For example, detail-minded people will nit-pick the big picture folks with a mountain of minutiae and easygoing people will annoy the task-oriented ones with stories that get to the point sometime in the next millennium.
Is there a way to breakthrough these barriers to communication? Yes. But it takes a lot more patience and a little less ego.
Communication Styles
To resolve this problem, it is necessary to categorize and define the communication styles that are in the workplace. Unfortunately, this is not easy to do.
Kate Lorenz, editor for CareerBuilder.com, identifies two major styles and their opposites. She cites David G. Jensen, director of CareerTrax Inc. who believes that two elements determine a person’s communication style: their level of openness and their level of directness.
Open people like to talk and often share personal information. Their opposites tend to keep things to themselves – sometimes things that others need to know.
Getting past these differences requires people to analyze the person they are talking to and communicate on their level. For example, a reserved person talking to an open one should get the point by way of a story or antidote while making sure they tell them everything they need to know.
An indirect communicator needs to feel comfortable with the other person before they can speak freely. For that reason, a direct communicator will need to ask non-threatening questions and slow down their speech pattern.
Another writer, Stacey Hanke writing for Your Workplace magazine in 2004 identifies four different, yet related characteristics of communication styles. His four styles are:
- Controllers: take charge people
- Collaborators: easygoing people
- Analyzers: detail-oriented and logical
- Socializers: outgoing people who thrive on change and meeting people
Managing Communication Styles
The goal of any study about communication styles is to figure out how to communicate more effectively. While it is important to identify the style of the other person, it is equally important to understand how to be understood by that person.
Hanke, for example, recommends that managers be open and flexible to the styles of other people and identifies five characteristics of communicators who are open and flexible. They are:
- Be a good listener and ask questions to learn more and watch for verbal cues
- Be willing to change your mind, look for alternatives and work with others to resolve conflict
- Be willling to learn new behaviors and what motivates others
- Be positive about mistakes and take responsibility for them
- Be sensitive and respectful of differences and adapt behavior to match that of the audience
Additionally, Hanke suggests that managers should watch facial expressions, eye contact, tone of voice and gestures to find clues about their effectiveness as communicators.
Jada Edmondson, an instructional designer writing for allbusiness.com, suggests that communicators pay close attention to how those around them communicate. “For example,” writes Edmondson, “if you sense that the person you are speaking to is nervous because you are standing over him, then try sitting down.”
Communicating with Style
Psychologists can identify many personality types or styles which makes it difficult to track. Most writers, however, identify about four communication styles and they all seem to break down into direct or controlling, indirect or reserved, social and analytical.
Once a communicator identifies a communication style, it is a lot easier to modify their own approach to meet the style of the other person.
Joseph Giunta - Although Joe Giunta's background includes doing everything from drafting to teaching computer graphics, he is primarily a writer and ...
Join the Conversation