Communication Styles, How to Become an Effective Communicator

It doesn’t mean you speak the loudest or most often, but rather that  you are getting your message across clearly and also taking in the messages you’re receiving from the people around you.

Observe if those you’re speaking to are moving toward or away, by asking what that person wants.

If they start listing things they don’t want (they don’t want to fail, they don’t want to be stuck in the same dead-end job) or talking about what they do want  (a family, to succeed at their job) then you’ll know how to direct the conversation.

• When trying to communicate effectively with someone who has an internal frame of reference, appeal to the things they know about themselves. Tie your communication to a personal fact you already know about that person.
• Those with an external frame of reference want to hear more about what their peers thought about a given program or decision.

• Self-sorters look at an interaction or decision and think, “What’s in it for me?” 
• Someone who sorts by thinking of others responds to questions by wondering how it will affect those around them.

If you’re looking to be persuasive with someone, you want to see things through their eyes and communicate in a way they can relate to.

• Matchers look for sameness in the world, trying to understand how things relate to each other. 
• Mismatchers see how things are different. 

Part of establishing trust, or being able to convince someone, is sensing the different needs of different people. 

• If you’re trying to sell someone a product, and they trust you immediately, you know you’re going to be able to do your job. 
• If you sense you’re with someone who needs more convincing, see if there’s a tool you can use to help develop a bond with your potential customer.

• People motivated by possibility make choices based on what they want to do and are hopeful about pursuing the unknown. 
• Those who make decisions based on necessity do things because they feel they have to. People who are driven by acts out of a feeling of necessity are trustworthy and can be predictable.