Communication differences depend on group size and when it counts

Women and men communicate on different abstraction levels: Men tend to talk about the big picture and use explanations pretty often, whereas women score higher by focussing on details and concrete steps to be taken. If the audience is small and psychologically close the gender gap is widening. These are the results of six studies at the USC (University of South Carolina) which are interpreted by the scientists like this: Girls prefer to move around with one or two girl friends looking for emotional closeness which helps them to learns early to avoid too general talk and to show care by accurate communiation. For boys on the contrary due to sports teamsize and competition as such are still more common during their upbringing – therefore their talk is more general and they are less inhibited to present themselves in a positive way.

These differences in the communication approach are additionally getting significant when you want to look good: Women then focus on details and specialist knowlegde, men with context and goals.

„Gender Differences in Communicative Abstraction“, Joshi/Wakslak/Appel/Huang, in: Journal of Personalitiy and Social Psychology“, Oct. 2019, Advance online publication.

From the practice:

Have we finally found the reason why women on average tend to promote themselves much less convincingly then men? Because they in their communication approach bet on the wrong horse?

Perhaps. I am a little bit sceptical, though since I have observed this approach – pushing details instead of context – also with men. It is not the gender according to my expertise, but self confidence which is responsible whether you dare to talk about the big picture where you can fail and where you might be not the expert for. Another reason for this communication style might lie in the bias to facts and figures only of specific professions like legal, financial oder scientific experts. These people continously entrap themselves in details although context is demanded because they feel safe in the first and uneasy in the latter one.

My experience has made it very clear: it not an either or, it is a both and! You do need content and details if you want to communicate successfully with employees, business partners or voters.

Chance of Success predicts defense strategies

Regardless how laborious argueing might be: discussants take the offensive and defend their standpoints attacked when chances of success are big. If this not

then most of them refrain entirely from convincing anyone at the panel and are simply satisfied not to lose. The most popular defense strategies: to dodge to the hostile argument or to qualify one´s own standpoint („This is an exception to the rule“, „Finally that´s not so important“ ) and make it irrefutable („This is a matter of taste“).

These are the results of a study from Yale recently published online. Based on that the scientists conclude, professional argueing can be anticipated pretty well.

Counter-Argument Self-Efficacy Predicts Choice of Belief-Defense Strategies. Goldberg/Carmichael/Hardin, In. European Journal of Social Psychology., 2019.

From the practice:

The study is fine, but the key question must be: what do you have to take into account and how do you have to prepare in oder to take the offensive successfully?

1. You should be highly motivated, otherwise your engagement will suffer. 2. You should know in advance with which facts and examples you want to defend your standpoint. Describe consternation and relevance. 3. You should anticipate the potential reactions of your interlocutors or co-discussants and ideally tackle them proactively. Don´t let anyone escape with flat arguments when it really is at stake. The audience in the livingrooms, in the event halls or at the pubs will notice that and won´t like it.

Conversely you know from now on: Who tries to qualify your standpoint or wants to make it irrefutable, feels inferior and has come to his/her end.

Liberals in political negotiations more generous than Conservatives

If morality is key political negotiations tend to be more aggressive and less open for compromise – regardless if the negotiators represent extreme positions or belong to the moderates. And it is worth to state that morality does not bear any ideological mark: neither the left nor the right political spectrum have taken a lease on moral alone. Liberal voters are apparently more generous in their offers to negotiate than conservatives, though. These are the results of three consecutive US-studies where insights of behavioral economics and moral psychology are combined for the first time. The researchers do point out explicitly that according to these findings high morale paradoxically might impede a core principle of representative democracies – the negotiation of opposing political claims.

Moral obstinacy in Political Negotiations, Delton/DeScioli/Ryan, In: Political Psychology, July 28th, 2019.

From the practice:

Pragmatism versus morality? Ist his the game? No. I do believe, everybody needs both. If people with high moral standards and strong ethical claims actually forgo all compromises possible and obstinately keep maintaining their ground, they would be isolated very quickly and would not be closer to their aims in any way. The Brexit chaos can be mentioned as a very realistic example here.

