Why knowing your team members’ communication patterns is important
Did you ever read the book The Five Love Languages by Gary D. Chapman? It’s made its way onto “must read” lists for personal development across the nation, and has been on the New York Times Bestseller List since autumn 2009. Its lessons also highlight how effective communication strategies can strengthen relationships, build trust, and improve the way people connect both personally and professionally.
Most people probably don’t take what they read from a love and personal relationship book and apply it to their work, but since we’re in the business of using communication to foster more effective teams, we couldn’t help but see the correlation.
The book’s premise is basically how the way each person is raised forms how they communicate and interpret expressions of love (this being their primary “love language”). Since the way two people are raised is typically un-identical, their love languages are also similarly un-identical.
Chapman presents that trying to use your own love language to communicate and express affection to someone who speaks an entirely different love language is akin to speaking a foreign language to someone who has no mechanism for understanding what you’re saying. He suggest that instead, for a smoother partnership, you should try to give love in the way that your partner most prefers to receive love (and vice versa).
The parallel that we most love about this theory is that if you remove the “love” part of the equation, then the message applies to business as well.
Everybody communicates a little differently, and the way they naturally communicate to others is typically the way they prefer to receive communication. Since this communication delivery is typically not how the other party most naturally and comfortably receives information, it tends to create more conflict due to miscommunication, misinterpretation, or – simply – frustration.
If we are enabled to make simple, temporary modifications when speaking with someone whose communication pattern is different from our own, then we can significantly increase understanding and efficiency while decreasing conflict and frustration.
Leadership Choice spends a lot of time through Connecting With People and Team Connect helping teams learn how to communicate effectively. These workshops address how to identify different communication patterns and how to use that information to make temporary modifications to communicate more effectively.
The result is that team members are able to harmonize their communication patterns for a more efficient workplace. With more efficient communication and a deeper understanding for each team member’s strengths and assets, the team is able to communicate more efficiently, allowing them to get more work done in a shorter amount of time.
What could you accomplish today if your team communicated more effectively?
