“Our language is funny – a fat chance and slim chance are the same thing”. ~J. Gustav White

I have to give the IT support team, where I used to work, credit. They would be quite use to me calling to say something highly technical like “the thingy-ma-jig isn’t working” (which of course is different to a what’s-it). The team were very good at interpreting what I was talking about and provide me with a solution.

The ones who were really good, and provided easy to follow instructions, were the ones who stepped into my world and used little or no technical jargon in their answers.

I was reminded about this recently while working with someone wanting to change their career. This individual had lots of relevant experience, the industry that they were in used different “labels” to describe the same actions and responsibilities that the new career required.

One of the first things that we did was to amend their CV so that the language used matched the labels in the new industry. We kept the facts the same. This automatically helped the potential employer see the match between the experience and skills and what they wanted in that role.

Both of the above are examples of using the other person’s language to communicate more effectively. The IT team to communicate a solution (and possibly get some peace from me 🙂 ) With the CV example it was about strongly communicating how well the candidate matched what the potential employer wanted.

Sometimes a person’s language can also be an indication of the individual’s interests. For example, you may find that there is a lot of sporting references in their every day language – “moving the goal posts”, “letting the side down” or “a clean sheet” being phrases that can often be used and all originate from sport.

On other occasions it may be a cultural reference – it was interesting to see a localised family run business merge with a multinational company and see both sides adapt to the language and jargon that both cultures regularly used.

You may have noticed that when someone is describing a situation they paint a picture with their words so that you get a taste of what they are talking about. Sometimes you may only get a whiff of what they meant. How much you feel that you understand may be an indication of how successful the message was communicated. People often do this by using words that make use of the senses.

For example, some words and phrases that make use of the visual sense are: image, illuminate, hazy, bright, unsightly, focus, big picture and green with envy.

Some words and phrases that make use of the auditory (hearing) sense: buzz, dialogue, discuss, ring, tone, off-beat, tune in-to, clear as a bell and speak your mind.

Some words and phrases that make use of the sense of touch and feelings*: grasp, lukewarm, nudge, painful, sense, cool customer and hold on a moment.

*(This can also be referred to as kinaesthetic – but that is still just a label to aid communication in certain groups/fields of knowledge)

Some words and phrases that make use of the senses of taste and smell: acidic, choke, digest, savour, gut feeling, tough to swallow, nosey, odour, pungent, reeks, sniff, I smell a rat and a sweet smell of success.

You may notice that in certain situations and instances that a person may use words that predominately make use of one or a few of the senses. Just like in the example where we matched the same language for the CV etc it can help your communication to match words using the senses that they used when you notice them.

(Remember people do change over time so don’t automatically presume that because a person used visual or auditory words for a situation on one occasion that they will still use those to describe it on another. It is wise to pay attention to see if it has altered)

If there is someone you would like to communicate more effectively with I invite you to play with the following. It may be an individual or group.

1. Notice the language that they are using.

2. Pay attention to how it is different to the language that you use.

3. If you have detected a difference in a “label,” you may want to check to see if your understanding of what they are saying is actually what they mean.

4. Just for fun, what happens if you adopt their language?

Use your own judgement with what and when you choose to do this. Sometimes it can seem “clunky” when you are getting used to doing this and there may be certain circumstances that you don’t want that to be the case.

Have a lovely week

Love

Jen

This was originally posted on www.YourChangingDirection.com