In my coachings with clients from the political area we elaborate on the highly individualized boundaryline between compromise and self-denial. Frankly speaking, this is not always an easy task, and in my opinion there is never a general solution for all. But I´ve got one key learning out of these types of cooperation: If you have to compromise please communicate your deal transparently and tell why it was your preferred choice. This is in any case more credible than hushing up the background and to pretend there have never been ethical values of yours ever since.

Being self-aware means better listening and higher effectiveness

Good news for all who are not natural born leaders: training your mindfulness consequently, makes your doing as a superior easier. Leaders who learn to observe and evaluate in the here and now their emotions, thoughts and deeds unbiased, tend to be mindful also in dealing with their teams and peers. Hence, being self-aware makes better listening possible, enables open discussions or processing and ensures congruency between values, talk and walk. Leaders are in this way perceived as more authentic and more credible which increases in turn team satisfaction and team performance over time. These are the results of two new consecutive studies, carried out in the Netherlands and Germany, where factors which lead to or facilitate Authentic leadership were examined.

The researchers furthermore recommend all organisations to integrate mindfulness as a main criteria for Leadership into their respective recruiting procedures. Not only because it is of so much value for so-called Positive Leadership, but also because it can be trained in a time- and cost-efficient way to everyone.

Be(com)ing Real: a Multi-source and an Intervention Study on Mindfulness and Authentic Leadership, Nübold/Van Quaquebeke/Hülsheger. In: Journal of Business and Psychology, pp. 1-20, 2019.

For the practice:

I do confirm: mindfulness leads almost directly to authenticity. Unless I know myself very well and reflect on a regular basis I will not be able to shape and influence my life – privately and in my job – matching with my personality. Wow! Not always an easy task, but in the end perfect for me, one could state. What makes mindfulness an even better aspect, though, is that it opens a new door towards people, too. Who does not like to be listened to and understood in a mindful way?! Who does not like have a boss who acts according to his/her words and announcements? Who does not like to support leaders who remember what they have heard from and talked to their employees, treating people regardless of their rank in the organizational hierarchy with respect and interest.

500 Scientists at the 42nd Annual Scientific Meeting of the ISPP

„Empowering Citizens in Illiberal Times: The Political Psychology of Oppression and Resistance“ – with this motto this year´s conference of the International Society of Political Psychology, a discipline still not known in Austria, has taken place in Portugal´s capital from July 12th-15th. And here are the most interesting results from the studies, surveys and experiments presented:
• Lying Politicians do so mostly in their second term and as members of bigger parties.
• Groups who believe they do not get the appreciation they deserve („collective narcissism“) show vis-a-vis strangers significantly more aggression. In case they feel needed and think that the greater idea needs them to succeed, though, they can turn from haters to supporters, i.e. with the EU.
• Austrians wish their ideal politicians to be more emotionally stable, more extravert, more disagreeable and to a certain extent more open and more conscientious than they themselves on average.
• The attitude to be second class citizens is in Eastern Germany the prevailing motive for Right-wing populism and Right-wing extremism. The middle class and this particularly in smaller towns are hotbeds for radical political thought.
• Partisans do apologize moral misdemeanor of their „own“ politicians much more easily than in general. If there are charges of sexual misconduct conservatives are more frequently support the perpetrators, not the victims.
https://www.ispp.org/uploads/attachments/FULL_PROGRAM_2019_FINAL_POST.pdf

Checking facts and experiences is a good, contempt a weak counter-strategy

High season for conspiracy theories. This given the results of a metastudy, where siecntis from Kent, Oxfod and Miami have evaluated the previous conspiracy literature, are notably relevant:

