"Many males view life as a game. They play their roles of husband, father and coach. They play the game of life to the best of their ability," Cave said. Men tend to play to win, for keeps, with processes, rules and structures.

Many women, in contrast, don't look at life or love as a game. They've grown up more interested in building a sense of community and network of relationships, Orlowski noted. 

One of the keys to improving communication between men and women and people with different personality or cultural styles is to check the semantics of the words being used when disagreements arise.

For example, to some people the word “draft" means a document is open to any and all changes. For others, “draft" can mean the document may need a little more tweaking but is basically in final form, Orlowski said. It is important for co-workers to be aware that they may be defining the same word differently.

Another key to improving communication is to not always expect the worst of others, Orlowski said. She cited Miller's Law: "In order to understand what another person is saying, you must assume that it is true and try to imagine what it could be true of."

Orlowski said, "Often we come into conversations with preconceived notions about other people. One of our goals is to break down some of those preconceived notions so when something happens, we can get past the irritability and realize that although we're different, we're after the same thing—effective communication."

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