. 

On the plane ride home, while I pored over my notes, that story kept popping up in my mind along with the image of this otherwise burly man getting weepy on me. That’s when I realized what was missing from this company’s communication about safety: emotion.

We’re People, Not Computers

The workplace is the domain of logic and data. You have to back up what you say with proof and facts. You have to be in control of yourself. You have to be poised. You can’t let your true feelings poke through. But we are human; humans have feelings, and feelings are a way we communicate with each other. They are a cunning way our inner selves let the truth slip through our well-crafted facades. 

The reason the manager’s story was so memorable was not because it was a particularly unique story, but because of the way it made him feel. I could see he was passionate about safety, and I needed to let employees see that passion.

During that trip, I just so happened to pick up a book called Neuromarketing: Understanding the Buy Buttons in the Brain. Chapter 17 was “Impact Booster #4: Emotion.” 

Back in my office, I flipped through another of my other favorite tomes: Made to Stick. Chapter 5: “Emotional.” 

Then, I watched a brief video clip of a speech delivered by another client’s new president and CEO. He stood before his company’s sales force and, while extolling the company’s competitive advantages, he paused. He seemed to get choked up. Then he said, “I am proud of you.” If it weren’t so sincerely stated, it could have been an eye-rolling moment. I’m not a salesman, but his passion made me want to jump up and sell something!

Emotion Is Part of the Message

Emotions help us form memories. They are like a bookmark in the mind for a passage of time that has particular meaning for us. The authors of Neuromarketing say that emotions communicate directly to the decision-making center of the brain. 

An emotion drives you to act, and you can’t argue or debate with emotion. It’s immediate and real. Just think of our reliance on emoticons in text messages. We already know that our audience needs the additional context of our emotions to really understand what we’re saying. 

Communication in the workplace is no different. Employees are like any other audience; an emotional appeal will help get their attention. It also will help your message squeeze through their cynicism and doubt. And later, when they’re driving home or having lunch, they’ll remember the passion and the sincerity (sincerity being key). It will stir their own feelings, and their feelings will influence their behaviors.