1. People foster conspiracy theories a) if the ydo not comprehend what has happened or is going on, b) feel weak and threatened and c) if they believe that the greatness of their group is not acknowledged enough by the outside world.
2. Who has got or uses prejudices often, makes oneself predisposed to conspirative ideas of any kind.
3. The web plays a smaller role than expected: conspiracy theoretists are predominantly read by conspiracy theoretists which keeps their content largely within their own bubble. There it might have a boost effect, though, expanding the gaps towards the socalled „others“.
4. Most supporters of conspircay theories can be identified among the political extremes, left and right alike, still right-wingers are even more predisposed – typically conspiracy theorists are men with low education, low income or even jobless who are not connected with any networks.
5. What helps not becoming immune to cpnspiracy theories: a) to have a good selfcontrol of one´s feelings, b) to fundamentally doubt all to simple solutions for complex cases and c) to be capable to detect non-serious posts in the Social Media.

Understanding Conspiracy Theories, Douglas/Uscinski/Sutton/Cichoka/Nefes/Ang/Deravi, in: Advances in Political Psychology, vol. 40, nr. S1, Feb.2019, p. 3 – 35.

From the practice:

Can do conspiracy theories anything good? Basically yes, since they could motivate to more openness in case of actual intransparency. In general, though, they do more harm than good according to the researchers, and should be always questioned and dissolved asap.

Sometimes my clients calculate to be confronted with conspiracy theories in the public – on TV or at panels. In these cases I continuously recommend to check first the facts and to ask for examples. The more precise, clear and logical the responses will be the easier conspiracy theories can either be revealed as pure phantasies or offer insight in circumstances which have not been public to this date. It also pays off to clarify personal experencies of people who again and again get back to conspiracy theories. In the end these theories are to be rejected almost always due to their lack of substance, but if we do so, we have to be careful not showing contempt – with our words and body language. People with small Egos – and therefore this counts for conspiracy theorists, too – need respect more than anything else. Otherwise their belief to be helpless against the powerfuls even increases. And so does also their rage.

Emails no key leadership tool

60% of superior-team-communication is face-to-face and it could be even more if the team is to choose. This is true particularly in comparison with other communication channels that are typically in use like the phone (26%) or the email (13%) according to a survey among 265 employees in Germany launched by German and Belgian scientists  The key finding, though, were the bad results for emails which are doubtlessly one of the prefered ways to get in touch with anyone in our digital world.
Leaders who favor management-by-email which means providing tasks, inputs and feedbacks predominantly through emails have to live with a negative reputation after all. This behavior is interpreted as lack of willingness to spend time with their teams, as lack of identification with the people they are responsible for and with low appreciation .
The scientists therefore recommend people managers to be aware of when face-to-face communication has to be prioritized under all circumstances and to use video-communication i.e. web casts if personal meetings with their teams are actually not possible.

Emails from The Boss – Curse or Blessing? Relations between Communications Chnalles, Leader Evaluation and Employees Attitude. Braun/Bark/Kirchner/Stegmann/Van Dick. In International Journal of Business Communication, 2019, 56/1, 50-81.

From the practice:
Yes! Emails can do more harm than good if they are not used properly and this affects primarily internal communication. There are 2 key moments when emails are absolutely the worst you could do as a leader: 1. In case of news and 2. in case of issues. In both cases questions and comments will and shall pop up very likely and very quickly among the recipients, questions and comments you will and shall deal with much better face-to-face than in any written form. Let alone the fact that those Questions and comments are very rarely addressed by emails, so rather be suppressed instead of spoken out openly.
Honestly: It takes much much much too long to text an email so professionally and empathically that all potential misunderstandings or legitimate doubts that might pop up at the recipient are proactively managed. Face-to-face is here the only effective chance to move forward at once successfully.
Emails do have their merits when you want people to remember you, topics or meetings, when you want to inform about minor adjustments of projects or decisions or to deliver material and scripts.
So let me underline the recommendations of the scientists: Select your communication channel carefully. Please talk once more than less to members of your staff or your peers. Yes, webcasts are a brillant idea for big corporations, to communicate being physically with your interlocutors or audience still is the very best option.

