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My life has happily turned into a remake of The Sixth Sense: "I see behaviors."
I recently attended the Effective Communications Conference in DC, and now I'm totally seeing other people's behaviors when they speak. I'm seeing big gestures, small gestures, eye brows, smiling (or not), loud voices, etc.
It's like an entire world has opened up, and - to quote Darwin - "There is grandeur in this view of life."
- BJ
Agreed. I haven't been to
Agreed. I haven't been to one of Mark & Mike's, but I have been to one at the Center for Creative Leadership. On a related note, I was recently at a (scientific) conference on prosody (the field of linguistics that covers the stress patterns, tones, pauses, etc in how people speak). A speaker from Columbia University showed the results of a study using gamers where mutual adaptation in prosody was strongly correlated with task effectiveness. In other words, if the speakers mutually adapted their prosodic behaviors, particularly the prosody of turn taking, they were much more likely (as a pair) to achieve the game objective.
I've noticed this more in my conversations the past few weeks. This is one aspect of adapting my communication style to match my communication partner's. If I do it, it helps. If we both do it -- to adapt to each other -- it's generally an even more effective conversation. Particularly if we adapt to each other in conversational turn-taking behaviors.
Closing the Communications Gap
From what I recall, Mark mentioned that if you adapt your communication style to more closely match the person to whom you are speaking (say, I adapt my default D behavior to be more S), then the other person is more likely to move a bit in your direction as well. To relate to what you said, one person initiating the adaptation seems to almost automatically promote mutual adaptation in prosody.
Having the same.. "issue".
Hey Folks,
I attended the same conference as BJ, I believe, and have been finding myself categorizing everyone; co-workers, supervisors, directs, family members, even characters in movies..! It's almost become second nature and I can't seem to turn it off! :-) Actually, I'm really just trying to hone my skills while it's still fresh. Trying to get to that unconscious competence stage.
I have found it interesting how some folk's behaviors almost scream their type at you, while others are harder to determine and leave you wondering what combination they might be. I have found it helpful to remember to first determine Top or Bottom, then Left or Right.
So.. can you tell what quadrant I fall into by this e-mail? :-)
Take care,
Patrick