What is your preferred method of communication?
You like email? Texting? Facebook messaging? Twitter dm?
Phone call? In person meetings?
Maybe a letter or handwritten note?
How do you like to communicate and how do you like to be communicated with?
Although some may have preferences based upon their personality types, I firmly believe that people’s communication preferences come from their age, or what generation they come from.
Look at Miranda Lambert’s song “Mama’s Broken Heart,” for instance.
In it, she complains that her mother comes from a “softer generation,” which explains why mother and daughter handle break ups differently.
A similar comparison can be made with communication preferences.
Members of the baby boomer generation (I was born in the last year of that generation) often prefer telephone or in person methods.
Generation X-ers who came next seem to be enamored of email.
The Millennials tend to like texting and all forms of social media to communicate.
This is an important consideration if you work with multi-generations. Give great consideration to your clients, your supervisors and your employees, and think about what THEIR preferred communication method is. Then use it!
So many of life’s small (and large) problems are communication-based. If you could help solve that type of problem by simply reconsidering how you are communicating with someone, wouldn’t that be a big help to you?
Imagine the peaceful relationship Miranda and her mom might have if they each had known how to talk to one another!
