Effective communication comes in more sizes than one

  • Published
  • By Lt. Col. Houstoun Waring
  • 48th Operations Support Squadron commander
ROYAL AIR FORCE LAKENHEATH, England --  I am fascinated by the number of times in a day when I think I've communicated with someone, and then subsequently find out that I was never really heard and understood.

This inability to communicate adds stress to my daily life, and can make me either feel like I'm responsible for multiple failures in my squadron and family, or that others are to blame for something they don't even know they're responsible for.

I learned during high school, and especially in college, that if I enjoyed a teacher's instruction it was because they caught my attention, made the topic relevant to me and then left me at the class' conclusion with a sense of having grown in understanding.

Later in life I got to the practical side of my education and discovered that I didn't read instruction manuals unless forced to, and the best way for me to learn was by a combination of hands-on work tempered with enough guiding to not break something.

Another discovery has been that if the instruction is too repetitive or simplistic, then I lose interest quickly and become bored, thus learning very little.

This pattern of learning is different for every single person.

So when we try to communicate with our friends and family, customers who walk into the office, or Airmen we're training, let's remember to apply a variety of communication tools to really try and get the point across.

I'll summarize my informal observations of different type of learning that goes on around me, and please forgive me if there are technical inaccuracies in my observations.

Tactile learners are those who need to touch the project, and they understand your communication best by actually doing something. Tactile learners present a challenging environment to communicate through, because it requires creativity on our part. We need to see if there is a way to break our communication into steps that involve actually doing something. At home I find this pretty easy because our children can come in the kitchen and learn by stirring or chopping, or they can help build something with a hammer, but at work I have to get out of the chair and let someone else drive the keyboard and mouse or hold the model airplane in order to get the desired result.

Verbal learners seem to have the easiest ability to learn because they can listen to instructions and just get it. That assumes we have the ability to speak clearly, we don't mix intentions with steps that actually have to be taken in order, and we follow a logical sequence so that the hearer is not lost with a poor explanation. Hand gestures and neat drawing may not make up for poorly spoken words when communicating to a verbal learner. We have to be very careful of what we say and in what order, and then we can make progress quickly.

Visual learners have to see it to get it. This person doesn't want to hear the directions for how to drive to Edelweiss, they need to see it on a map. Visual learners also use color to mean things, they learn best if allowed to sketch out what they just processed, heard or read. They really need an illustration to make sense of words. This person may seem easy to communicate with if you are also a visual learner because drawing sketches comes naturally to you. For the rest of us, we need to practice.

Readers can see the instructions and assimilate the information quickly. They like to have everything written down, and may not need to take note to retain the information just received. What a blessing if the person we're communicating with is a reader and we can just put the manual in front of them.

Well, that is my summary of the types of people I seem to work with a lot.

While I tend to communicate best with other folks who learn like me, I try to vary my style enough to reach many different type of folks.

Since everyone communicates with or instructs others in some way, I encourage you to take intentional steps to improve the way you share the knowledge you have.

Don't rely on just words or handing someone a manual. Get involved with the communication by also making a sketch or giving someone else a chance to try their hand. It can make all the difference in how well and quickly we get our work done and press on to the next task.

It will also make the next generation of Airmen better instructors and communicators because you took the time to be clear today.