Knowing Your Natural Approach: Why the Communicate Naturally Assessment Changes Team Conversations

Most communication-style assessments give each team member a label — red, blue, eagle, driver — and stop there. The team walks out with new vocabulary and the same patterns. Labels do not change how people talk to each other; awareness plus shared language plus a structured way to adapt in real time does. The Communicate Naturally assessment is built specifically for that third part.

Communicate Naturally names four Natural Approaches (Natural Gold Mines, Natural Blue Oceans, Natural Green Planets, Natural Orange Skies). Each approach is a legitimate strength-set, not a pathology to fix. More importantly, the framework gives the team specific language for adapting in a meeting: “I am hearing this as Green Planet-leaning — can we add some Gold Mine specifics before we decide?” The language is the intervention. It lets the team negotiate communication style in real time, without anyone feeling accused of being wrong.

Below is how the four Natural Approaches work, what each contributes, and why the Communicate Naturally program installs this as a team-level capability rather than as an individual’s self-awareness. Take the assessment free at the product site linked below.

Today I wanted to share with you all some great blog posts that were sent to us from students of the Centennial College corporate communications and public relations program. The students had recently attended our Communicate Naturally™ workshop headed by our founder and chief learning officer, Doug Bolger. Using colour as a metaphor for different communication styles, the students identified their own colour and learned how to build their communication skills to work with opposing colours. As a part of their program, the students wrote blogs on their experience of the workshop and how it’s beneficial to their current educational and future career endeavors. After reading their blogs, it was great to hear the students found the workshop useful in identifying their communication strengths and weaknesses. Below are some excerpts of the students experience.

INSIGHT INTO KATE:

“I cannot sing the praises of the facilitator of the Communicate Naturally workshop enough – he was incredible! Going forward, I am going to try and emulate his engaging and interactive presentation style in order to constantly keep my audience involved and interested. If “Communicate Naturally” was a movie, it would be so fast paced you would be on the edge of your seat for the entire duration, dying to know what was going to happen next! I definitely give the the “Communicate Naturally Workshop” two thumbs up. It was an enjoyable alternative from the regular pace of lectures.”

TALK AND TELL:

“After being in groups for our various assignments, I have learned that each of us brings a different perspective to the table. Our group dynamic works great. In our group you can tell straight away who the golds are, the greens, blues and oranges. We all use our strengths to complete our projects. It’s obvious through our group dynamics that if we were all one colour, let’s say orange, ideas would be flowing, conversation would be great, plans to get together would be made and no work would get done. On that note, it’s great to have a gold mine in a group for assignments. As we continue to work in our groups and I learn more about what future employers will want, individuals who are gold are the people I most admire and am learning from.” “Although golds bring a lot to a working environment Doug, the facilitator of the “Communicate Naturally” workshop, made it clear through his style and presentation that being an outgoing, dynamic orange can have a major impact on the way people communicate. His body language and tone of voice made the presentation a success. He was engaging with his audience and presented a tell-it-like it is attitude. He made it clear that everyone has their strengths but everyone also has their weaknesses and it is crucial to learn about yourself and about your team to be successful in the future.”

Y’ARMOUR ZONE:

“If I have to form a group in the future, I will definitely make sure that it has at least one person from each colour, because each colour completes each other. You can’t be fully and smoothly successful if one of them is missing. Gold needs to be chilled by orange, orange needs to be managed to be consistent by green and green needs to learn how to stay calm from blue. That’s why a perfect team needs them all and each of the members has to realize and bring out every colour they have.” “Additionally what I have learned so far during this workshop, the facilitator taught me how to keep people awake when you do your presentation and also, how to interact them into the topic. Using the whole space he had, his gestures, mimics and the way he ups and downs his voice… Next time I present a project, I’ll perform his methods and make my presentation more effective.”

PR-FIX:

“My Gold is constantly telling me to speak and my Orange causes me to be easily distracted in conversation. I need to listen to others more often. This is a lesson I will try and take from the relaxed and receptive Blues. Finding a balance between my two conflicting colours is a definite adventure.” “I would give the “Communicate Naturally™” workshop five out of five Gold stars. It was creative, captivating, and a genuine learning experience. Doug was a receptive yet energetically driven facilitator. He shared his lessons through poking fun at everyday commonalities our group could relate to. He made everyone feel a part of his team.” “Simply put, Doug’s attitude is contagious, and so are his lessons.”

KASS O’BRIEN:

“I was surprised that half the people in the workforce are “golds”. This was an eye opener for me because I realized that my potential employers need to see things written down and need to see things charted out step by step. This is where I can apply the critical paths and gantt charts I have learned in class. Preparation and list making, although very mundane and boring to me is one of the most important parts of a project. The more I practice them, the more confident I feel about my work and the ideas I bring to the table.” “I like how Doug gave real life examples that were attached to each colour. He made every colour important and didn’t make anyone feel stupid. He communicated to us that in the workforce we are going to run into multiple personalities and we need to know how to work with all of them to finish a project. You can’t control who you get as a partner but you can control how you communicate to them. And that is makes all the difference.”

PRDRINK PRVOKER:

“There were a few highlights during the workshop that Bolger made all 70 of us Corporate Communications & Public Relations students do. First Bolger made everyone stand up and find a way for all 70 of us to move in one direction. It was funny because right away you could tell that the “orange skies” were unorganized while the “gold mines” were formulating a countdown and a leader. Of course us “orange skies” people hate to follow rules! The other task that stood out to me was when Bolger divided all four colours into groups and made us write down lists. Go figures us “orange skies” were YELLING out items, talking over each other, not caring what the instructions were, while the “gold mines” were talking one-by-one and creating a proper list. Why do they have to be perfectionists?! It was pretty interesting to see how all the personalities and everyone in it was reacting to the tasks.” “In my books, I would rate Learn2’s Communicate Naturally workshop 9 glasses of orange juice out of 10! It was Bolger’s passion and energy that really captivated me. There was a lot of interaction with both CCPR blocks and that is something that we have not done at all this year. So it was great to see different peoples personality even though it was just for that hour.”

PR ARU:

“Overall it was a very fun experience. Doug, the presenter really knew how to capture everyone’s attention-and keep it (which is often a struggle when you have 26 hours of class a week). One thing that he did which I thought was very beneficial, and something that could be used for other presentations, was that even though he was going through each of the colours one by one, he would come back to the other colours during it. For example, he would be explaining how oranges are, then he would mention how blues feel or interact with an orange. The benefit of this was to keep the blues attention while explaining something that may not be as related to them. If “Communicate Naturally” was a movie, it would be a pretty awesome one, two thumbs up, 4/4 stars, 5/5 stars, and why not throw in a 96% on the tomatometer (because we all know they don’t hand out 100%’s). I mean lets get real, who doesn’t like a movie where an enthusiastic man tells you how to communicate. Ok-that sounded lame but I’m being dead serious. Maybe it’s the blue in me but I love to learn how I communicate, and how others do too.”