Good communications means nailing the message plus four contextual factors: delivery channel, timing and frequency, direction, and tone.
Of these five factors, tone appears to be the most challenging for many people.
It’s not we don’t understand that tone matters. We do. It’s not even that people don’t try to watch their tone. We do that, too.
Our challenge seems to be that our desire to speak evenly and calmly is an intellectual fancy, whereas our desire to verbally kick the beanbags out of the fluff head stickwad we’re talking to is an emotional urge… and emotional urges are much stronger than intellectual fancies.
(Much stronger.)
Those same emotions that so often get us to see red while they’re communicating also blind us to the fact that we are, in fact, seeing red.
Double whammy.
In Super Staying Power, I liken emotions to a magnet that’s been slipped under our intellectual compasses (compi), so to speak. All our intellectual faculties appear to function normally while actually providing meaningless results.
So how does one get in front of those emotional impulses? How does one protect the integrity of those intellectual processes when the emotional influences working on them are so much stronger?
C’mon, you don’t really expect a quick answer to that question, do you?
Figuring out that answer is what life is all about!
Now I think we can agree on this much: getting in front of your emotions is not a completely intellectual process, nor is it completely a question of discipline or self-awareness. As with many things, it’s a mix. And the one skill we most need if we’re going to experiment and find that right mix is the one skill we really don’t want to hear about when we have something powerful we need to get off our chests:
Patience.
How do you get in front of your emotions to control your tone? How successful are you? What other techniques have you considered—and what’s kept you from implementing them?
Jason Seiden is Co-founder and CEO of Ajax Social Media, a training company that shows professionals how use social media to work more effectively.
I'm the CEO of Ajax Social Media. We're helping 1 million people shine by making their online stories better. 
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Great post – so true. This is something that I’m actively trying to improve. It’s hard. Even when I can control my tone, I’m an open book and my facial expressions often betray my true feelings. The best advice that I’ve gotten to date (from a personal coach), is to practice being present. Focus on what the other person is feeling (in addition to what they are saying) and reflect that back to them, pay attention to the colors and noises on your way to work, scan the room to take in others’ reactions or body language. Essentially, take a break from multi-tasking and throw yourself into what you are doing in that moment. It’s harder than it sounds. By doing this, I keep my mind busy so that I don’t have so much time to think ahead and plan my response, I’m focusing on what’s going on instead of reviewing my to-do list at the same time as listening to someone else, and I’m forcing myself to listen to everything before really reacting. I’m starting small – 15 minute increments – so as not to overwhelm myself. The jury is still out as to how it works for me, but it seems to make sense since part of my problem is processing things more quickly than the average person. I’m interested to see if anyone else has good tips/tricks that have worked for them!
@Jennifer—That’s great advice. Eventually, you’ll discover that many of those emotions that pass across your face are either reactions to, or reflections of, the emotions you feel coming at you from others. But getting ahead of them can be incredibly difficult.
Potential interim goal: Rather than focus on being completely present (welcome to the rest of your life), focus on one element of each situation. For instance: take note of what people are wearing/what color cars they drive. Or, look for patterns in the way people wear their hair. Then add something else, like people’s tendency to wear jewelry, or similarities in hand motions. Keep adding observations one at a time.
And one more thing: keep a journal… it’ll help!
A persons tone can really make or break a conversation. Sometimes just taking a step back to reevaluate the situation can really help. Also, if tones and tempers rise, it is easy to get off track of what the true point of the conversation was. By controlling your tone both in and out of the office can make people feel more comfortable talking to you and possibly even more productive. Great post!
@Roger—how many times have we been in a “discussion” and stayed there, long after the point has been agreed or conceded, simply because the tone we were using kept the other person enraged?!