When it comes to communication styles, I’ve noticed a human tendency to register two main styles, your own style and the ‘wrong style’. That’s right. The style you are comfortable with, and the style you are uncomfortable with, no matter what that style is. For example, it could be the longwinded, ‘detailed communicator’ who bores the pants off you, or the ‘general communicator’ who leaves you piecing together a trail of clues. And these are just two of the many different ways people choose to communicate.

In reality, we are not registering the ‘wrong’ style so much, as one that is just different to our own. Yet the problem with this difference is that we have to work so much harder to hear through that different style in order to get to the substance. We have to suppress our frustrations at wading through the detail, or piecing together the clues, to get to the heart of the message. This makes us feel that our style is the right one, because it feels easy to us.

The trap here is that easy isn’t always effective; Easy for me doesn’t always mean easy for you. After all, I may be ‘detailed’ and you might be ‘general’ in style. Unless our styles are perfectly matched, one of us has to do the hard work of translation.

The mark of a great communicator is someone who is flexible. Someone who can adapt their communication style, and connect on any level, with any other style.

So the only communication style you need to succeed is a flexible one. Period. ☺