Internal Representational System
Internal Representational System
We are all unique in the way we communicate. Even knowing this, some people still have trouble understanding why their message is misunderstood. It doesn’t matter what you do for a living, everyone communicates. It is how you communicate that determines the quality of your business, career and life.
I am going to show you a very valuable technique that, when practiced and implemented into your life, will increase your communication skills considerably.
There are four main internal representational systems, as a general rule you will be more dominant in one of them. The key to effective communication is to learn to favour them all equally.
Visual people see the world by constructing or remembering mental images. They respond to what they see, either in their mind or in reality. Appearances are very important to them and they will ‘see’ what you mean. Visual people communicate with 40% of their audience.
Auditory people listen to the world around them by constructing their thoughts and feelings based on what they hear. They tell themselves what’s happening as how to interpret an event. They will be interested in what you have to say and they will respond to a certain tone of voice and set of words. Auditory people communicate with 10% of their audience.
Kinesthetic people feel the world around them. They interpret their world through physical contact and feelings. They will ‘sense’ or ‘get’ what you mean. They respond to physical rewards and touching. Kinesthetic people communicate with 40% of their audience.
Auditory Digital people will spend a fair amount of their time talking to themselves. They want to know how things work and if it makes sense. Auditory digital people will use long complicated sentences and like lots of detail. Auditory digital people communicate with 10% of their audience.
Visual and Kinesthetic communicate with 40% of their audience which means that in a room full of people 60 % of their audience are not paying attention or can be distracted. This is not a very good scenario, especially if you are depending on a sale.
Auditory and Auditory Digital communicate with 10% of their audience which is a shocking realisation, because 90% of their audience has ‘gone to lunch’ if you know what I mean.
You will need to determine which internal representational system is your strongest and then determine your weakest. There is a test you can do to determine this (contact me and I will send it to you). As I mentioned before the key to effective communication is to learn to favour all the systems equally.
Effective communicators control the conversation and control the result. With practice and will power you can become an effective communicator. Start paying attention to what the leaders are saying and how they deliver their message. You will begin to notice they use words from each of the internal representational systems continually throughout their message. The reason they do this is to make sure that the audience is connected to every word they speak and the only way to do that is to use the words that each system favours and resonates with, thus creating instant rapport.
© by Vicki Williams, Director,
