Understanding communication styles in the workplace is one of the most practical things you can do for your professional relationships. Most of the friction you experience at work is not about personality, intent, or character. It is about style. And once you have a framework for it, you stop writing people off as difficult and start seeing patterns you can actually work with.

There is a reason some conversations feel effortless and others feel like you are speaking a completely different language. This episode gives you the framework that explains it.

I walk you through the four dominant communication styles: the Director, the Motivator, the Analyzer, and the Collaborator. Each one is built on two intersecting axes, task versus relationship and steady state versus constantly changing, and each one shows up predictably in how people open conversations, make decisions, respond to disagreement, and process information. I developed this framework about 12 years ago and have tested it across hundreds of organizations; it has stood the test of time because it reflects something real about how people communicate.

I also share two stories from my half-day workshop, The Irresistible Power of Communication Styles, that illustrate what happens when people finally see their own style and each other's clearly. One involves a CMO who nearly left her organization because she felt like a fish out of water on her senior leadership team. The other involves an individual contributor who wanted to post everyone's communication style on their cubicle nameplate. Both stories say something important about what this framework actually does for people and for teams.

And because you will not always get to ask someone to take an assessment before a conversation, I close with a practical guide to reading someone's style in real time: what to watch for, what signals matter, and how to make the small adjustments that turn a disconnected conversation into a productive one.

Listen and catch the full episode here or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also watch it and replay it on my YouTube channel, JanelAndersonPhD.

Is there someone at work that you've quietly labeled as difficult, impossible, or just not your cup of tea? What if the friction isn't actually a personality problem. What if it's a style mismatch that you've just never had a name for? The communication breakdowns that frustrate us most aren't usually about intent or character or even personality.

People are not inherently out to sabotage you at work or intentionally antagonize you, well, the vast majority of them, anyway. But the breakdowns that we experience are often about style, communication style, to be specific, and style is predictable. When you aren't aware that people have distinct communication styles that are predictable and decipherable, you will often fill in the gap with judgment. They're too pushy.

They're slow. They're too scattered. They're mean. They're too rigid.

Well, this episode is going to give you a framework. We're going to talk about communication styles and a communication styles assessment that I use with my clients. Now, I do a workshop on this, a half-day communication styles workshop, and the next one is coming up in just a few weeks. And I realized that I didn't have a podcast episode about it, and this particular client loves some good pre-work, and so I figured all my listeners get to share in this as I record an episode specifically for this one client because they do love their pre work, but this is going to be helpful for literally everyone.

Okay, now as I introduce the framework, and in this episode, I just have to precede the content with this. This episode isn't going to give you the whole framework. It's going to give you enough to get you started, and you will probably recognize some some things about yourself, so you might be able to guess at your own framework. If this is something that you'd like to have your organization do near the end of the episode, I'll let you know how to reach out to me, or you can just go to my website.

But I'll let you know how to reach out to me specifically to request this content. But so let's talk about the framework itself. So the framework that I've built, and gosh, I built this about 12 years ago and tested it very thoroughly, and it has stood the test of time. It's built on Carl Jung's framework, which a lot of other assessments are built on as well: the DISC styles assessment, a Myers-Briggs personality indicators.

All of this goes back to a bunch of research that Young Carl Jung did decades ago that has really stood the test of time. And so, as I looked at that research and thought about the styles that I noticed in people at work, there were two different axes that came together for me, and so I'll describe those axes to you, and you can think about them. And we'll also talk about how you can use this to make your best guess about somebody else's not personality style, because this is not personalities, but about their communication style as we go along. Okay, so let's think about these two axes.

So on one axis is task versus relationship, and think about where does somebody put their priority. And of course, we all do both at work. We pay attention to the task, and we get the tasks done, and we have some sort of relationship with people. Now, when you think about certain people, though, they might privilege the relationship with you, and they might have some small talk and ask you about your family life or what you did this weekend or some of those things to shore up the relationship before they get down to work.

