Have you ever been in the situation where something you’ve said had a completely unanticipated response? What about that time when you thought you asked one of your team members to do XYZ but they did ABC?
When miscommunication in business communication occurs, what’s our usual reaction? Most of us blame the other person. Why did you do that? What didn’t you understand about my instruction? Why are you wasting your time and mine? What’s wrong with you?
If you’ve read our earlier blogs on communication, you’ll be familiar with the formula for communication theory.
Person A “encodes” their message from their own perspective, having very clear in their mind the message that they want to put across. Person B then “decodes” the message from their perspective.
Inevitably, if person A does not ensure that person B receives the message that they intended, then unsurprisingly, person B goes and does something different to what person A wanted. This is typically how most misunderstandings start. Therefore, it’s quite possible that your employee is not being deliberately hard to get along with, it’s just how they’ve interpreted what you’ve said to them.
Within a group of people there’s a wide variety of personalities. Every one of us are different, and we each see things from a many different perspectives.
One of the tools that we use with our clients is ‘DISC’. It’s a great tool that does the following three things:
According to ‘DISC’, there are four distinct communication styles and each of us operate to varying degrees within them.
First group is direct, demanding and domineering in communication to others. They think and speak very quickly. When someone asks a question, they can generally come back with an answer very quickly. They don’t like lots of detail when they get a report – all they generally read is the executive summary.
Some of us in our communication like to make sure in every situation we can share our opinion about the subject being discussed. We like our ideas and intentions to be expressed and we don’t like to be legislated or muffled. We like to make sure that there is time for relationship building in all our communication.
Others want to make sure that all communication begins with personal comments and the ice is broken; we don’t want to rush headlong into business or the agenda. When asked a question, this group needs to think about their response before answering. Their communication is more deliberate and more considered. Most people prefer this form of communication.
The fourth group of people are the ones that must have all the details. Communication with them must be organised. They will not give a quick decision unless they have all the facts. These people must be given the opportunity to be prepared because they don’t like being put on the spot. With this group, you must also always do what you say you are going to do.
No doubt you can see that these four communication preferences automatically create tension between individuals. Let us be your life and business coach, at Kaibizzen we are experts at the art of communication and are ready to help you and your team master the art of communication. If you’d like to understand more about your team’s communication styles and how you can leverage it to create more productivity and profitability in your business, contact us today. We aim to provide a holistic business coaching experience.
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