Communications

Effective Communication is crucial in business. Where poor communication exists, it is generally attributed to poor communication skills by one or both parties. Often this is not the case. Rather, it is a lack of understanding of key character attributes that determine optimal communication style between individuals that is the primary cause of poor communication.

Optimax has various assessment tools that will do exactly this. The Competency Matrix is a unique tool designed to determine job competencies. The information from the Matrix is used to develop a Job Model which defines the competencies necessary for optimal job performance. Employee competencies are determined from the Character Assessment tool which assesses over 200 hundred parameters related to the employee's character profile.

The key elements of a person’s character for communication are Tolerance and Persuadability. To illustrate this, consider the following two scenarios:

An employee with very low tolerance and high persuadability.

If a manger wants to communicate a message to an employee with these attributes he must be prepared that the employee may reject his suggestions initially because of that employee’s low tolerance. However, because the employee also has high persuadability, if the manager allows the employee time to absorb what he has said and then brings up the subject again, say the next day, there is a better possibility that the employee could be more receptive to the suggestion.

A manager with very high tolerance and minimal persuadability.

If an employee wants to present something to his manager in this case he must understand that he likely has only one “shot”. Once the manger make his mind up it will be very difficult to change his opinion later on because of his low persuadability. The employee must be well prepared with the initial presentation to win the manager at the beginning.

In both of these cases different communication strategies are called for, dependant on character parameters. An understanding of character will result in better communication, less frustration, stress, and better performance results.

Other character parameters that affect communication are People Handling competencies . Many job positions in high technology industries, for example, do not place a high importance on this competency but rather technical expertise. Yet communication and teamwork are still important. A solution to enhance communication and team performance where people handling competencies are low is to encourage other forms of communication such as e-mail. By taking this approach, organizations can. As we stress at Optimax, often it comes back to understanding character and how to maximize the use of this information to create higher performance.