Have you ever been in a situation where you meant to say something else, and it came out in the wrong way? At some point in our lives we have all been there, haven’t we?
Growing up, I had a direct communication style. Coming from a liberal family, where free expression was encouraged, I was someone who unabashedly spoke my mind. I never realized that I may have unintentionally appeared insensitive to others’ points of view. I once got into an argument with my husband, saying – “That is not what I meant. Is it my fault if you interpreted it that way?” Of course, my spouse, being the mature one, chose to keep quiet at the time, as he did not want to encourage this conversation any further. Later at night, when we were watching a movie on Netflix, realizing that it was my mistake, I apologized to him. He lovingly told me its okay and then calmly said – ” It’s not what you say. It’s how you say it that matters!” Those wise words have resonated with me ever since.
Communication can be hard and tricky! There are different communication styles out there, and there is no communication that is inherently better than others. It’s more to do with understanding different personality traits and learning how to communicate accordingly.
I have a functional communication style, a term that I came to only recognize when I was in grad school at Purdue. Being detail-oriented, I would converse with my family members and friends by going through each and every detail from start to finish. I had to make sure that I had not missed anything. On numerous occasions, my family would patiently wait until I would finish what I had to say. At other times they would say, “Can you come to the point please!” Later, as I stepped into the real world, this pattern continued. I was interning at a local TV station back in 1993 when in one of our brainstorming sessions, I completely lost the attention of my supervisor. I learned that she was someone who did not like being bogged down into minute details. She preferred that when people communicate with her, they cut right to the chase.
In 2018, I landed a part-time position as a strategic communications assistant with a healthcare organization that is dedicated to improving health outcomes through agile implementation methodology. One of my primary roles there was blog content writing. Very quickly, I learned that my marketing communications director had both an intuitive as well as an analytical communication style. She was one of those people that preferred talking to the point. While she was was comfortable with big ideas and out-of-the-box thinking, she firmly believed in facts and data as well. In one of my meetings with her, she had asked me to come up with a new set of digital communication strategies for increasing our social media and web presence. I was about to gravitate towards my usual process-driven, detailed communication when I stopped. Those wise words- “It’s not what you say. It is how you say it” kept echoing in my ears. I immediately changed my strategy and gave her short five bullet point recommendations and then asked her which of those would she want to hear more about. By presenting it this way, she was able to pick and choose the recommendations that she wanted to explore. The outcome of this meeting was that she not only loved my ideas, but she made me the project lead for our digital marketing campaign. She was well aware of my detail-oriented nature and my love to implement processes to get things accomplished. This time, my communication style worked in my favor.
As a project lead, I also discovered that I possessed a personal communication style. I valued emotional language and connection with my team, and I used that as a mode of learning what they were thinking. My team felt comfortable approaching me with any work-related grievances or obstacles they encountered. As I was a good listener, I was able to smooth over any conflicts that took place. In the process, I was able to build a personal relationship with each and every member of my team. Aubrey Blanche, Global Head of Diversity and Belonging at Atlassia.com, says – “Communicating with teammates in a way that resonates with them is an express lane to trust.” It turns out that my team always turned to me as the ‘glue’ that held our digital marketing team together.
Mark Murphy is the New York Times best-selling author and contributor to Forbes and CNBC. He says- “Building communication flexibility allows you to customize your message to the preferred communication style(s) of your audience. This ensures that your message is heard.” Well Mr. Murphy you are spot on! After all, it is not what you say. It is how you say it that matters.
Life Is Like That! 