Communication skills are how you get people to listen to what you say and do what you ask. This is why good communication is essential to your happiness and success.
But people are different and what works for one person doesn't work for the next.
Warning Signs that Your Communication is Ineffective:
People not listening to you
People not doing what you wanted
Misunderstandings and having to repeat yourself often
People having negative perceptions of you
Conflict
Tip: Find out How to Communicate More Effectively With Different Types of People. So that you can be more persuasive in your communication which will increase your success and happiness in life and business.
Have you ever said something to one person, and received a certain response, but said exactly the same thing to another person, and received a totally different response? What makes communication so challenging is that people are different. You said the same thing, but what each person "heard" was not the same! No wonder it’s so easy for simple communications to go badly wrong. But successful communication is vital to your success in life which is why you can’t afford to leave successful communications to chance.
Bulk communication is especially difficult because you’re communicating with all sorts of different people. What works for one person doesn’t work for everyone. If you don’t adapt your message, it will only work for a few people. Instead what I’m going to show you is how you can adapt your message so that it works better for different people.
We’re living in a world where people are increasingly distracted, the ability to communicate persuasively is becoming increasingly valuable. Instead of blaming others for not listening, when you learn how to:
Hold people's attention
Explain your message so that everyone understands and
Make your message motivational so that people do what you want
Don’t be the Angry Shouty Person
Now we all have experienced the angry - shouty person. This is the person who doesn’t know how to get their message across. What happens is that they get frustrated and the only way that they know how to make people listen to them is to use aggression, force and role power. These are the people that become the angry-shouty man. We’ve all been on the wrong side of the angry shouty man and we all know that it’s extremely unpleasant to experience this aggression.
But not only is this behaviour unpleasant, we also know that it doesn’t work. Because when we experience the angry shouty man our own flight or flight response is activated. This emotional reaction doesn’t solve problems, it just creates more problems.
But as much as we don’t like to admit it, we’ve also all been the angry shouty man ourselves. There are times when we get frustrated because people aren’t listening and it’s not nice to be there. Instead we need to wake up and find a better way and communicate better.
People are different - if you don’t adapt, your message will die
The reasons why communications fail more than they succeed is based on a simple fact about people. You know how some people are so impatient, they will barely give you 5 seconds of their attention while others move so slowly that it’s painful to get them to do anything. Some people will talk your ear off, while others would rather text message you even when they’re right next to you
What we are talking about here is what some people call personality models. The proper psychology term for this is behaviour models. It sounds a bit technical but this is simply about having a framework for something that we all know about already. We all already know that people are different. What this means is that different people respond differently to the same stimuli. What works for one person does not work for the next person. And more importantly, your way of doing things isn’t effective with everyone. That means that when you communicate your message will work well with some people but it won’t work with most people. If your message doesn’t work, then you won’t achieve the objectives you wanted.
Use a framework to make a message for everyone
Instead, when we adapt our message so that it works for the recipient then we will be an effective communicator. The concept for “How to Communicate with Everyone” is to ensure that your message has something for everyone in it and structure the message in the correct way.
To make sure that I have a message with something for everyone, I use the DISC behaviour model because it’s scientifically validated but is simple enough to use in everyday life and business. Don’t worry, you don’t have to be a psychologist to work with this because I will do all the heavy lifting for you.
Differences aren’t bad and you are the one who must adapt
Now when someone doesn’t understand the way you communicate, the temptation is to label their way as bad and to blame them for not being able to understand you. This doesn’t work because:
Different doesn’t automatically mean good or bad and
Blaming others doesn’t solve your problems
The reason why different isn’t automatically good or bad is because when it comes to someone’s behavior model there isn’t a wrong or a right way. For example someone can be more assertive or less assertive. Yes there are times when it’s better to be more assertive but there are also times when it’s better to be less assertive. Each behavior has got its pros and cons. The different behavior models are like mirror images of each other. For each strength there is a corresponding opposite weakness. That’s one reason I really like it because it’s like a Yin and a Yang perspective.
And blaming others doesn’t solve your problems because blame doesn’t make someone listen to you. Blame also means that the fault lies with the other person which makes you powerless to fix the problem. Instead of blame, recast the problem into a challenge: How can you be more persuasive? How can you communicate your view better so that they understand what you’re trying to say? It’s simple, if you want something from somebody, then the “currency” that you use it good communication.
Another way of saying this is that the reason people do what they do is because they see the world differently to you. And this is the route to a powerful corollary:
If you want someone to act the way you do then help them to see the world the same way that you see it.
How this Relates to You
The thing is that you also have a default behavior style.
This determines what other people think of you and
This determines how effective you are in your interactions with other people
A good way of thinking about this is that it’s similar to making friends. You know how some people you meet and you instantly just click with them. You’re on the same wavelength, maybe you even finish each other’s sentences. While with others there’s a lack of common understanding. Maybe it’s so bad that there’s an instant dislike.
Now your messages experience the same thing. Your messages will resonate with some people but not others. They may even repulse other people. The thing is that in life you can choose your friends but business forces you to communicate with difficult people.
There are 4 main DISC styles split into 4 different quadrants. Speaking to someone in a different DISC quadrant is like talking a different language. It’s not obvious because you’re both speaking English so you think you understand each other. But this it’s almost like some type of tragic comedy when a failure to communicate results in disaster.
This is why you must adapt your message for it to work with different people. If your message doesn’t have content for all behaviour types then it won’t work for all people. And it’s not just about the content, it’s also about the order.
The usual wisdom is “don’t try to make everyone happy” or in marketing this is known as, not trying to sell to everyone. Instead pick the audience that resonates and focus on just these people. But sometimes you don’t have the luxury of ignoring a lot of people. When you do bulk communications use this guidance to make sure that you have a message that will work for everybody.
The 4 main personality types are D for Dominance, I for Influence, S for Stability and C for Conscientious. When it comes to communicating with these people remember that they all will look for different things and you can use the following mnemonic to remember what to communicate:
D for Deliverables
I for Inspiration
S for Security and People and
C for Careful Calculations
Using this guidance simply results in a well constructed message because it answers all the questions that people ask.
Remember to answer the What, Who, How and Why questions as part of your communications. This will ensure you communications are motivational as well as complete.
Ineffective people blame others for their communication problems. Successful people take responsibility for making sure that their communications work, even if they have to change.
Remember, you can’t change other people, you can only change yourself. But when you change yourself, then you can change the world.
Next Steps
To be successful in life and business, it’s essential that you can communicate persuasively but people are different which means your message doesn’t work with everyone. Unsuccessful people blame others for not listening to their message, but successful people take responsibility for the success of their communication. And successful communication means adapting your message to the receiver.
When you talk to someone one on one it’s easier to monitor if your communication is working and change it when it isn’t.
How to Communicate With Everyone is a short on-line course that will show you:
What happens when you don’t adapt your communication
How to communicate more effectively with each of the main personality type
Comments:
Do you have any comments, questions or tips for communicating more effectively with different types of people? Please share in the comments below.