The Challenge
Ask any leader or manager of an organisation what the cost of poor communication is in their company and you will get a variety of responses; wasted resource, conflict and tension amongst staff, lost customers, poor productivity, low morale and much more. Each of these factors are an important consideration for today’s manager. Expecting members of our teams to have the ability to effectively communicate without additional training is an unreasonable expectation. From a young age we are ingrained with thinking and communicating the ‘me first’. How do I get acceptance? How do I get my needs met? How can I get the person to see my point of view? I just want to be understood. Although these statements are not directly communicated they are often the underlying motive beneath our attempts at communicating with someone.
People are eager to have greater effectiveness in the way they communicate with their work colleagues, their family and their friends. There is great benefit in having a workplace that promotes clear communication between co-workers and between staff and the customers. When needs are clearly identified and met there is a significant increase in customer and job satisfaction and subsequently increased productivity from employees. When a customer or staff member feels understood and validated they are more willing to listen to your perspective as the manager or supplier. When conflict does arise, there is an underlying value and respect for each other, allowing the root cause of the conflict to be identified and resolved. Here are some key questions that you can ask in order to determine how free
communication is in your organisation:
- Do we understand and meet the needs of our customers/clients?
- Do we understand and meet the needs of our staff?
- Do our staff as individuals understand the importance of the other staff members?
- When conflict arises, how does our staff deal with it?
How Do Personality Differences Restrict Communication?
One of the most common and easily resolved barriers to communication is differences in personality. Let me explain: Imagine you are a manager of two individuals, one of whom is a natural introvert and one of whom is a natural extravert. Both are required to work together in order to come to a decision. The extravert thinks aloud and asks many questions while coming to their conclusion. She is vocal about the options before her and moves at a rapid pace through the options. The introvert analyses the options internally and he needs some talk-free time to properly process the information that has been given to him. Although a wise decision will benefit both parties the conflict that arises from differing communication and information processing styles can lead to a stalemate. No decision is made and both parties are offended at the other. The extravert believes that the introvert is ‘withholding’ or ‘not engaged,’ while the introvert labels the extravert as ‘invasive’ or ‘overbearing.’ All this happens with each party believing the other is missing the point. The challenge here is not that either party is wrong in the way they go about decision making; it is just that they are both going into the process with only an understanding of their own point of view. They expect the other party to function the same way they do.
With an understanding of personality differences and training of how to communicate ‘out of preference,’ both the introvert and the extravert can appreciate and value their differences instead of allowing them to be a cause of conflict. Through mutual consideration they can combine their skills to reach a more informed decision than if either of them had tried to decide alone.
How Does Knowledge Of Personality Differences Benefit My Workplace?
A personality indicator such as the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI®) identifies important differences in communication style, information gathering and giving, and the process individuals use to reach a decision. Undertaking training in an MBTI® or a similar personality tool can be of great benefit as it helps us to understand our own natural preferences as well as the preferences of other personality types. It gives us an insight into how individuals different to ourselves operate. Recognising these differences in personality type can be beneficial as it tends to depersonalise conflicts. Conflict is much easier to resolve when the parties involved are willing to implement the constructive use of differences. When the differences in communication style are correctly recognised and developed, people in the workplace better understand each other and are often able to clarify misunderstandings that they experience with personality types that are different to themselves.
Is There An Inappropriate Use Of Personality Differences?
It is also important to recognise the limitations of personality studies in communication and conflict resolution. If only one party in a conflict talks in terms of personality and the other does not there is a danger of stereotyping the other’s behaviour to ‘explain away,’ their perspective. By stereotyping the person by their type, the conflicted party is essentially being invalidated in their emotions and perspective on the issue. “That’s what all ENFPs do…” “You are such and ISTJ…” If the MBTI® cannot be used to discover a common ground or to constructively identify differences by both parties, it should not be used at all.
Another misuse of the tools like the MBTI® is that they can be used in the selection of individuals for job or team positions. Personality indicators are designed to assist people in identifying their psychological type preferences. What they cannot do however is determine how well an individual uses different aspects of their personality; an individual may be very good at undertaking a specific task even though they would naturally prefer something different. Just because I don’t naturally like talking to lots of people does not mean I can never learn the skills.
nderstanding Builds Trust
From interpersonal relationships to the workplace, having a growing understanding of ourselves and others is vital in the development and growth of healthy relationships between human beings. Using tools such as the MBTI® to increase our understanding is an easy and necessary step in the right direction. With a willingness to understand people different to ourselves, we are opening the door for communication to flow, for understanding to take place and for an atmosphere of trust and mutual appreciation to be prevalent in our workplace and personal relationships.
By Adam Boyes
Training Services Manager