[ExI] Bandwidth of Information Gleaning

[Jef Allbright]

On 5/4/07, Anne Corwin <sparkle_robot at yahoo.com> wrote:

> I had a manager a while back who was very verbally-oriented -- he preferred
> spontaneous verbal/auditory interaction, whereas I am more text-oriented and
> visual.  We had some difficulties communicating -- I had a hard time
> listening to him, and he had a hard time dealing with the e-mails I sent.
> But then I got the idea of writing down my thoughts before talking to him --
> basically I wrote what I would have written in the e-mail, printed it, and
> then went to his office and read it to him.  That worked out quite well.
> And that's the kind of model I see as being a useful one for thinking about
> communication in the future -- one that makes heavy use of translation and
> accomodation of processing differences.

Excellent that you put the strategy into practice and it worked.  I
(try to remember to) do something similar when I realize that I'm
talking with someone who perceives differently than I do.  For
example, my thinking is extremely visual/analytical (I actually think
in terms of graphs and geometric shapes) so I tend to use phrases like
"I see" and "in the bigger picture" and "what do you think" and "does
that make sense."  When I'm trying to be understood by certain other
types of perceivers, translating to "that sounds right", "how do you
feel about", "does that feel right" etc.  Likewise, drawing
relationships on a whiteboard versus modeling with hands or other
objects can make a big difference in rapport and understanding.

- Jef