Face to Face Communication at Work

You can learn a lot by trying to read someone’s face or body language. It is clear that women can do it better when they are motivated. Women seem to gaze at others more than men do, enabling them to read faces better. But they seem to do so only when motivated. When married men and women are both instructed to pay explicit attention to facial behavior, the difference between the sexes begins to vanish. Ultimately, motivation plays a key role in this skill, almost overriding the differences in males and females. According to the research of psychologists R. Rosenthal and B. M. DePaulo, reported in the journal of Personality and Social Psychology, as men get older, they get better at reading anger in facial expression, while women avoid “eavesdropping” on this unintended emotional leakage. Interestingly, according to the psychologists, women who do pick up on such information seem to be less socially successful. So the wise woman who overlooks her boss’s hidden anger is more likely to succeed in that relationship. The one common factor that affects the motivation and ability to read faces is context. Although this is a proven fact, the process of context awareness is nonetheless largely unconscious. The part of the brain known as the amygdala has become well known as the site for emotional decision making, particularly when it comes to such emotions as anger and fear. It is at this site that emotional recognition of facial anger is focused and, even before the face is identified, the amygdala registers and emotional reaction if the observed face is fearful in any way. The more unconscious the perception, the more effect it has on our behavior. According to Dr. Phil Merkle of the University of Ottowa in Canada, it appears that unconsciously perceived information leads to behaviors we would otherwise be able to control if we were more aware of what we were seeing. Unconscious perception means less control over the consequent behavior. The important thing is to know when to read and when to heed, in order to bring about successful outcomes. “Women have the tendency to hang back a bit in a group and think they shouldn’t speak unless they have something that is either 100 percent correct or astonishingly brilliant,” says Julie Hembrock Daum of Spencer Stuart in an October 2008 issue of Newsweek. “In a meeting or gathering, you should try to be one of the first handful of people to speak even if it is only to ask a question. If you don’t, it will become harder and harder to enter the conversation.” This challenge calls for a combination of being aware of influence and presentation skills. Facing authentic emotions in yourself and others in the moment and sharing your awareness takes a unique sensitivity to when that moment is right and when it isn’t. Having an awareness of context is typically the most important component when it comes to making decisions – whether personal or business.