“I Know Exactly What You Mean!” Cultivate Your Listening with Style

It has taken me a very long time to comprehend people who aren’t exactly like me but such understanding is the key to connecting with clients and to loved ones as well. Because this venue I’m writing for is meant to serve colleagues in business, I’ll be focusing on cultivating the best skills for “listening to clients.”

Not everyone grew up having dinner conversations that were more like hockey games than patient inquiries into the highs and lows everyone’s day. Communication styles that each of us has naturally cultivated grew up in the same ways that we did. At present, most of us tend to embody moods, styles, inflections that gave us the most attention as kids. You may witness this truism organically emerge at any business meeting or small group occasion.

I find that there are four major types of communicators and being a quick read of another’s style is one very important way I am improving my capacity to connect, learn and address my clients needs and desires.

Years ago lots of literature emerged that spoke of the power of understanding diverse communication “styles” and differences in "knowing" between men and women, people from a variety of ethnic and social backgrounds, parents and kids, and workplace colleagues and supervisors. 

For the most part, “awakening” to your own style and respecting the style (and differences) of others was advised, i.e., accept, work with, and tolerate people who are not you.

What I add to the mission above is to learn your own style and study the other three main communication styles (below) so well that you can recognize when your own style works and does not when trying to connect with others—knowing that you can “auto-correct” at any point in any conversation. Keep in mind that connecting with others is the point of all interactions and must happen if one is to be of service to her or his clients.

Connecting with and understanding others as a prime directive may be a revolutionary demand for some of us, as I said in the beginning. For instance, if you were raised by a character like Tony Soprano, winning or surviving any conflict may be your default style whenever there’s conflict or tension. Sometimes the context may not be conflictual, and yet you’ll still assume that all interactions will have a winner and a loser and you’ll play the role (and take the outcome) that you always did as a child. Such thinking rarely works out for the good. But, such styles of interacting can change with greater awareness, understanding and the humility to keep learning.

The key objective is to understand your own communication style and to be able to quickly and accurately identify the style of others; then adapt so that you treat others the way they want to be treated.

Historical, as well as contemporary, research reveals more than a dozen various models that articulate our behavioral differences, but many share one common thread: the grouping of behavior into four categories. Most assessments are based on self-reports and assume we "round up" our behavior according to our ideal self (thus some questions will trick us—be repeated a number of different ways—to tease out the truth of our practices in the external world—beyond our internal reflections).

The following information is gathered from an online questionnaire called The Platinum Rule™ Here’s a quick overview of the four behavioral styles and a brief description of how extreme behaviors may be perceived by others:

The Director Style: This style is driven by two governing needs:  the need to control and the need to achieve. They are goal-oriented go-getters who are most comfortable when they are in charge of people and situations. They want to accomplish many things now, so they focus on no-nonsense approaches to bottom-line results.

She/He seek expedience and is not afraid to bend the rules. They figure it is easier to beg forgiveness than to ask permission. They accept challenges, take authority, and plunge headfirst into solving problems. They take charge in a crisis. They are fast-paced, task-oriented, and work quickly and impressively by themselves, which means they become annoyed with delays. 

The Socializer Style:  This style is friendly, enthusiastic "party-animals" who like to be where the action is. They thrive on the admiration, acknowledgment, and compliments that come with being in the limelight. They just want to have fun. They are more relationship-oriented than task-oriented. They would rather "schmooze" with clients over lunch than work in the office.

This style’s strengths are enthusiasm, charm, persuasiveness, and warmth.  They are gifted in people skills and communication skills with individuals as well as groups. They are great influencers. They are idea-people and dreamers who excel at getting others excited about their vision. They are optimists with an abundance of charisma. 

The Relater Style: This style is warm, supportive, and nurturing.  They are the most people-oriented of the four styles. The Relater Styles are excellent listeners, devoted friends, and loyal employees. Their relaxed disposition makes them approachable and warm. They develop strong networks of people who are willing to be mutually supportive and reliable. The Relater Styles are excellent team players.

This style tends to be risk-averse.  When the Relater Styles are faced with change, they need to think it through, plan, and accept it into their world. The Relater Styles, more than the other behavioral types, strive to maintain personal composure, stability, and balance.

Relater Styles are courteous, friendly, and willing to share responsibilities. They are good planners, persistent workers, and good with follow-through.  They can be slow decision-makers because of their need for security, their need to avoid risk, and their desire to include others in the decision-making process.

The Thinker Style: This style is analytical, persistent, and systematic she/he enjoys problem solving. They are detail-oriented, which makes them more concerned with content than style. 

The Thinker Styles have high expectations of themselves and others, which can make them over-critical. Their tendency toward perfectionism – taken to an extreme – can cause “paralysis by over-analysis.” They are slow and deliberate decision-makers. They do research, make comparisons, determine risks, calculate margins of error, and then take action. The Thinker Styles become irritated by surprises and glitches, hence their cautious decision-making. The Thinker Styles are also skeptical, so they like to see promises in writing.

The Thinker Styles’ strengths include an eye for detail and accuracy, dependability, independence, persistence, follow-through, and organization. They are good listeners and ask a lot of questions; however, they run the risk of missing the forest for the trees.

NOW WHAT DO I DO?

Don’t forget, applying these insights to clients doesn’t mean you throw yourself and your unique style under the Capitalist Bus! Rather, it means working more skillfully with your own tendencies and predilections in conversation so that you might connect with your client—someone, most likely, with a different style than your own. "Connecting" means "getting into their world" in a way that reflects and speaks to their style.

For example, if I'm speaking with a relater, I'm going to be very watchful to resist interrupting. I'm going to work hard to do the following: ask open-ended questions, listen patiently as they process information, work on making eye contact, use the feeling words that they use, and respond more slowly than I would if I were with my own "director/socializer" type.

If I'm a relater, I'm going to prefer meeting with clients one-on-one to hear and respond thoughtfully to what my they are trying to say and mirror back to them what I've heard them saying.

With “bottom-line” Director-types, speaking directly to the point in a quick, short, content-relevant sentences will be more effective. Going on and on with long stories and slow-to-the-point examples will make that exchange the last one.

Thinkers require accuracy, rigor, relevant information, specific details and little-to-no story. Small talk kills them. As a matter of fact, they might not even attend Bizjam08!

Socializers love to yack it up, interrupt, be interrupted (it means we’re alive!) keep it light and moving along speedily. They feel that business agreements will be approached at a later date if at all. They just love the buzz of networking and meeting interesting people whom they might want to talk with again. When they exchange cards, they may even follow up if they don’t lose them.

Being able to interrupt the flood of habits that may have “worked” in your own home or amongst your own type can be extremely gratifying for you and even more helpful for the ones who are not exactly like you—the ones with whom you are trying to connect.