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We don’t really understand what intellectual diversity is. So when someone approaches a problem very differently than you do, it can feel like a breakdown. But if you have an awareness, a language, a way to understand that person quickly, then you can actually use it as a breakthrough. There are some common communication breakdowns that knowing mind patterns can really help us turn those into breakthroughs.
Breakdown #1
One of the most common ones is with that person who just constantly talks over you. We’ve all met them on the airplane, or in meeting rooms. What happens is talking actually energizes their mind. It actually creates a focused state of attention for them. And so, as the person trying to engage with them, what I would recommend is actually take it into the visual channel. This happened specifically in a meeting I was at. One Dutchman who went on and on and on, and had great ideas, and he just would not stop talking. I got up on a flip chart and in big red marker wrote the three things that he was saying. He then actually remained quiet for the rest of the meeting. Because he could see his words up on the chart. So just that shift helped him actually feel received and helped him stop talking over other people.
Breakdown #2
Another common breakdown that we see a lot happening is that people will send long, robust emails, and expect people to read every line, or really respond to them with as much time as they put into actually generating that email. The challenge is, for some people, visual information actually triggers them into a wide-open state of attention, and so it’s very easy for them to miss details. They actually see the whole of something. It’s almost like a person who looks at a painting, and they get to see the entire meaning of the painting, but they don’t notice what the specific color is. So reading of emails is a challenge for them to get detailed information from the email. With someone like this, I always put the action that I’m looking for in yellow highlight at the top of the email, and I make sure the subject line is actually an action. Time to respond is one day, or something like that. So when you have actual details broken out for them, and they don’t have to filter through the entire email to get what the actual actionable piece of the email is, that’s really, really helpful.
Breakdown #3
The second state of attention is when the mind is sorting. It’s going through this very awkward stage. It’s weighing options, and some of us do that visually, and other people do it auditorily. And so when someone does it auditorily, how it comes across is they’re presenting the options to themselves as if it’s a conversation. On one hand, I could do this. On the other hand, I could do that. What if I got the green blouse? But the red one would look so much better. They’re constantly weighing two options in their mind. By listening to them and asking them questions, you’re actually helping them come to a decision quicker. They’re not being wishy-washy. That is misunderstood. They’re actually verbally weighing the options out loud. So the more questions you can ask, the more succinct they’ll be, and ability to make a decision will come quicker.
Breakdown #4
Another common breakdown is when people visually overload with PowerPoint presentations, Excel spreadsheets. For some, visual information triggers them into this very focused state of attention. When that’s true, they can handle a ton of visual details. They can color code. They can do bullets. They can handle very small fonts. For other people, that’s not necessarily true. Visual information actually may trigger them into a wide-open state of attention, or even into a sorting state of attention. This happens a lot in presentations. That people check out because they’re not engaged with that amount of visual detail. And so, again, it’s just observing when that is happening, and then having whatever you have made, a beautiful, intensely-detailed graph, about also have two or three just key points broken off to the side, so you’re giving them visual options.
We get stuck in our communication habits. When we’re talking and we are not connecting with the person, we talk more, we talk louder, we begin to yell, and we say different words. The thing to remember is: Shift your mode of communication. That’s all. It’s really easy to do, but really easy to forget.