Thursday, October 08, 2009

Making A Difference: Finding The Right Communication Language

Maurilio Amorim has a post on his Making A Difference Blog about Finding the Right Communication Language. He says that over the years, he's identified 5 different communication languages. He categorizes them as follows:

    1. The Verbal Processor.

    2. The ADD.

    3. The ADD Texter.

    4. The Mental Processor.

    5. The Face-to-Face Feeler.

You can read the descriptions of each of these on his blog post.

I figure I'm a cross between The Verbal Processor and The ADD Texter. I tend to think out loud a lot while I'm processing my thoughts. This drives Christina (my wife) nuts. I also am often happier interfacing with other people (even Christina) through email and text. No, I'm not obsessive about this. I realize that a lot of communication (especially with Christina) must be carried out in person. Just this morning, I got an email asking a question, and I immediately realized that I'd be much better off meeting in person to discuss the issue because dealing with it over email would be clumsy.

If these communication languages were laid out on the Chinese Zodiac, I'd probably be warned to avoid The ADD and The Face-to-Face Feeler. I score very highly on ADD tests, and I tend to ramble off topic myself, but I don't communicate very well with others who do the same thing. I also tend to resent dealing with people who HAVE to meet in person over an issue that could be settled with 3 text messages. I had a person like that in some of my classes at the University of Phoenix. She was very smart and a hard worker, but sometimes couldn't get moving on a learning team project unless everybody dropped their lives and drove into center city Philadelphia, paid excessive amounts for parking, and sat around a coffee shop. We usually got her to settle for a teleconference, but when that wasn't possible, we could never get an early start on our learning team projects.

Which communication language do you speak? Which communication language do you find yourself to be least compatible with?

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