Networks and business in the networked world do not work that way. Companies can no longer afford to eliminate emotion from their lexicon. Here’s the big reason why: Networks thrive on meaningful dialogue, and most of the meaningful dialogue between human beings happens on the emotional level.

Emotions are what move and motivate us. They define our relationships with one another. They inspire (or discourage) us. Recent breakthrough research by scientists like Drs. Hanna and Antonio Damasio show us that emotions are evolutionary triggers. They reward (”feels good”) productive behaviors and punish (”feels bad”) unproductive ones.

Let me give you a very simple distinction between different levels of meaning conveyed in our dialogues with one another. We have a brand. Let’s call it ‘Dog’.

There is cosmetic meaning associated with the brand, the purely factual information about it: ‘Four legs’, ‘Fur’, ‘Canidae Family’, ‘Dog year = Seven Human Years’, etc. etc. etc.

There is meta meaning associated with it, the symbolism used to convey the brand’s role in the world: ‘Lassie’, ‘His Master’s Voice’, ‘Hunter’, ‘Seeing Eye’, ‘Man’s Best Friend’, etc. etc. etc.

And layered into all of the above like oil between deposits of sandstone is the emotional meaning: ‘Loyalty’, ‘Fearlessness’, ‘Friendliness’, ‘Excitement’, ‘Playfulness’ ”Danger’, ‘Love’, etc. etc. etc.

We can say a lot of things about our brand over unlimited numbers of channels, but the things that matter most to the world, that maintain the most vitality, move our audience, and have the potential to grow more meaningful as they traverse our ‘Dognet’, are those aspects of the brand that we convey with emotion.

None of this is to say that emotions are easy to manage or inject into institutionally ingrained processes. This is combustible stuff we’re talking about. Stuff that can sink you just as dramatically as it can elevate you. Let too much emotion seep into a scene with players who view it as a weakness and it will destroy that scene in a heartbeat. Let negative emotions go viral and they will have the same effect on your brand that dogfighting did on Michael Vick.

This, then, is an area where improvisational ability becomes vitally important to business in the networked world. Improvisers understand that productive scenes always involve emotional communication, and they are adept at keeping those emotions positive and focused on the objective. Improvisation provides the discipline and the objectivity necessary to work with the inflammable matters of communication that can bless your brand or mess it up bigtime.