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Instantly Become A Better Communicator By Asking One Simple Question

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What's the secret to being a great communicator? Ironically, great communication has less to do with the words that leave your mouth and more to do with the words that enter your listeners' ears. And the words your listeners hear are largely determined by whether you've tailored your message to their particular style of communicating.

Based on the one million-plus people who've taken the test, What’s Your Communication Style?, we know there are four fundamental communication styles.

  • Intuitive communicators want to hear the bottom line. They skip to the end, listen for the big picture, and tend to tune out the nitty-gritty details.
  • Functional communicators tune in to the nitty-gritty details. They like when conversations and presentations proceed step-by-step in a linear and orderly fashion.  
  • Analytical communicators listen for hard data, numbers and analytics. They generally tune out when people emote or use lots of feeling words.
  • Personal communicators listen for, and tune in to, feelings, emotions, and interpersonal connections.  

To be a great communicator, one of your first tasks is to determine the type of person with whom you're communicating. And to do that, you should get in the habit of asking something like, "What would you most like to hear about?"

Depending on your particular situation, you could ask, "What's the one thing you would most like to hear from me today?" or "What could I share with you?" Any number of variations will work, as long as you're gathering information about the type of communicator with whom you're speaking.

If you're speaking with intuitive communicators, they'll often say something like, "Can you just cut to the chase?" Functional communicators typically want to know how the situation started, what happened first, then second, and so on. Analytical communicators often want to know about factors that involve data, for example, how much something costs, how many hours it will take, etc. And if you're speaking with personal communicators, they'll want to know how people feel, what emotions were involved, and more.

As you might expect, within organizations, certain departments tend to attract certain types of communicators. As you can see in the chart below, data from the communication styles test reveals that in IT departments, 35% of people are analytical communicators. Meanwhile, in HR departments, 37% are personal communicators. In Finance areas, 60% of people are either analytical or intuitive communicators.

Regardless of the group to whom you're speaking, it's always a good idea to check in and ask what they would most like to hear about. Of course, even without asking, over a long-enough relationship, you'll learn the preferred styles of the most significant people in your life and career.  

If you notice your boss fading when you describe the minutia of a situation, it's likely that they're an intuitive communicator who just wants the bottom line. If your coworker regularly asks you for more details about who-said-what-to-whom in last week's meeting, it's probable that they're a personal communicator. If your biggest customer frequently asks you to back up to the beginning and walk them through the situation step-by-step, it's a good bet that they're a functional communicator.

However, asking people directly what they want to hear makes your communications exponentially easier. Once you know the types of communication someone desires, it's a straightforward process to deliver exactly what they want to hear. And that's a key step in becoming a truly great communicator.

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