You might have other people whom it doesn't mean they don't care about you, but maybe they have very little small talk with you, and the the conversation really focuses more on the work. So think of that continuum: task on one end to relationship on the other end. And you can plot where you land yourself. I mean, you could land squarely in the middle, but you maybe have a preference one side or the other.

A little more task, a little more relational. Okay, so plot yourself there. Then I want you to think of a vertical of a vertical axis point as well, and that is where are you most comfortable when things are a steady state and you are a steady Eddie and like things to be just the same or at least predictable all the time, or are you somebody who really enjoys a dynamic, changing environment where things don't stay steady and are constantly in motion in flux. Again, think about the two ends of the spectrum and where would you rate yourself?

Okay, once we have those two things figured out, then we can apply those to the methodology, and I have a whole assessment that helps us figure out exactly where you are at any given point, and then we get to plot you on the on the chart to find out where you land in terms of your dominant communication style. Now, it's also worth noting before I get into these the four primary styles that two two things. One is that many people are a blend of a couple of styles, and we'll talk more about that later. And then the other is that this does not mean you can't communicate any other way.

This is just your dominant style. When you're not thinking to yourself like, Hmm, how do I need to tee this up for somebody? And you're, you know, because sometimes we do go into that very intentionally, thinking about how we need to frame something for someone so that they're really going to get it. But when we're just talking and we aren't being super intentional about framing something up a certain way, then we are most often speaking from our dominant communication style.

Okay. Now, again, these are dynamic and they do change over time. If you move, if you move from an individual contributor role, and maybe you've done the assessment say two years ago, and now you've moved into a management role, supervisor role. It could be a couple years before things change, but you may find that your communication style does in fact change to meet the needs of the role that you're in now.

So, not something going to change overnight, but you might find it changing over a longer period of time. Unlike a Myers-Briggs personality type indicator, which does tend to stay more fixed throughout your adult life. So again, these can change over time with your roles. Okay, so the four dominant styles.

Once we've gotten, once we've gathered all your data and we plotted these on the chart, we find the four dominant styles. So I'm going to talk through what the four dominant styles are, and there's probably a really good chance you're going to recognize yourself in one or more of these. And again, remember that styles are often blended, so it might not just be wholly in one area, but you might have two complementary areas. All right.

So the first is the director, and this is a person who you know sends a three-word email and thinks they've been perfectly clear and precise. They're very results-oriented and take charge and no nonsense kind of people. They don't include a lot of fluff or extra descriptive language. They don't do a lot of small talk.

They prefer brief, really well organized and tight communication. Again, they think of small talk as clutter or fluff that they didn't ask for. Okay, so again, some of you have already recognized yourself or maybe somebody that you work with as that director style. The next style is the motivator, and this is the person who can talk to anyone.

This is the person who gets really excited about every single idea, and this is the person who sometimes can leave you kind of exhausted and wondering if anything actually got decided. So, people who have the motivator style at work tend to be outgoing and energized by other people. They love big picture thinking. They love brainstorming and whiteboarding lists of things.

They might lose interest in something before it reaches its logical conclusion. Motivators tend to be starters; they're not always finishers. All right, again, you might be recognizing someone that you know just based on that description, or maybe yourself. The analyzer is the person who comes back to the meeting three days later with a fully documented counterargument and spreadsheets and all of the data to make a very solid case.

They weren't checked out in the meeting when it first happened a few days ago. They were processing. Okay, so the analyzer really likes their data. They are cautious.

They are logical. They are very thorough. Sometimes they can be very quiet and soft-spoken. And don't mistake that quietness for disinterest.

They are often thinking things through in a very complex and comprehensive manner, and they want all the information before committing to a position, or really even speaking up about something in a meeting. So, as a courtesy, if you've got analyzers on your team, or you may be one yourself, it's really helpful to circulate any data or any concrete terms or ideas with them in advance, especially if you want to deliberate about that in a meeting. All right, and then finally, the fourth style is the collaborator, and this is the person that everyone likes, who asks how everyone's doing and really means it. And you should also really not mistake this person for a pushover.

