Counting Down My Top 10 Favorite Learning Experiences and Sharing Advice for New L&D Professionals
- May 26
- 3 min read
#6: Adapting Your Communication Style
Recently I wrapped up an article series focusing on the four essential elements of impactful learning experiences. When facilitators execute these elements successfully, learners leave their training sessions feeling informed, engaged, entertained, and inspired.
I was eager to author another series but was drawing a blank on a topic. As I began reflecting upon my early years in the postsecondary classroom and more recent years in corporate training spaces, several learning experiences stood out to me.
While a late night talk show host gig is probably not in my future, I decided to compile a list of my top 10 favorite learning experiences.
I hope that by sharing my work, I spark your imagination, inspire you to experiment with new approaches, and encourage you to pitch audacious ideas for your learning projects. At the end of each article, I‘ll offer a few suggestions for you to consider.
#6: Adapting Your Communication Style
I designed, developed, and facilitated this 75-minute session as part of my then team’s offsite. The audience consisted of the director of the department, three senior managers, and individual contributors on the Learning and Development (instructional designers and facilitators) and Knowledge Management teams.
I based my session on the work of Dr. Pierre Casse, an expert on multicultural management, organizational behavior, and strategic leadership. In his 1981 book entitled Training for the Cross-Cultural Mind, he described four communication orientations: action-oriented, process-oriented, people-oriented, and idea-oriented.
Note: I’ll use the terms “orientation” and “style” interchangeably throughout this article.
In preparation for the session, I asked my team members to complete a 20-question written assessment to discover their primary communication style. After scoring the assessments, I emailed everyone their individual results and asked them not to share their results with anyone else on the team.
Because this was a HIGHLY VISUAL learning experience, using colors and models, I have included numerous slides from my PowerPoint presentation in this article.
Why This Experience Makes My Top 10
Reason #1: We began with a fun activity to get everyone out of their chairs and moving around the room.
Prior to the learners’ arrival, I hung sheets of flip chart paper on the walls, spacing them evenly around the perimeter of the room. Proceeding in alphabetical order by first name, I used a marker to label the top of each sheet with the name of a team member.
I opened the session with a simple demonstration to introduce the topic followed by a review of the learning objectives. Afterwards, using the slide shown below, I provided a high-level description of each of the four communication styles. I emphasized that no one style was better than any other; each had their pros and cons.
Now that learners were familiar with the general characteristics of each style, I introduced the first activity.
I gave each learner a set of coding labels, including rows of red, green, yellow, and blue dots. Prior to the session, I used a marker to label the dots according to each communication style. The red dots with an “A” for Action. The green dots with a “P” for Process. The yellow dots with a “PP” for People. And the blue dots with an “I” for Idea.
Next, I instructed everyone to find the flip chart with their name written at the top and to stand in front of it. I explained the objective of the activity was for them to guess each team member’s communication style based upon (1) the general characteristics we just reviewed and (2) their personal interactions with and observations of one another in meetings and other settings.
Once they decided, they should place a colored dot corresponding to that style on the person’s chart. For example, if they believed I had an Idea communication style, they would place a blue dot on my flip chart. I urged everyone not to overthink and suggested they go with their first instinct.
To avoid bottlenecking during the activity, learners navigated the room in a clockwise direction. Placing their dot on the flip chart and then moving to their right to the next one. Learners continued in this manner until they returned to their own chart, which by then would be full of the dots representing the guesses of their team members. That signaled they had completed the activity.
I displayed the summary slide on the screen for reference, played smooth instrumental jazz in the background, and gave them 5 minutes to finish.
Read the remainder of this article for free on Medium here.
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