PTT: Think about the PLOT

Professional Tip Tuesday:

How do you PLOT your words to effectively communicate?

Yesterday during training at work we had a "Consultative Partnering" session. It was an workshop all about effective communication - my bread and butter. I loved it! One of the things we learned about was PLOT.. which is what I want to offer up today for a Professional Tip Tuesday.

PLOT is all about knowing your audience and making your communication efforts count. In my internship last year, someone described the role of a communicator as an interpreter. Basically, anyone utilizing their communication skills is trying to convey an idea from one person to another.

I don't know about you, but interpreter makes a lot more sense to me when I think about the purpose of communication. It's not necessarily all about leveraging my personal communication style to woo the person receiving the message. It is more about understanding how to cater that message and help the receiver make sense of it. 

And voila! Along comes the PLOT idea: A simple acronym that helps you figure out how to best deliver a message to a particular person. As you look at the example below, think about someone you know well and fill in their traits. Here is the breakdown:

PLOT: 

• P - Personality 
• How would you describe the person and their personality?
• i.e. Pragmatic and always multi-tasking
• L - Language 
• How does the person communicate? 
• i.e. Short and to the point
• O - Opinion or Frame of Reference
• How do they generally seem to view life?
• i.e. Realistic
• T - Task 
• How do they approach a task?
• i.e. Very structured, step-by-step, lots of details

The whole idea with PLOT is that it gives you the opportunity to quickly assess what your audience needs. It can make a world of difference when you are deciding how to deliver a message. 

For example, I am generally a relational gal. My communication style is full of rapport. But if I were talking to the person I used as an example above, they may hate that fluff. By mapping out their PLOT, I figured out I had better use more succinct and to the point communication with that person. 

If I were to ask this person to do something, I would want to think about the PLOT and how it comes into play. I would not spend as much time on the big picture - I would focus more on the details and the importance of their particular part. I would explain to them exactly what I need them to do and the significance to the project. 

So that is my example of PLOT. Use this next time you are trying to communicate an idea! Whether it's your roommate or a coworker, PLOT can help you establish a communication style that works on the individual level. 

It's also really interesting to PLOT yourself! It helps you breakdown your communication style in a whole new way. So what's yours? Comment below and tell me about it.