Emails als Führungsinstrument nicht gefragt

60% der Kommunikation zwischen Führungskraft und MitarbeiterInnen ist Face-to-face-Kommunikation und ginge es nach dem Team könnte es noch mehr sein. Andere typische Kommunikationskanäle wie Telefon (26%) oder email (13%) liegen dagegen weit abgeschlagen zurück. Das ergab eine Umfrage unter 265 Angestellten in Deutschland und eine daraus abgeleitete Studie an den Universitäten Frankfurt und Leuven. Besonders dem email, das sich doch in der Zeit von 4.0 zu einem der Hauptkommunikationskanäle entwickelt hat, wird ein schlechtes Zeugnis ausgestellt: Führungskräfte, die email-by-management präferieren, ordnet man geringe Identifikation mit ihren MitareiterInnen zu, unterstellt ihnen, sie würden nicht gern Zeit mit ihren Teams verbringen und ergo dessen diese auch nicht wirklich wertschätzen.

Die ForscherInnen empfehlen daher Führungskräften sich sehr genau im klaren zu sein, wann Face-to-Face-Kommunikation unbedingt der Vorzug zu geben ist. Ist ein persönliches Treffen Vorgesetzter-MitarbeiterInnen gar nicht möglich, dann wäre allemal Video-Kommunikation, z.B. in Form von Webcasts noch immer besser als jedes email.

Emails from The Boss – Curse or Blessing? Relations between Communications Chnalles, Leader Evaluation and Employees Attitude. Braun/Bark/Kirchner/Stegmann/Van Dick. In International Journal of Business Communication, 2019, 56/1, 50-81.

Aus der Praxis:

Ja!  Emails können mehr Schaden als Nutzen anrichten, wenn sie – vor allem im internen Gebrauch – falsch eingesetzt werden. In zwei Fällen sind emails sogar ganz besonders kontraproduktiv: 1. Wenn Sie Neues ankündigen und 2. Wenn es Probleme gibt. Weder da noch dort können Sie nämlich über die schriftliche Kommunikation die zu erwarteten Fragen, Kommentare oder Befindlichkeiten adäquat handeln, genauso wie umgekehrt auch Ihre Empfänger mangels sichtbarer Körpersprache gar nicht die Chance haben Ihre Motivation, Ihre Ziele, Ihr Ansinnen zu identifizieren. Missverständnisse und Rückschläge sind hier ohne Face-to-Face-Kommunikation vorprogrammiert. Oder anders gesagt: es würde unverhältnismäßig lang dauern, bis Sie alle Eventualitäten und alle zu berücksichtigenden Stimmungen sprachlich so in Ihr email eingebaut haben, um professionell und motivierend News verlautbart bzw. nachhaltig und wertschätzend Konflikte bereinigt zu haben

Alles zu seiner Zeit: Emails sind großartig, um sich selbst, Themen oder Termine in Erinnerung zu rufen, um geringfügige Veränderungen bei Projekten oder Entscheidungen festzuhalten oder um Unterlagen zu verschicken. Sonst sehr viel weniger.

Ich schließe mich den ForscherInnen zu 100% an: Achten Sie auf die Wahl Ihres Kommunikationskanals. Lieber einmal mehr als einmal weniger zu Ihren MitarbeiterInnen und KollegInnen gesprochen – persönlich digital, also über Webcast ist dabei eine sehr gute Lösung für dezentrale Organisationen, persönlich persönlich ist am Ende dann doch noch immer das Beste.

Dialogue, not monologue is key to success

For the first time ever scientists brought evidence that frequent interactive use of internal digital platforms affects performance as profit and revenue growth or the number of innovative products at least with 33%. Key factor to success: the option of having a live-dialogue between leaders and employees = if superiors in their webcasts not only announce projects or explain strategies, but listen and react to questions and comments alike.

Monologues to the staff without any Qs and As do not trigger postive organisational culture, even not in its digital form, and are hence no option anymore in a professional context.

Referring to two recently published studies from LA surprisingly only a few organisations make use of these advantages of modern communication. Based on these results the scientific team recommends executives to keep themselves updated when it comes to new technologies and development for digital interaction.

