Four Workplace Communication Strategies
In the workplace, our interactive behaviors are among the most crucial foundations to achieving collective synergy and team productivity. Our own interactive dynamic affects the way we interact with our coworkers, our supervisors and upper management. When we gain an awareness of people’s natural communication styles and preferences, and can skillfully adjust our own interactive behaviors to suit, we tend to find ourselves having much more constructive interactions.
Let’s Look at Four Strategies for Better Team Dynamics
When you improve workplace communications, you boost team synergy and effectiveness. The image below shows four crucial success factors, which include: embracing conscious communication to show that you value other people’s natural dynamic; leveraging complementary styles to fully capitalize on each person’s strengths; being nimble and responsive in adapting to others’ particular styles and communication needs; and seeking harmony by instilling a sense of mutual understanding and by exercising some self-control to minimize conflict.
- Fostering Conscious Communication
We all need to learn how to recognize others’ natural communication styles. Knowing how to discern and adapt to someone’s communication preferences is a crucial work skill. For instance, some much prefer getting detailed written instructions while others would opt for a face-to-face chat. Gaining a better awareness of people’s styles can do a lot to keep pesky tensions at bay and greatly enhance relationships. - Leveraging Communication Strengths
We can leverage individual strengths to better assign team roles and tasks. Betting on each person’s natural propensities will foster collaboration. Perhaps someone excels at presentations and someone else at detail-oriented scrutiny – so we can assign work that fits people’s communication skillsets too. This is not only more productive, but it builds people’s confidence and job satisfaction as well. - Being Nimble and Responsive
Skillfully adapting to fit with people’s style and communication needs is key. For example, when unveiling a new work initiative, remember to adjust the message to fit people’s differing levels of receptiveness. Those who typically resist change will benefit from a more informative and reassuring approach. Those who enjoy venturing into new territory will appreciate hearing someone express enthusiasm and vision. - Seeking Harmony
We can reduce conflict by getting to know people’s styles and by exercising due control over our own interactive dynamic. In an effort to reduce potential friction, it helps to cultivate an atmosphere where empathy and patience take precedence. For example, before answering an emotionally charged email you have just received, step back and try to grasp where the writer might be coming from, then try to frame your response in a sincere and constructive manner.
How Do I Learn Adaptive Communication for Work?
It’s essential to pick up adaptive communication skills to fit different audiences, all the while staying true to yourself – as you need to respect your own communication style too. Finessing the way you deliver a message can help alleviate tensions, reduce stress and increase a listener’s receptiveness.
Adapting to Others – Four Steps
So, you want to successfully navigate your way through the many complexities inherent to interactions in the workplace – let’s look at how to master the art of interpersonal adaptation.
Here are four steps to help you pick up adaptive skills so your workplace interactions flow more smoothly and impact your audience more efficiently.
- Get Some Self-Awareness. To fully understand your own natural dynamic and how it impacts others, you need to first consider your personal motivations and behaviors insofar as communication is concerned. Self-observation or psychometric assessment tools, such as the MPO Questionnaire, can help.
- Exercise Control. Once you’re more aware of your own communication dynamic, it becomes much easier to govern your own actions and reactions during any interactions. For instance, if you tend to be a direct and frank type, it could be good to let others articulate their thoughts before you jump in.
- Get to Know People. Examining someone’s interactive dynamic can lead to a better understanding of their needs and style, meaning you can account for that next time you interact. The best way to accurately assess communication dynamics is with a scientifically validated tool such as the MPO Solution.
- Adapt Your Delivery. Equipped with an awareness and deeper understanding of your own communication style, you can choose to shift the way you interact in order to meet others’ needs. For instance, you can deduce whether someone prefers you be direct and concise or else go into greater detail and offer more background context.
In a nutshell, effective professional communication isn’t something you just leave to chance. It requires a substantial awareness of your own style and how others may differ from it, and then enough savvy to adjust to those differing profiles.
From first gaining an awareness of your own style through to adapting your final delivery, the four steps above will give you a solid base to aim for high-quality interpersonal exchanges.