Do not mistake their kindness for anything other than the kindness that it is. Now, these folks are cooperative. They're very relationship driven. They get a lot of things done in your organization.

They are often real workhorses. They may ask a lot of questions. They really want to be in the loop, and they make decisions in the context of relationships. So they really are very much relationship forward, and they take that into account when doing their work.

Now, again, as I mentioned, most of us are a blend of a couple of styles because as we plot this all out onto a grid, you've got two styles where you may be overlapping across those couple of styles. Now, some people fall very squarely into one of the four styles, and if you're curious about me, I am a solid blend of director and motivator, and so true to form. I sometimes am too terse with things, as you may know if you are a long time listener or if you've been in a workshop or a keynote with me. I do tend to be very animated.

I get very excited about ideas, and I am the biggest cheerleader ever for ideas that I get behind. Now, I also sometimes start things and don't finish them, so that is my motivator showing through. And I could use a little bit more follow through with some of the things that I take on, and that has been a lifelong thing for me. Now, I want to give you a quick couple of stories about using the communication styles in context.

Okay, so with one group, the senior leadership team had me come in and do the communication styles workshop, which is called the irresistible power of communication styles. And as we were finishing up the workshop, the chief marketing officer pulled me aside, and she told me in confidence that she almost left her role recently, and she, you know, she went through the the dark night of the soul kind of experience, feeling like she didn't fit in on the senior leadership team. She loved the marketing team that she managed, and she felt really connected with them. But every time she went to those C-level meetings with the other chief-level officers in the organization, she just felt like she was a fish out of water.

And as we did the communication styles assessment, she had like the big light bulb moment where she saw herself absolutely as a motivator, and she looked around the room. And in this in this workshop, everybody gets a chance to, in fact, move to the corner of the room with the folks who are the same style as they are, and then offer some advice to others about how you could reach out and connect with them better based on their style. So anyway, in that exercise, she was all alone, and that was the big aha for her. She was like, There's nobody else on the senior leadership team who's a motivator like I am.

No wonder I feel disconnected. No wonder I feel like a fish out of water. Now she had had her dark night of the soul moment a couple of weeks prior to this workshop and decided to stay, and she told me that she was so glad she did, and she stayed because of the team, not because of the senior leadership that you know who who were her peers. But what she told me in this confidential conversation, which I feel like I'm anonymizing enough of this, so she's you're you're not going to know who she is.

But anyway, she she did tell me in in confidence that it made so much sense, and now she saw her being a motivator and her being different from the rest of the senior leadership team. In fact, as an asset, as opposed to a detriment or a fish out of water experience, she was like, I'm still a fish out of water, but it doesn't mean I don't belong here. It means I'm needed here more than ever. And so I loved that particular aha moment of somebody who's very different from the rest of their peer group, and in fact saw it as the positive leverage that it is.

Now, another another quick anecdotal piece about this assessment. I did this with a group of I don't know the whole the whole organization went through it, and we put them through in cohorts of about 40 to 50 people. I think the organization had give or take 250 people, and as we finished up one of the cohorts, somebody an individual contributor, came to me, and because these were mixed groups of managers, supervisors, individual contributors, just basically based on schedule to get everybody through all the training. And an individual contributor came up to me, and he was like, This is so helpful.

This explains the rest of my team. This is fantastic. He was just gushing about how it really worked with the way his brain works, and and being able to identify other people's styles made it so much easier for him to make these like little quick adjustments to his communication, so he would be more well received by others. Perfect.

Then he said, Do you think you could ask our senior leadership team if they could put our communication style right under our name, outside of our cubicle wall or on our office door. You could probably imagine how I reacted to this. I mean, I took him seriously. I did not laugh, but I was like, Hmm, you know, that's so interesting.

