Sensory Awareness

Why No One Is Listening to You

Everyone has their preferred sense through which they filter the infinite reality of being. Some people are relatively even-handed and accept input relatively evenly across their five senses. Others might prefer one sense over another for specific situations.

For example a manager may use sight as her primary sense when making relating to her business activities, visualizing goals, imagining options, etc, but may switch to kinesthetic (feelings) in relating to her children, or to auditory when signaling to herself that work is over and it’s time to relax (with music perhaps, or conversation).

In the context of leading others, you must understand this phenomenon in your team and appreciate the differences and the potential challenges that can arise when messages are sent using one set of sensory predicates, but are filtered at the receiving end by someone using an entirely different primary sense.

These exercise provides you the opportunity to experience this phenomenon for yourself.

Once have been through the exercise yourself, you may choose to run this with other members of your team. If you do, take it the next step, and label each player with their respective “primary sense” (V, A, K or Ad), then have them trial a series of communications in pairs, in which each speaks using the predicates preferred by the receiver of their message.

The Purpose of the Exercise

This exercise pretty quickly establishes a realization of the huge potential for misunderstandings to arise, particularly in the business context, and leads to a focus on ensuring that communications are couched in multiple predicates so as to be understandable and digestible by the broadest range of people.

For example, all important directions within the business may be delivered in written form and then verbally to address the two primary groups of Visual and Auditory people. Those who are heavily reliant on their Kinesthetic sense may have to have the opportunity to discuss their feelings and those of the rest of the team before they fully integrate the communication.

While this can be turned into a fun exercise, it has a very serious side, and has lead to huge realizations –and changes in operation – for many participants.

REPRESENTATIONAL SYSTEM PREFERENCE TEST

For each of the following statements, please place a number next to every phrase. Use the following system to indicate your preferences:

4 = Closest to describing you

3 = Next best description

2 = Next best

1 = Least descriptive of you

I make important decisions based on:

________ gut level feelings

________ which way sounds the best

________ what looks best to me.

________ precise review and study of the issues

During an argument, I am most likely to be influenced by:

________ the other person’s tone of voice

________ whether or not I can see the other person’s point of view

________ the logic of the other person’s argument

________ whether or not I am in touch with the other person’s true feelings

I most easily communicate what is going on with me by:

________ the way I dress and look

________ the feelings I share

________ the words I choose

________ my tone of voice

It is easiest for me to:

________ find the ideal volume and tuning on a stereo system

________ select the most intellectually relevant point in an interesting subject

________ select the most comfortable furniture

________ select rich, attractive color combinations

________ I am very attuned to the sounds of my surroundings

________ I am very adept at making sense of new facts and data

________ I am very sensitive to the way articles of clothing feel on my body

________ I have a strong response to colors and to the way a room looks

REPRESENTATIONAL SYSTEM PREFERENCE TEST

Step One

Copy your answers – with no change in their order – from the previous page to here:

1	2	3	4	5
_____ K	_____ A	_____ V	_____ A	_____ A
_____A	_____V	_____K	_____A_d	_____ A_d
_____V	_____A_d	_____ A_d	_____K	_____K
_____ A_d	_____K	_____A	_____V	_____V

Step Two

Now, sort your answer for each letter, so that all your “V” values are along the top row; your “A” values along the second row; etc.

1	2	3	4	5	Tot
V
A
K
Ad
Total your Totals to make sure you get					50

Step Three

With the numbers associated with each letter added for a total, identify your highest score(s), and check below the type of attributes and behaviors that are typically associated with that letter.

Favoured Representational Systems

V – VISUAL

People who are visual often stand or sit with their heads and/or bodies erect, with their eyes up. They will be breathing from the top of their lungs. They often sit forward in their chair and tend to be organized, neat, well-groomed and orderly. They memorize by seeing pictures, and are less distracted by noise. It is as if they have a movie camera in their mind. They take in what they hear or read and translate it into images in their brain. They may process information quickly and my have trouble remembering verbal instructions because their minds tend to seek faster input during conversation. A visual person will be interested in how things look, and appearances are important to them. They are often thin and wiry.

When the visual learner wants to recall what he or she has learned, they simply glance upward and look at the image that they have stored on their “picture screen”. This process is much like going to the movies and then recalling what one has seen, in order to tell a friend. The memory process is taking place by reviewing the pictures from the movie and then easily talking about the story line to someone else.

Visual learners speak in terms of “I see, I get the picture”. In a classroom, the VISUAL learner performs very well when testing is conducted in a written (visual) format. Good visual readers will read the black and white text and then convert the information into pictures, making the memory process easier. Visual children often conform easily to most classroom standards, such as sitting quietly, writing neatly and organizing materials well. Visuals can make a good architect, designer, decorator, engineer, surgeon. They may also use their “vision” to look forward in planning, and to anticipate risk and opportunity, giving them an edge in executive roles.

People with a visual preference, will tend to:

Be organized, neat and well-groomed. Why? Because they want to look good. And what do they expect from you? Yes, the same thing!
Use visualization for memory and decision making – often getting insights about something.
Be more imaginative and may have difficulty putting their ideas in words.
Speak faster than the general population. Why? Because they have a picture(s) in their mind and if it is a moving picture, there is a lot to tell in so little time!
Prefer in-person interactions – to see the other person and his/her reactions.
Want to see or be shown concepts, ideas or how something is done.
Want to see the big picture.
May not remember what people have said and become confused if you give them too many verbal instructions. However, if you can draw a map or picture for them, then they can see what you are saying.
Remember faces more easily than names.
Be distracted by visual activity and less so by noise.

