I learned something about effective communication when Chicago elected its new mayor.  Among the many things Mr. Emanuel did well during the campaign one of them was his extreme proximity to his point.  He stayed on message, hardly ever deviating from what he planned and prepared to present.

One of my favorite ways of talking about how people communicate–in relationships, not in political talk–is by employing the work of Gary Chapman.  In his widely successful The Five Love Languages, Chapman talks about how we hear and give communications of love differently. 

He offers the primary ways that we perceive love.  Further, Chapman discusses how individuals have a primary way of communicating and receiving love.  These are my very old summaries, but they’re relatively accurate:

1. Quality Time–focusing your energy, attention, and conversation on the person you love and on sharing yourself.
2. Physical Touch–learning the role of touch for your partner and communicating love through touch.
3. Acts of Service–chores and tasks undertaken which show your care for another.
4. Gifts–items given to your loved one after consideration for his or her needs and desires.
5. Words of Affirmation–simple statements that encourage and affirm your significant other.

We all have a language we speak.  So, if your primary language is quality time, you perceive love when it’s offered through those particular “words.”  Someone gives you attention and presence, and it communicates that you are loved.  If that person offers you love in their language, and that language is, say, physical touch, you see it as touch but not necessarily as love.  At least not initially.  You may learn another language, but you still best perceive love as quality time.

If the point of communicating in a loving relationship–with spouses or relatives or friends–is to communicate, it takes work to learn a person’s language, especially when your language is different from that significant other’s.  It’s helpful to think in terms of actually learning a new language.  I don’t know that Chicago’s Mayor-Elect did this.  His strategy seemed to distill many of the real questions voters had into crime, education, and jobs, point to specific plans he developed, and to visit all of the el stops in order to connect with citizens and potential voters.  Rahm Emanuel succeded.  But if you and I will be fruitful in our communications outside of the political sphere, we may learn some of what Gary Chapman is talking about.

Any thoughts?