Negotiations, Emotional Receptivity and the Limitations of MS Teams

In the fascinating book by Iain McGilchrist “The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World” (Yale University Press; 2nd ed; 2019), commencing from a neuroscience perspective, McGilchrist explores the core differences between the left and right hemispheres of the brain and their interlinked, distinct but important ways of viewing the world.   The base argument is that western society is affected by an ever-increasing dominance of the left hemisphere’s perspective over the right hemisphere’s way of viewing the world.  The book tracks this increasing left brain dominance all the way through the historical development of art, music and philosophy from the ancient world to the post-modern world.   

So not too much ground to cover then…

In this monumental work, McGilchrist dispels the popular myth that the left brain is the hemisphere responsible for logic, maths and science while the right hemisphere is responsible for emotions, philosophy and spirituality.[1]  Drawing on split brain research (i.e. where one hemisphere is offline or damaged) McGilchrist draws out themes as to how the two hemispheres view the world in distinct but mutually important ways. 

One of the many interesting ways that the hemispheres act differently is in respect to the receptivity to emotions.[2]  The right hemisphere is faster and more accurate than the left hemisphere at discriminating facial expressions of emotion.[3]  Likewise, the right hemisphere interprets vocal intonation (prosody) and expression.  The right hemisphere interprets these emotional expressions as a configurational whole.[4]  The processing is unconscious, automatic and pre-verbal.  For example, you can know that someone is feeling uncomfortable even before the express thought “he looks uncomfortable” crystalises into language.

The left hemisphere, which is also responsible for express language and naming, can only read emotions by interpreting the lower part of the face and the mouth.[5]  People with right hemisphere brain injuries or disorders (but they have a dominant and functional left hemisphere) are unable to read emotions conveyed by the eyes.[6]  Interestingly, the left hemisphere is also more associated with willed expressions of emotions – like a forced smile – which is conveyed by the mouth (and often not reflected in the eyes).[7]   It would be like interpreting an emotional state from someone wearing sunglasses (probably why poker players do so).  

Now what does this have to do with work over MS Teams.

COVID-19 forced us to work from home and largely interact via Teams or Zoom for work meetings, negotiations, investigations, attending court hearings including witness examinations.  While today video conferencing remains unavoidable to some extent (particularly in workforces which have remote or hybrid workforces and/or are globally disbursed) my view is that, even with all participants having the camera on, we are missing out on our receptiveness to the unconscious, automatic and more factually accurate emotional cues that the right hemisphere allows us access to when speaking face-to-face to another person or a group.  Consequently, qualitatively, interactions by video conferencing are, in my view, vastly inferior to in-person interactions.   

By way of practical example, when interviewing or examining a witness - demeanour, affect, vocal tone, eye contact and expression will often tell a much more accurate story than the express words contained in the transcript.  Much of which is conveyed non-verbally will give an impression as to whether the witness is measured, honest and credible or not and how they feel about a particular issue.  For example (aside perhaps from prior inconsistent statements) it is almost impossible to ascertain from reading a bare transcript whether someone is exaggerating or lying.  Subtle non-verbal cues also give the interviewer ideas about where to take a line of questioning, when to change tack or whether to keep pursuing the inquiry (e.g. widened eyes, changes in eye contact, moving in seat or flinching). 

This same logic can apply to observations non-verbal cues from internal or external parties around a table during in-person meetings or negotiations (i.e. note taking, raised eyebrows, nodding, direction and level of eye contact or yawning).   My view is that you can gain momentum in decision making and issue resolution by being receptive to and pivoting to reflect the unspoken cues from around the room.  For example, I personally have a tendency to look down and take a lot of notes when another person is making a point badly or that I think is silly because I’m not very good at hiding my views on my face.          

It’s also much harder to kick someone under the desk on MSTeams.

My view is that the above examples of accurate subconscious emotional receptivity and processing (by the right hemisphere) are substantially hampered or lost completely in interactions via video conferencing software when compared to direct interpersonal interactions.   The result being that the quality of online interactions are more superficial, verbal and overt because the non-verbal communication elements which enliven the more subtle, accurate and attuned right hemispheric messaging do not readily traverse the computer screen.  Having this whole of brain picture of information available is, of course, particularly important when issues of honesty and credibility are concerned.   

I also wonder (without any science behind this statement) if this accurate right hemispheric receptivity to non-verbal cues weakens if it is not practiced regularly.   If my intuition on this is correct, this may have wide ranging and serious implications for the quality of interactions in our workplaces if video conferencing is the sole or default means of communication.

As a result, my view is that where it is possible or practicable, in person interactions are preferable over video conferencing given the ability to engage the receptivity of both left hemisphere in processing language and right hemispheres in interpreting meaning beyond the bare words uttered.   

Of course this position necessarily has implications for the remote, hybrid or full office based work environment arguments, which is beyond the scope of today’s blog.  However, my view is that the qualitative benefits of face-to-face interactions over online interactions should form part of this conversation.  

[1] Iain McGilchrist “The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World” (Yale University Press; 2nd ed; 2019), xii.

[2] Ibid, page 59.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid, page 60.

[5] Ibid, page 59.

[6] Ibid, page 62.

[7] Ibid page 62.