Leadership Communication on Internal Digital Platforms, Emotional Capital and Corporate Performance: The Case for Leader-Centric Listening. Cardon/Huang/Power, International Journal of Business Communication, I-27, 2019.

From the practice:

I am not surprised at all: Has the frontal lecture become obsolute in the analogue world in recent years, it was only a matter of time to find this rejection of monologues and the avoidance of interaction also in the digital community. This given it will get more and more difficult to argue why webcasts b executives in fields where employees have access to social media won´t offer any sort of option for dialogue int eh future.

So digital internal communication resembles more and more a panel or a press conference which will be braodcasted or streamed live. From my point of view this trend has enormous benefits: it will provide those who are interacting digitally frequnetly with their employees, pretty quickly skills and routine to stand up for their points and to respond in a clear, still motivating way.

Next time when I once again will be confronted with the tassk of supporting my clients for taping an effective webcast fort he intranet, we have to expand our topics in the future: we have to talk about potential concerns of the staff and train respective answers.

Dialog statt Monolog dabei wichtigster Erfolgsfaktor

Dass in positiven Unternehmenskulturen Führungskräfte bis zu 4 x so oft über interne digitale Plattformen mit MitarbeiterInnen kommunizieren, wußte man schon. Nun ist erstmals der Nachweis gelungen, dass die regelmäßige und interaktive Nutzung von Social Media durch Executives auch eine Auswirkung auf die Performance hat: Gewinn, Umsatz und Zahl der Innovativen Produkte steigen in derartigen Firmen um mindestens 33%. Wichtigster Erfolgsfaktor dabei: die Möglichkeiten zum Live-Dialog zwischen MitarbeiterInnen und Vorgesetzten = wenn Vorgesetzte in Webcasts nicht nur Projekte ankündigen und Strategien erklären, sondern MitarbeiterInnen auch zuhören und auf ihre Fragen und Kommentare reagieren. Monologartige Kommunikation zur Belegschaft ohne wie immer geartete Interaktion hat also auch über digitale Medien deutliche schlechtere Karten.

Das ergaben zwei jüngst veröffentlichte Studien aus LA. Die ForscherInnen halten zudem fest, dass überraschend wenige Organisationen die Vorteile interaktiver Kommunikation über interne digitale Plattformen nutzen und empfehlen Führungskräften angesichts der vorliegenden Studienergebnisse, sich in Sachen digitaler Interaktion unbedingt up-to-date zu halten.

Leadership Communication on Internal Digital Platforms, Emotional Capital and Corporate Performance: The Case for Leader-Centric Listening. Cardon/Huang/Power, International Journal of Business Communication, I-27, 2019.

Aus der Praxis:

Es wundert mich nicht: Hat der Frontalvortrag in der analogen Welt schon lange ausgedient, war es streng genommen nur eine Frage der Zeit, bis sich diese Absage an Monologe und das Vermeiden von Interaktion auch digital bemerkbar macht. Und es wird immer schwerer erklärbar werden, weshalb Videoansprachen von Vorgesetzten dort, wo MitarbeiterInnen Firmen-Smart Phones oder in ihren Büros Zugriff auf Social Media haben, nicht irgendeine Form des Dialogs anbieten.

Digitale Mitarbeiterkommunikation wird auf diese Weise einer Podiumsdiskussion oder einer Pressekonferenz, die live übertragen wird, immer ähnlicher. Aus meiner Sicht hat das enorme Vorteile: denn wer regelmäßig digital mit seinen MitarbeiterInnen interagiert, wird sehr rasch eine überdurchschnittliche Routine bekommen, jedem Publikum Rede UND Antwort zu stehen.

Lautet meine Aufgabe also wieder einmal, einen meiner KlientInnen auf ein Video für MitarbeiterInnen vorzubereiten, müssen wir hinkünftig auch immer öfter potentielle aktuelle Anliegen in der Belegschaft besprechen und bestmögliche Antworten auf deren potentielle Fragen trainieren.