TLDR;
Recognizing how your communication style interacts with another person's allows you to get your point across more effectively and appreciate the motivations behind some of their unconscious behaviors.
Navigate Profiles
For every person shown in Navigate, you'll see a Profile that looks something like this.
You'll also see these blue and yellow icons throughout Navigate. So what do they mean?
The blue icons represent someone's Priorities.
No matter what a person is talking about, they are sharing what they prioritize and how they make decisions. Cyrano measures the four most common priorities and ranks them based on which seems most important to the person with whom you're are talking. These are the 4 priorities that we use the most often to make most of our decisions:
Data | More information is always better. They want more information so they can do the homework and get every answer to each question correct. |
Order | This thought process is all about rules, systems, structure, and plans. |
Instinct | No need for details. Give them the big picture and let them trust their gut. |
Community | Relationships, feelings, and making sure everyone is getting along. |
The list you see on each person will show their highest priority in bold color, then list the next 3 in order. Understanding what is more or less important to a person helps you know what will influence them the most.
The yellow icons represent a person's Communication Style.
People have the five major senses of Sight, Sound, Feel, Smell, and Taste. Of those big five, we really use three in most of our thinking and conversations. Sight, Sound, and Feel dominate most of our communication with others and ourselves. Again, we display these in ranked order, so the bold one on the left is the most dominant, while the one on the right is the least relevant.
Visual | Photographers, Painters, and Graphic Designers can “see” something in their mind before it exists. |
Auditory | A musician can “hear” a song as they read the notes on the page. |
Kinesthetic (Physical) | An athlete can “feel” their balance and make decisions faster than they can explain. |
How do I use this?
Often, miscommunication is found when people are using different communication strategies or prioritizing different information.
For example:
A person may fidget because they want to distract their “feel” so they can pay better attention.
A speaker may get upset because they are visual and prepared a PowerPoint for a presentation, but a more kinesthetic-sensing audience member isn’t paying attention to them or their PowerPoint.
A presentation may gloss over details or processes to get at "the big picture", but you're presenting to a Data or Order person.
It’s important to note that certain topics might make a person talk a certain way (talking about a sunset vs a new song they just heard, for example). But, over time, patterns emerge and they become incredibly important to understanding how to influence and educate others.
We LOVE talking about this stuff! If you have questions, let us know and we'd be happy to get into the details!