feelings: “gaze an eagle blind,” “hear the lowest sound,” “soft,”
“tender,””gross in taste.” Needless to say this is very skillful
writing. Typically the majority of people have visual as a first
preference and this is the choice with which Shakespeare
starts. Feelings language is what encourages the reader to
associate and connect with what is being said and this is at the
heart of this passage. And finally he leads to us a less usual
form of language—leaving a sweet taste in our mouths?
Of course, you may not want to communicate exactly like
Shakespeare in one of your project review meetings, but you
probably do want to capture and hold your audience's
attention. And you want to speak or write in a way that
increases the likelihood of your listener or your reader
understanding what you say.
To do this it is important to be able to have the choice of
using all the senses in the way you speak or write. You will
discover that your listeners and your readers have
preferences, as in the following example.
Pete and Joe rarely agreed. They each complained that they
found the other frustrating. As senior managers in a rapidly
growing organization, it was vital that they understood each
other’s point of view. Whenever they got together to make
decisions Pete wanted to get a grasp of the situation and make
decisions based on his gut feeling. He’d had a lot of success
working this way. Joe, on the other hand, liked to talk his ideas
through in full. Typically he would have a list of points that he
wanted to discuss. Pete quickly got frustrated with this and
usually cut the meeting short. Their inability to reach a
satisfactory conclusion had resulted in Pete moving Joe to a new
position where they had less direct contact.
It seemed as though Pete and Joe were speaking a different
language; in a way they were. Pete thought and talked mainly in
terms of feelings. He made decisions based on “gut feel.” Joe
had a very auditory way of communicating, he would “talk his
ideas through” and have “points to discuss.” They were using
different senses to communicate, or rather try to communicate.
If your means of communicating is the same as the person to
whom you are speaking, then you are literally talking the same
All sensesENRICHED COMMUNICATION 83