You know that feeling you get when you say something you weren't supposed to say and it comes out a little louder than you anticipated? It's a naked moment, and there's nothing you can do to cover up. You goofed, everybody heard, and how you fare from here on out depends on what you do next.

When I started a new job three years ago, that's how I felt all the time. My requests were falling to the bottom of most people's list of things to do. I couldn't get anyone to cooperate. Although my boss and I had frank discussions about the need for me to adjust my style of interaction, he had no practical help to offer.

I called my friend Tony—a management and branding consultant—and told him what was up. "Did you think about asking them for a coach?" he said.

"A what?"

"A communications coach. Your HR department probably has a list, and I bet they'll even pay for it."

And that's when I met John Artise, my communications sensei. He has been in the business of communication for close to 30 years, and bases his coaching style on the work of Paul P. Mok, PhD, a Harvard-trained psychologist who, in the 1970s, developed a system called Communicating Styles Technology (CST) which is built on Carl Jung’s theory of psychological types.* Artise has administered more than 5,000 communication style assessments to people in corporate outplacement and training to investigate language styles. After analyzing the results, he identified four types of communicators: Feelers, Sensors, Intuitors, and Thinkers.

Can we talk?
So how do you know whether you are talking to a Feeler, a Sensor, a Thinker, or an Intuitor? Artise teaches people to listen for clues to the other person's communication style—or the style they've slipped into for that particular moment-so you know how to get compromise and cooperation from anyone, at work or at home.

Become a black-belt communicator.