355. Expert Interview: Adjust Your Communication Style and Watch Your Business Relationships Improve, with Bill Lampton, Ph.D.
Bill Lampton
Bill Lampton, Ph.D., president of Championship Communication, helps leaders speak confidently, clearly, and convincingly. His interview coaching enables applicants to excel in job searches. Bill’s client list includes Gillette, Procter and Gamble, Duracell, British Columbia Legal Management System, Missouri Bar, and the Ritz-Carlton Cancun. Prior to establishing his company, he taught at the University of Georgia, then served as vice president of three colleges and a medical center. He has hosted many radio talk shows.
Adjust Your Communication Style and Watch Your Business Relationships Improve
Dr. Lampton explains a tool he uses with his clients to help them understand their natural, predominant communication styles and the styles they have adapted to fit the particular needs of their lives, including at their workplaces. It is known as the DISC personality profile for the four major styles of communication and orientation toward life and it measures dominance, influencing, steadiness and compliance.
“Even though I had earned my graduate degrees in communication and had taught it at the University of Georgia, I’d never had any familiarity with communication styles. I was skeptical about the different types of instruments that were supposed to indicate what a person’s communication style and personality were like.” His skepticism vanished when he took the DISC himself and saw his own results. “The first thing I thought was, ‘Who has been watching me shave every morning?’ It was so on target, it absolutely opened my eyes to the way I view other people and the way other people view me.” Today, he routinely uses it with his clients, with impressive results.
Why Is This Important?
In addition to the insights DISC can offer individuals and groups about their dominant styles, it also measures the natural, in-born traits along with the traits and styles the individual has adapted to meet the demands of the world in which the individual lives. “When I administer DISC to someone and their natural style and adapted style are practically the same, I tell them, ‘You are an extremely fortunate person!’ In every instance those individuals will say, ‘I do love my job. I do fit in well there.’ This is a great instrument for helping people evaluate that. It’s also a good way of measuring how likely they are to be engaged and happy in their life and work.”
What Are the Key Lessons Learned Here?
“Understanding your own communication style and personality can help you overcome so many conflicts. We all deal with personality clashes with difficult people you just can’t ever get along with. Well, if you get over the idea that those other people have to communicate exactly like you do, you really can get along. As you understand that everybody is not the same personality type, you can try to learn to speak their language, approach the situation as they would, understand them and recognize their value.”
Connecting With Bill Lampton
Website: http://www.championshipcommunication.com
Twitter: @doclampton
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/doclampton
LinkedIn: http://www.LinkedIn.com/in/billlampton
Free Gift
Listeners who sign up for Dr. Lampton’s newsletter at www.championshipcommunication.com will receive his free article: “Handle Stage Fright: Make the Right Choice.”
