The following guest post about adapting to communication styles is penned by Marguerite Zimmerman, CEO of e=mz². Marguerite is a recognized expert in corporate training and a pioneer in the field of gamification. I find her videos especially helpful and hope you also see the value of her insights. She has helped many organizations across North America improve communication for sales, marketing, client engagement and team collaboration.
I love words like ‘difference’ and ‘change’. And when I’m speaking enthusiastically I use these words a lot. It’s easy to do this – I know better but I’m attracted to shiny new baubles.
If you are attracted to shiny new baubles you might find yourself, like me, using words that appeal to you. Which is good when you are communicating with people that are like-minded. It’s not so good when you are communicating with people who like such words as ‘same’, ‘tweaked’ and ‘improved’.
The words people use tell us a great deal about them. At the very least, word choice tells us about how a person wants to be communicated with. It’s so easy to forget this, making us miss the mark because we get caught up in communicating how we want others to communicate with us.
A key aspect of effective communication and persuading is to help the person you are communicating with hear your message. They “hear” it quicker or at a deeper level when we communicate with them in their language, by using words that match them.
As a starting point it’s important to identify your own communication style. When you know your communication style you can start to pay better attention to others’ styles. And once you start to see what is the same or different, you can be more mindful and adapt to your audience.
Here’s a link to a short video to help you get a sense of what your style is to help you get started.
