Imagine we are in the kitchen of a restaurant. Each order is special — the ingredients, condiments, utensils, and of course, the final cooking to put the delicious dish onto a stylish plate. That’s why there is an ancient Chinese quote that says, “Ruling a country is like cooking a small dish.” Again, imagine the chief chef requests an assistant to prepare all the materials before he makes the final cooking. Then the assistant keeps coming back and asks, “Hi where is the cutting board?” “Where is the knife?”, and “Where is the fish?” In the end, the poor chef is doing everything himself while the assistant seems to be no less busy in communication.
Dear fellow toastmasters and honored guests, this scene is no strange to most of us regardless of what professional field we come from. When I worked in Germany, we made a lot of trade shows across Europe. Each exhibition was a big project. Each booth cost almost a million euros and they looked fabulous. But the preparation had tons of details. One year the China HQs sent a manager to the German company. His background was flawless, graduating from Beijing Foreign Language University — the №1 language University in China, previously working in Huawei the top tech company in China. He was sent to Europe with a plan to replace me as the new MD of the company since I had asked to return to HQ. He had a great career life on the horizon. Our first big project was the Frankfurt Trade Show. Very soon we found he was the babbling cooking assistant. No matter big projects or small errand, he was always asking around with questions like “where is the screwdriver?” where is the packing list? “what’s in this box?” and so on and so forth. He literally tied his hands up all the time and his questions would guide through colleagues to get the job done. You see, he had an abundance of communication. But the communication style was not a fit for the team or the specific project at the moment. After the trade show, I made a report to HQ and requested to send him back. I might have ruined his career life or maybe he’d become a great manager somewhere else where his communication style was a good fit. In the business world, we often say communication is vital. But I want to take a step further by saying, communication style is vital.
When I went through this Pathways project “Understanding your communication style”, it indicates four typical communication styles among people — — the Initiating Style, the Sociable Style, the Supportive Style, and the Analytical Style. After taking the assessment, I was told that my communication style was the Sociable Style. I am not sure about the result. Actually, I thought I would get the Supportive Style. As I have been told of this style many times in my career life. I lacked the vision and the power of influencing colleagues. Instead of a leader, I enjoy playing a follower. Instead of staying at the front of the line, I enjoy staying at the end. This may sound lack of ambition and impulsion, which are widely considered as a recipe to success. But in some cases, the Supportive Style is the same important as the Initiating Style or other styles. For example, Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, is considered as the most successful business people in the world. But it would be chaotic if everybody wants to be Bill Gates. A great leader as he is, Bill Gates could not become Bill Gates without hundreds of thousands of employees that are mostly working in Supportive Style.
Also, Pathways points out that there isn’t a good or bad communication style, we just need to identify our own style. Again, I am not sure I agree with this. Give another example. At the same trade show, we had a salesperson. He had all the qualities of a good communicator, easy-going, sense of humor, and great laughter. He made friend instantly with everybody he talked to; he was always the star in the crowd. He collected much more business cards than anybody else in the team. Only he never followed up the inquiries after the show, because, as he explained, he was too busy talking every day to sit down in front of the computer.
You see, identifying the communication style is one thing. Developing a good one is another. This is my understanding of communication style.