A – AUDITORY

People who are auditory tend to move their eyes sideways while recalling or thinking; breathe from the middle of their chest; talk to themselves (sometimes even moving their lips), and are easily distracted by noise.

They can repeat conversations easily, they learn by listening, and usually like music and verbal conversation of all types (eg, the phone). They memorize sequentially, by steps, procedures, and sequences. The auditory person likes to be told how they’re doing, and they are unusually sensitive to changes in voice tone, pitch, timbre or certain sets of words. They will be interested in what you have to say about anything!

The AUDITORY learner tells wonderful stories and may solve problems simply by “talking them through”. The excellent hearing and listening skills of this type of learner are what make great musicians, disc jockeys, psychologists, etc.

The predicates that auditory people use often reveal their sensory preference: “I hear ya, that clicks, that sounds right, that rings a bell” etc.

People with an auditory tonal preference, will tend to:

Be more aware of subtle change in the tone of your voice and be more responsive to certain tones of voice.
Perceive and represent sequences and are able to remember directions or instructions more easily.
Learn by listening and asking questions.
Enjoy discussions and prefer to communicate through spoken language rather than the written word.
Talk through problems and like to have someone available to serve as a sounding board for their ideas.
Need to be heard.
Be easily distracted by noise.

K – KINESTHETIC

People who are kinesthetic will typically be breathing from the bottom of their lungs, so you’ll see their stomach go in and out when they breathe. They often move and talk verrry slooowly. They respond to physical rewards, and touching. They also stand closer to people than a visual person. They memorize by doing or walking through something. They will be interested in your topic to see if it “feels right”.

If they can touch it and feel whatever they are learning about, the kinesthetic learner will process and remember the information quite well. As students kinesthetics can be quite restless and experience more difficulty paying attention; they can’t seem to “get focused” (a visual term). They like to speak about situations or challenges or learning in terms of their feelings and say things like “I feel” or “I’d like to get a better handle on this information”.

Kinesthetics don’t have the internal pictures of neatness and organization that visual learners make so easily in their minds and so their environment can look a mess and they may appear (to a Visual) to be totally disorganised – but they may just know where everything is. Organisation and order can be a major challenge for kinesthetics, and coordination with faster acting and processing Visuals, Auditories or (worst) Auditory Digitals, can be a major challenge.

Kinesthetics are often very much “in the moment” and have difficulty in planning or projecting the consequences of their actions, simply because they don’t “see” out into the future.

Kinesthetics often excel when something needs role-playing or acting out, or building something. They may excel at athletics, building, construction, dancing or any other work which can involve the body and movement.

People with a kinesthetic preference, will tend to:

Speak slower than the general population. Why? Because they need time to get in touch with how they feel about the topic.
Be more sensitive to their bodies and their feelings and respond to physical rewards and touching.
Learn by doing, moving or touching.
Dress and groom themselves more for comfort than how they look.
Make decisions based on their feelings.
Stand closer to other people than those with a visual preference – to feel the other person’s energy, whereas the person with a visual preference will stand back to see more of the other person (body language, etc.).

Ad – AUDITORY DIGITAL

This person will spend a fair amount of time talking to themselves. They will want to know if your program “makes sense”. The auditory digital person can exhibit characteristics of the other major representational systems.

The auditory digital system is not related to any of our senses. Instead of saying something “looks good”, “sounds right”, “feels nice”, “tastes good” or “has the smell of success”, a person with a preference for auditory digital may say, “this makes sense”, “is logical” or “the specifications are correct”.

People with an auditory digital preference, will tend to:

Have a need to make sense of the world, to figure things out, to understand.
Talk to themselves and carry on conversations with you in their mind. Often they will say they remember discussing something with you, when you actually did not have the conversation. They did, however, in their mind!
Learn by working things out in their mind.
Not to be spontaneous, as they like to think things through.
Have logic play a key role in the decision process as do facts and figures.
Memorize by steps, procedures, sequences.

A Note Of Caution

No one is only Auditory Digital, Visual, Kinaesthetic or Auditory – we are each a mix.

All of us operate in all of these ways to different degrees at different times/contexts. While any of these may be our preferred or lead representational system we are not limited to one system.

When talking with a group, broaden your expression so as to cover all types.

When speaking with one person alone, seek to align your language with their apparent preferences and watch for an increase in rapport that would indicate that you are on the right track.

Smart Application

When giving instructions to another person, provide them with a written copy (with illustrations if relevant) [Vision], as you talk them through it [Auditory], then check to see how they feel about the communication [Kinesthetic].

The Ad’s will tell you soon enough if it “doesn’t make sense”!

Diagnostics

If you encounter instances where someone in your team continually “forgets” to do what you have asked, or just plain “gets it wrong”, then you may rather foolishly be relying on an auditory communication for a visual, auditory-digital or kinaesthetic person.

If someone “never reads my emails”, “never reads the bulletins”, etc – then you may have an auditory or kinaesthetic who needs to be talked or walked through the material.

If you have someone to whom you have written and spoken the message, but still don’t receive a response, you may have a kinaesthetic who is looking for the opportunity to come to grips with some of the detail, and may need to discuss how they feel about it all, so that they are (internally) free to proceed.

Peter Rowe