Knowing of my interest in communication styles, a client passed along an article from Fast Company magazine titled, These are the four styles of communication you need to know (Mckay, Jan 2019). The title intrigued me because we teach four Jungian styles of communication both in our Successful Selling to Type: SST sales course and in our leadership development training. But instead of the well established and research supported styles of Stabilizer, Cooperator, Catalyst and Strategist1, the Fast Company article is dedicated to a framework made up by a leadership coach.
I certainly have no quarrel with the premise that communication effectiveness is essential to both business development and leadership. But why make something up when an effective system has been around for nearly a century and is supported by volumes of research? Let’s just note that there are greater mysteries in life like why people pay more than $700 million a year for bottled water or watch reality TV.
Moving to a more practical level, the Fast Company article outlines how to communicate with their four different styles but provides nothing in terms of how you recognize the varying preferences in clients or team members you are seeking to influence. In our training we begin with the principle of balancing messages to appeal to all styles. This does not require reading the preferences of others. We introduce this core principle of balance with a brief exercise we have replicated hundreds of times.
If you would like to do part I of the exercise, conjure up the last time you were seeking to persuade another person. What did you say or write? Place a check mark where it would land in the table below.
Sensing (S)
Facts
Details
Accuracy
Here and Now
Intuition (N)
Possibilities
Big Picture
Associations
Future
Thinking (T)
Analysis
Logic
Truth over tact
Pros & Cons
Feeling (F)
Values
Harmony
Empathy
Caring

What we find is people pile up check marks consistent with their own preferences, for me N and T, while being light or totally neglecting the others. To this day, and after using this model for more than twenty years, I still need to be intentional to include S & F messages I plan to communicate. Basically, we tend to send messages to others the way we, not necessarily they would like to receive them.
The take-away from this exercise is a remarkably easy and powerful way to become more effective with your communication: balance your messages to appeal to all styles not just your own. We can thank the genius of Carl Jung and the Myers Briggs Type Indicator community that has explicated his theory in the MBTI and supported it through years of carefully conducted research.
Our training also provides skills and tools to identify the styles of others to shade your communication in their direction. But balance is always the default. Please let us know if you would like to engage in a dialogue on communication effectiveness or know more about our approach.

1Strategist combines Sensing &Thinking; Cooperator combines Sensing & Feeling; Catalyst combines Intuition & Feeling; Strategist combines Intuition & Thinking.