Cognitive Styles (Styles of Thinking, Talking, Giving and Receiving Information) 1 CPE

As a consultant living and working in Silicon Valley, I am often in the position of trying to resolve communication and conflict between people from different departments in an organization.  For example: Have you heard people call the IT personnel nasty names and have you heard IT people call those they are supposed to serve “stupid users?”

Although both terms are nasty they really do communicate what people with vastly different cognitive styles think about each other.  For instance, 'detail people' tend to be controlling.  Others don’t want to memorize all that detail.  They misunderstand each other on a fundamental level.

In this course we look at cognitive styles from a variety of angles.  First as we define them and their position on a bell shaped curve.  Then we look at how cultural differences – in particular the way people were taught – affect out thinking and communication style.  We also discuss styles as they are defined by two of the most popular personality tests:  Myers-Briggs and the DISC.  

Finally, we put it all together giving you some ideas as to how you can modify your style to make it easier for the other person to understand you.

Prerequisites

No advanced preparation or prerequisites are required for this course.

Learning Objective

• Discover that there is no right or wrong style – we need them all
• Recognize the style of people with whom you interact and hopefully will be able to modify your style to be more effective when communicating with them.
• Identify your own style and learn why it is effective in some professions but not necessarily in others.

Last updated/reviewed: July 18, 2025