Group activity on communication styles

[Hege_Hermansen]

Hi everyone,

Our office is planning a retreat primarily for work planning purposes, with some time allocated for social and teambuilding activities. We would like to include a group activity on communication styles, that leaves participants with useful insights they can apply in their work, and that can be fun at the same time. We have heard of an activity where participants identify their own communication styles and those of their colleagues, coupled with strategies for communicating effectively - but we don't know the details of what is entailed. The objective is, ideally, to leave participants with a framework for thinking about a typical office issue like communication in a new way, to encourage self-awareness about own communication styles, and to get some useful tips on communication.

Would be grateful if anyone could provide any info or steps for this kind of activity, or direct us to other similar activities which could be fun and thought-provoking.

Many thanks!

Noelle & Hege

[Andi_Roberts]

Hi Hege,
I think there are alot of resources out there.
One of the tools I like working with in communication is MBTI.
There are a range of activities that can be done focused on communication that use MBTI as the back drop.
Hope this helps, Andi

[Carol_Sherriff]

Hi Hege
We have used communication preferences that we got from NLP - these also correspond to the central learning styles used in education, certainly in the UK. I have attached some pages from the handouts we used at the IAF conference in Kuching that describe the different preferences.

Three critical issues are these communication preferences are:

how people make sense of the world, so people with a visual preference pay attention to visual information in their environment and they store and create pictures in their heads. People with an auditory preference pay attention to sound and conversation and store and create dialogue, self talk, musical patterns etc; People with a kinaesthetic preference pay attention to atmosphere, sense and feelings, they store and create the feeling of doing something or being somewhere. From that you get the idea of visual learners, auditory learners and Kinaesthetic/active learners.
People can obviously do all three systems (even if eye sight or hearing is impaired from birth) but tend to develop a preference and reliance for one strongly and a second as a secondary preference. Often the third system is relatively undeveloped and so communication in that system is quite difficult for them to absorb or they misconstrue. Although we know it is not true that people all have the same preferences as us, we tend to communicate with others how we like to be communicated with.
Finally because people often in conversation describe what is going on in their thought processes, the words they use are a good indicator of their communication preference = I need to see the full picture on this one; I need to make sure we are all speaking the same language; we've got to get to grips with this together, I feel we are falling apart.
Two exercise we had done successfully with client groups and facilitators:
to find out people's own preferences get them to tell a story (a well known fairy story is a good basis) in the first round they all have to speak visual language, second round all speak auditory, third kinaesthetic. The objective is to find which ones come most easily and which one they stray into other language systems.
Then have four charts on the wall in different parts of the room labelled visual, auditory, kinaesthetic and all 3. Get the group (as a whole or in smaller groups) to tour round writing up how a visual person would like to be communicated with etc. Putting them in different spaces helps people really get into that preferences.
Hope that gives you some ideas,
Carol

[Hege_Hermansen]

Thanks for this, Carol, very useful! I really like the story telling aspect...
Hege

[Mary_Jackson]

These things can backfire on you. I would be very careful about actually telling people where they or others fit as determined by whatever instrument you choose.

No matter how well it is debriefed, emphasizing individual differences (what I like to call "putting people in boxes") can cause separation. At the time of the event, most people will be good sports...they'll even tell you how much fun it was...and then they'll look askance at others (I knew he was nuts...).

Can you have people take the assessment, discuss the different dimensions, talk about how one adjusts one's interactive style to be more effective with others...but not tell people which box they belong in?

[Carol_Sherriff]

Hi Mary
Dont know why but I missed your posting first time round. I couldn't agree more about not boxing people and people not boxing themselves and others and perhaps should have mentioned this.
Framing that up is, I think, a challenge. We tend to use a frame that these are preferences. People can operate in all three but particularly under pressure they can become quite marked. The role of facilitator or communicator is to honour all preferences equally.
However, I also find that if people dont get that these preferences are significant then they communicate and facilitate events designed for only part of the audience.
Does anyone have a better way of not boxing people whilst also emphasising that there are differences?
Best wishes,
Carol

[Mary_Jackson]

I've never really gotten sufficient response to my question, "what is the value of telling people what the the test said?"

I think there is tremendous value in learning about different styles. I think there is very little value in telling people which box the test put them in, and even less in telling others.

None of us is perfectly consistent at all times, so even if you were told where someone fits, they might not be in that mode next time you interact with them.

The best class I ever saw went through all of the teaching first, and it was great. Then the instructor passed out the test results, people started comparing themselves, there was some gentle joking about "you're one of them", and lots of the benefit went out the window.

I even like having people take a forced-choice test just to emphasize that these are all good things, but we value good things differently, and that is the essence of different styles.

[Gary_Rush]

I agree Mary. I still don't know what the value is. When organizations or people box others in, it limits their ability to view them as people - they view them as a group instead and generalize thereby missing the person. One company I saw even had the people post their Myers-Briggs designation onto their name badges (scary).

The best value of the tools is to get people to realize that we are different and how we think, process information, understand ideas, etc. is different. Moving away from our predilection to assume that everyone else must think the same way we do is the best value of the tools and a first step towards beginning to communicate.

My take, let people use the tool, but keep the results to themselves - share the learning instead.

Ciao,
Gary

[Gary_Boettcher]

All,

I am in agreement with many of you who think "boxes" are dangerous. If people take the valuations the wrong way, they tend to use this "label" as an excuse for their behavior and minimal participation. Also, the label becomes an excuse to stay the same or not grow.

Alternatively, the valuations identified my strengths and my weaknesses which allowed me to focus on better techniques for growth. Identification of strengths and weaknesses motivated me to change so I could become a stronger practitioner.