At Noetic, our clients often hire us to help them understand their “WHO”—their customers and clients who make up their target audience. As a marketer, I always stress the importance of knowing the needs and desires of your target customer. This allows you to best communicate with them. It is paramount to understand this external audience. But, I want to share how it is just as important to know your internal WHO: your own team members.
Teams that communicate effectively enable each person to feel motivated, valued and understood. With this base, the sky is the limit on what you can achieve. Yet, communication styles vary greatly. So, it is many times easier to be misunderstood, or at least not understood fully. Noetic uses a tool to help teams know and understand each other better by simply understanding each other’s different communication styles. At the end of the day, communicating clearly and effectively internally, enables you to also communicate well with those outside of your company. And that is always the goal!
Communication Styles
As individuals, we all have different and unique ways of giving and receiving information—of communicating. We should celebrate and embrace our differences! They enable us to be nimble and versatile as a team, if channeled correctly and intentionally. Noetic uses a proven approach, first developed by Kirk Bridgman (2010), to help unlock communication differences for teams. Bridgman’s approach distills these differences into 4 styles: demonstrators, contemplators, narrators, and assertors. Let me show you a few examples.
A demonstrator is fast-paced, people-oriented and prefers an informal atmosphere. Demonstrators are our friends who are results oriented and run full steam ahead. They can be easy to spot, too – literally! They usually wear bright colors and sit in an open posture. If you have a demonstrator on your team, focus on relationship building and put everything down in writing. This ensures they can remember the important takeaways later.
Like all differences, communication differences can bring tension to our relationships if we are unwilling to try to understand the other person. Each style is predisposed to tension with certain other styles. Using the example above, a demonstrator is particularly susceptible to tension with a contemplator. Contemplators are task oriented, and are more indirect and slower-paced than their demonstrator team members. They are analytical, detail oriented and pride themselves in orderliness and accuracy. These are some significant differences from their demonstrator counterparts—so it makes sense how misunderstandings could arise.
Thoughtful Communication Avoids Misunderstandings
The best way to show you care about your team member is to communicate with them in the way they best receive information. So, perhaps try using less small talk with the contemplators on your team, and be well prepared with precise data. As you can see, knowing the various styles on your team minimizes relational misunderstandings that spring up because of different, and likely subconscious, communication preferences. Without knowing and understanding the differing styles on your team, it is easy to peg someone as lazy or disorganized. These types of misunderstandings can really damage your team synergies and efficiencies—and sometimes, can just be plain frustrating. We can’t help you with all the frustrations you might face on the job. But, we can bring clarity to your team’s communication. Let me share an example with you.
Real Story of Communication Breakthrough
We recently had the opportunity to help a company work through their internal communication roadblocks. This company was a global media content provider about to embark on their annual planning. They hoped to bring the team together more cohesively as they planned and prioritized initiatives for the coming year. Through an exercise on communication styles, each was surprised and enlightened to learn their own style. They were also surprised to see how many demonstrators were on the team. The sole contemplator came to understand why he often felt frustrated or misunderstood. Similarly, the other team members gained new insight in how best to communicate with him. Bear in mind, there are no wrong communication styles. But, there is a wrong way to handle these differences. By leading this communication style identification session, Noetic illuminated a path forward for the team to better understand each other and be more cohesive.
Unlock Communication for your Team
Do you know how your colleagues like to communicate? Do you know your own communication style? To be honest, when I first used this tool on myself, I was really surprised by the level of self-awareness I found! I learned so much about my own communication, but even more so about that of my colleagues. I realized the many ways I was susceptible to misreading others. From now on, I am able to better assess the style of any person I am interacting with. This awareness allows me to proactively adjust my communication, so we can better understand each other. I see a tremendous difference with this on a nearly daily basis.
Noetic is passionate about helping teams really communicate. We would love the opportunity to unlock communication for you and your company. We want you to be the best team you can be… ready to best serve and communicate with your customers.