Why would you want to know that? And he said, Well, because then it would be easier for me to make these little adjustments in case I didn't know somebody's style, and I said, Okay, we definitely want you making those little adjustments, but how else could you find out what somebody's style was if you couldn't guess it on your own? And he thought about this for a moment, and he said, Well, Janel, I suppose I could just ask them, and I said yes. I think it would be wise if you did ask them, and imagine the richness that could come out of that conversation as you talked about the similarities and or differences between your style and their style.

That would help them know your style as well. So it's not just like you're reading the nameplate and making the adjustments. It's a two way street, and then they'd be more likely to make the adjustments to you and meet you where you're at. And so he was convinced that that was probably a better route to go than just putting the the communication styles of everybody under their name on their cubicle wall or on their on their office door.

Now, another thing that this reinforces is that I don't want communication styles or really any assessment that your organization might use as a straight up label, because when we start putting people in boxes and labeling them, then it removes any empathy or any acknowledgement that communication styles are dynamic, and and so on. And as I mentioned a little bit earlier, your communication style is simply your default. It's your default when you don't think to do otherwise. It's also your default when you're in a hurry.

It's your default when you're not feeling your best. When you're feeling totally stressed out, we land on our default. All right. So before we wrap, let me give you a few tips if you haven't done the assessment on how to read someone's style in the moment.

Now you're going to do a much better job if you've actually been through the assessment process and you know the styles more deeply as if you had done the workshop with me. But I don't want to leave you without at least a few tips and clues about how to to gage somebody's style. So, even if you've done the assessment, you don't always get a chance to know what the other person's style is. So, first of all, watch how they open a conversation.

Do they open a conversation with a little bit of small talk, maybe a lot of small talk, or do they just get right down to business? Okay, now we're starting to see where they land on the task and relationship access point. Now, also, I want you to think about this: Is the particular situation that you're assessing is this a time when they're extra rushed, when they're or when they have all the time in the world because these things will matter and and play into it as well. But watch how they open the conversation again.

Thinking task or relationship, which comes first? Which one are they privileging or putting more weight on? And then, as we think about the dynamic, you know, the dynamic and changing nature of things. Watch how they make their decisions.

Are they fast and they make gut decisions, thinking at the top of that continuum, or are they more measured, slow decision makers, thinking about data first and taking into account facts, spreadsheets, and and all the rest. Another good place to look is how people respond to disagreement. Are they pushing back directly, or are they pulling back and thinking and processing? Because again, that's another one that's going to help us gage task versus relationship, and then watch also what they talk about.

Are they talking about outcomes and results? Are they talking about people and relationships? And this could be in their small talk. This could also be in terms of conducting business.

Okay, now those are things to look for, and that's going to help you gage generally where they are. Now, one or two signals is not going to tell you everything, but if you continue to observe somebody's behavior over time, and you really start to spot the patterns, you will notice those patterns, and you will notice them emerging once you know what to look for, and then you just need to remember what somebody's style is, and try and and then here's the whole enterprise, the whole goal of it is to try to meet them where they're at. So if you've got somebody who is slower and more measured and really does want the data, or wants to use the data to inform their decision or how they might come to a conclusion on something, then by all means make sure they have access to the data and give them a heads up about what you know. Say this is going to be talked about in a meeting, or say that you want to spend some time with them in a couple days.

Maybe it's just you one on one with them. Let them know well in advance what the goal is, what the objective is, because then they can come prepared very much and very comfortable and step into that conversation with you, with you meeting them where they're at. Now, maybe you're not a person who enjoys small talk that much, but you know you're going into a conversation with somebody who does. And here's how we make these just minor tweaks, these minor adjustments.

Think of a question before you step into that interaction with them that you could ask them that indicates your you know concern or care or just simple interest in them. So it's not a big heavy lift, and and if you know something about them, this is the time to use the recall. What are their children's names? Do they have a dog?

You know, do they enjoy camping? And maybe that was something they did this past weekend. So when you can make the effort to meet them where they're at, that's what the communication styles advantage is all about. And this is where it becomes more irresistible when you're at work with somebody who understands your style and meets you where you are.