MPO’s Communication Dynamics Matrix
We all know that a solid grasp of communication dynamics is a key job skill. With MPO, the complexities of human interactive dynamics are broken down into simple and easily comprehensible notions.
The MPO Communication Model talks of four overarching “core” communication styles that will vary depending on where a person’s “horizontal axis” meets their “vertical axis”.
- Horizontal Axis: Degree of Assertiveness versus Caution
- Vertical Axis: Degree of Interpersonal Spontaneity versus Self-Control
These two factors greatly influence all the interpersonal relationships we happen to engage in.
The MPO Questionnaire is used to pinpoint – depending on the strength of the above-mentioned axis needs – where a person sits within the four communication quadrants listed below.
THE ANALYTICAL:
is known for considerable self-control combined with great caution. Analyticals rely on facts, data, details and specifics to support an argument. They are methodical, much preferring to set up a structured plan than improvise. Their ability to break down complex information into manageable bite-sized pieces makes them indispensable on any tasks that require deep scrutiny and thorough planning.
THE AUTHORITATIVE:
is known for considerable self-control and very assertive interactions. Authoritatives like straightforward, to-the-point interactions that are focused on a purpose or on goals. With a pretty pragmatic no-nonsense mindset, most interactions should be concerned with efficiency or effectiveness. They’ll prefer not to beat around the bush and want to get to a point without fuss, making them ideal in situations that call for decisiveness and some firm direction.
THE COOPERATIVE:
is known for combining a high level of spontaneity (responsiveness) with some caution, making them well suited to tasks where a collaborative spirit and a focus on relationships is the priority. Cooperatives value team work and harmony, often being the ones who start up a dialogue and foster a climate of mutual understanding. They are essential in contexts that rely on cohesion and consensus to reach group-based goals.
THE EXPRESSIVE:
is known for combining high assertiveness with a good dose of spontaneity. Expressives enjoy dynamic and creative exchanges, and injecting energy and enthusiasm into the delivery. They excel in roles requiring an element of innovation and persuasion, as they tend to love new ideas, can easily capture audience attention and are skilled at fostering engagement.
As you can see, we can leverage the strengths of everyone’s communication style by gaining a deeper understanding of the specific individual nuances. Consequently, staff interactions and team communications are optimized, productive and definitely more effective from an organizational perspective.
By recognizing and placing value on the diversity of these core communication styles, leaders and coworkers can considerably enhance an organization’s collective synergy and productivity.
Now, How Do I Adapt to Each Core Dynamic?
Adapting message delivery based on an understanding of different people’s communication profiles is key to effective and harmonious working relationships. With an MPO Team Matrix on hand, you can see each person’s position inside the MPO Quadrants and determine best practices to optimize team communications and dynamics.
Here are some ways to specifically adjust the way you frame and deliver your messages for specific people:
The Analytical:
be precise, logical, concrete, factual and avoid pressuring
The Authoritative:
be fact-driven, straight-to-the-point, suggest an action plan
The Cooperative:
focus on relationships first, validate and check for any concerns, join forces to work together
The Expressive:
hear out ideas, don’t pressure for details, focus on seeking consensus
Conclusion
As the old saying goes: Opposites attract! But let’s not forget that they also repel each other. When everyone is respectful of and values each person’s unique style and contributions as a communicator, it becomes so much easier to communicate smoothly and achieve common goals.
Effective communication requires strategy. More importantly, a strategy that accounts for the different dynamics found in each unique workplace. We provide this kind of advice, such as the tips above, in the hope of strengthening a company’s overall communication dynamic – a truly essential need in any small business or team – by targeting both the quality and the effectiveness of workplace interactions.
When it comes to communication, a team’s strength lies in its ability to strike a balance between the various types of people that make it up. MPO Communication provides tools to assess employee communication styles and improve team interactions. So why not try MPO’s Communication Matrix to build synergy, transform your team and, ultimately, succeed as a team?
For more tips on adapting your communication style to fit with others, visit MPO Communication.