What's Your Com Style?
Posted on September 11, 2014 by Stephan Thieringer, One of Thousands of Executive Coaches on Noomii.
Are you aware of your communication style and how do you adapt to other's to be more effective?
When it comes to effective communication, one style doesn’t fit all. We all communicate in different ways. Knowing our own style and developing the ability to adapt to other’s is not only smart but it is also a sign of flexibility, openness and great leadership. CEOs, any senior executive, small business owners, and for that matter anyone with a leadership responsibility will benefit from understanding the 6 aspects communication styles outlined below.
Let’s dive into these:
1. Processing Time. There are several ways people process information. Some are quick, some need time to process and absorb.
2. Speaking Pace. Some people talk so fast it makes other people’s head spin, some enjoy a slow pace.
3. Preferred Medium. Some individuals love face-to-face interactions, some would rather email, text or write a memo. On top of that, some prefer formal meetings, others enjoy informal conversations, quick hallway discussions or group meetings.
4. Preferred Frequency. Some persons love to meet regularly during the week, for others once every month is enough to keep them satisfied.
5. Tolerance for Details. Some are “give me the bottom line” kind of individuals, some would rather go through everything in great detail.
6. Willingness to Be Vulnerable. Some are likely to ask for help, some are not. Same with apologizing or using self-deprecating humor.
Now, the hardest part: For each of the styles listed above, challenge yourself to look within and inquire:
1. How does each style apply to me?
2. How does each style apply to the person(s) I am having a communication challenge with?
3. And, very importantly: How can I adapt to that individual so that I feel more effective and influential while preserving a high quality of the relationship?
I’ll start: My preferred medium is to communicate via email. When dealing with someone who enjoys face to face interactions, I keep an open mind and adapt by being real about the situation at hand: How efficient is email communication versus face to face in this specific situation? In other words, I step out of my comfort zone and shift on a case by case basis. If I realize that a face-to-face meeting is the best way to solve an issue or get results, I will make time for a one-on-one interaction. If, on the other hand, meeting is not only unnecessary but may even be counter-productive, I openly and honestly raise the issue with that person to find a middle ground: “I believe communicating by email will be more efficient moving forward with this task since the first step involves an independent data analysis on your part. Send me a first draft of that report that I will review. If questions arise that cannot be solved by email, let’s schedule a 45-minute meeting”.
The other person understands the rationale behind the decision to communicate by email and knows that I keep an open mind about meeting face to face. In some cases that may even allows the project or task to progress faster as both parties can work at their pace without having to coordinate a commonly available meeting time and location, especially if not in-house.
Same with processing time. I tend to enjoy taking my time. But some situations and individuals call for a quick decision. Ask yourself, how critical is it for me to make a quick decision on this matter? Some situations can wait, some cannot. If it’s urgent and important, make it quick!
There are a lot of other communication styles that are not mentioned in this post. Examples are people’s natural energy level, sense of humor, need for perfection, logical versus emotive, optimism versus pessimism, etc… But the 6 aspects described above will give you a jump start and help you be more flexible and effective when communicating with other business stakeholders.
