The Risks of Mismatched Styles

I tend to exaggerate in my speech.

Not usually for deceptive gain and glory (though I'll be the first to admit to the occasional embellishment to make a story more interesting). Usually it's to emphasize a point, to highlight a specific imperative, or to challenge an assumption or norm my conversation partner may be coming in with.

This, like so many parts of our communications, comes naturally. We're often not thinking about how we show up. We all have habits and patterns that we have built up over a lifetime. And they don't always serve us well.

For example, my over-tendency to exaggerate to emphasize a point didn't mesh well with a past colleague's over-tendency to take things literally and miss some of the contextual nuance. This actually led to some significant miscommunications that seriously hampered collaboration. And it wasn't at all obvious what the root cause was.

We need a constantly growing self-awareness and emotional intelligence to recognize how our work and communication rhythms impact our daily collaboration. And we need tools to help us uncover where our unique patterns complement and conflict with those of our colleagues.

I'm curious to hear from others: have you recognized where something about your working or communication patterns caused a specific challenge with another team member?

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