Now, of course, it's very easy to get along with and to communicate effectively with people who are of the same style as us because we don't have to make those adjustments. But when you make some of those very very small adjustments, I mean, we're just talking a couple of degrees difference in maybe how you start a conversation can make all the difference in landing and connecting with somebody. Now, when you put people in a room together, do this assessment, and then group them by their dominant style, something very interesting happens, and the room just lights up because people have found their communication soulmates. It's so easy for them to communicate with those folks.

And again, each group gets asked to answer the same question: What do you wish people understood about how to communicate with you? And what are some tips and strategies that you wish everybody took into account when they communicated with you? Okay, so what comes out of these conversations surprises people every time. Directors hear that they come across as perhaps a bit dismissive or terse when they just think they're being efficient and getting the work done.

Collaborators discover that their their need to include everybody all the time lands as indecisive and as just taking way too long, and which is of course the opposite effect of what they are intending. They're trying to be so inclusive, and they're trying to make sure every voice is heard. And sometimes people just don't want every voice heard. They just want to quickly make a decision.

Okay, and so on and so on, and just hearing it from other folks in the room, especially other folks in the room that you know and trust, just makes it land different. So it's just so much fun to do this worksheet workshop, and I'm excited to be doing it in in a couple of weeks. And you know that part that I'm just describing, I can't replicate that for you at a podcast, you just have to feel the energy in the room as people move around the room and are with their their similar communication style colleagues, and come up with the the tips and strategies that help others communicate more effectively with them. All right, I want to just wrap this up with a couple of big takeaways for you.

So knowing your own dominant style, even a rough assessment using the four descriptions that we talked about today is more useful than nothing. So as someone, ask someone who knows you well if you're really not sure where you would land on that tasty relationship or steady state to constantly changing. Number two, practice a quick read. So in your next meeting, just pick one person and watch for some of their signals.

Are they more task or relationship? Are they more deliberative? Are they more fast or you know quick to jump to things? Number three, be flexible.

Don't fake it. Adapting your own style to someone else's isn't being inauthentic; it's being effective. So you're still you. You're just translating to meet them where they're at.

Okay, so you're not being fake, or I mean, I suppose you could be, but really, here we're talking about just some very subtle adjustments. So you're not going to fake anything. You're just going to say maybe all you're going to do is say good morning. Okay, if that's all the small talk you can muster, but you wouldn't have otherwise said good morning.

Simply adding good morning makes an effort and is a you know a one degree difference. Okay, so again, we're looking at small flexing, not faking inauthentic behavior. And number four, name the mismatch, not the person. So when there is that miss, again, think about what we were talking about at the top of the episode, being judgmental and calling it a personality clash or all of that.

Okay, so we we're not going to call it any of those things. We're just going to name the mismatch. We're going to be like, oh, we have different communication styles. Even if we don't know what the other what the other style is, it's pretty easy to assess when we're missing each other on a styles level.

So the next time some friction like that shows up, you can just ask yourself, is this that style thing that Janel was talking about? Before you just decide that the person is flat out difficult, or that you don't like them. All right, so here is your call to action. So this episode gives you a map of the four different communication styles, and again, know that you may be a blend of a couple of styles.

The workshop itself gives you your actual score, where you land on the framework, you land on the grid and see exactly which style you inhabit. And again, you get a strong reminder from me that that is simply your dominant style. Doesn't mean you can't communicate in any one of the other styles. And just these one or two degree differences in meeting somebody else where their style is make all the difference.

So if that's something that you want to explore for your organization. Reach out to me at my website Janel anderson.com or dr janeldrjanelanderson.com on email, and we'll get you all the goods. So if this also is something that resonates for you, share it with a colleague, share it with a friend, and you can find the show notes for this episode overjanelanderson.com forward slash 285 for episode 285, and you can also find links there to the the show on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and of course we're also on YouTube. So if you want to watch the video on YouTube, you can find it there at as well.

All right, my friends, be well, and I'll catch you here next week for another episode of the Working Conversations podcast