Saturday, February 07, 2009

Communicating to Thinkers and Feelers

I am a thinker. Off the charts. Ryan is a feeler. Close to off the charts. So the challenges of communicating from thinkers to feelers and back is one that I've experienced quite a bit. Now that I'm in a position of leading teams and leaders that are largely more feeling-oriented than thinking-oriented, I find myself needing to learn how to communicate better.

I read this:
In making group decisions, Thinkers, after examining the facts, may be irritated by the Feeler's comment, "I just don't feel good about the way we've handled this." In response, most Thinkers will go over the facts and principles "one more time," not realizing that Feelers are asking to explore more than just facts. (Community That is Christian, Julie A. Gorman)

That really resonated with me and helped me understand some of the communication bottlenecks that I have encountered. I always go back to the facts, trying to communicate them in new or different ways, to try to make folks "get it." When in reality, perhaps they "get" that part of it but want to be turn the situation around and help me "get" a different part of it.

1 Comments:

At 11:41 AM, Blogger Unknown said...

Good thought Heather... you and Ryan are like Lance and me reversed. :)

I'll try and use this in communicating better with the thinker in him.

 

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