Crystal Knows, or: how to get your message across to me

A cou­ple of weeks ago Crys­tal Knows was launched. Nat­u­ral­ly I signed up for the beta. What does it do?

“Crys­tal tells you the best way to com­mu­ni­cate with any prospect, cus­tomer, or cowork­er based on their unique per­son­al­i­ty. Crys­tal ana­lyzes pub­lic data to tell you how you can expect any giv­en per­son to behave, how he or she wants to be spo­ken to, and per­haps more impor­tant­ly, what you can expect your rela­tion­ship to be like.”

So it checks how you com­mu­ni­cate, and then helps oth­er peo­ple to talk to you more effec­tive­ly, for the opti­mal recep­tion between sender and receiv­er. Com­mu­ni­ca­tion 101, real­ly.

I received my invi­ta­tion a cou­ple of days ago, but only just had time to com­plete the reg­is­tra­tion process. Here is what it says about me, “with 95% con­fi­dence”. While I may not agree with every­thing, a lot of this stuff is a pret­ty good guess. Per­son­al com­ments inside paren­the­ses.

Sti­jn is ana­lyt­i­cal, skep­ti­cal, and focused on results, but also appre­ci­ates ideas and likes to talk.

Guess it’s off to a good start. If my mas­ters has taught me any­thing, it is to be skep­ti­cal and self-con­cious. I enjoy chal­leng­ing my own ideas and can appre­ci­ate a good ping-ping of ideas.

When speak­ing to Sti­jn…
Use words like “done”, “absolute­ly”, and “it’s tak­en care of”.
Don’t get offend­ed if they ends the con­ver­sa­tion abrupt­ly.
Don’t expect to lead the con­ver­sa­tion.
Don’t take time to earn trust before mak­ing your point.

Feel free to take your cue from Ralph Wal­do Emer­son: “What you do speaks so loud­ly that I can­not hear what you say.” Affir­ma­tive answers real­ly give me con­fi­dence in your capa­bil­i­ties. Now back to work.

When email­ing Sti­jn…
Use data to prove a point.
Write 3 sen­tences or less.
Don’t use a sen­tence to express appre­ci­a­tion for their time.
Don’t add non-essen­tial but friend­ly lines like “hope you’re doing well”.

Haha­ha this is so true! I’m a fol­low­er of three.sentenc.es, which is why my answers are usu­al­ly very to-the-point. And if you don’t share the data I need, I will cer­tain­ly ask you for it.

When work­ing with Sti­jn…
Sur­prise them to get their atten­tion.
Offer blunt con­struc­tive crit­i­cism.
Don’t expect a long time to earn their trust.
Don’t let an accom­plish­ment go unap­pre­ci­at­ed.

Sur­pris­es will always get my atten­tion. Prefer­ably a pleas­ant sur­prise. Com­pli­ments are appre­ci­at­ed, but cer­tain­ly not required. I’ll only accept com­pli­ments from peo­ple who I look up to. Time to talk straight. Lose the fluff. Get to the point and go back to work.

When sell­ing to Sti­jn…
Make sure you’re pre­pared for tough ques­tions.
Ask a tough ques­tion or issue a chal­lenge.
Don’t spend lots of time talk­ing about top­ics unre­lat­ed to work.
Don’t focus on your company’s past accom­plish­ments and cre­den­tials.

I guess I’m a salersperson’s worst night­might. Expext a lot of ques­tions. Should you pose a chal­lenge, it may back­fire.

It comes nat­u­ral­ly to Sti­jn to…
Be frus­trat­ed if some­one is late to a meet­ing.
Speak up to get every­one back on top­ic in a meet­ing.
Feel anx­ious about some­one else mak­ing deci­sions on their behalf.
Enjoy argu­ment and debate.

Yes, time­keep­ing is my busi­ness. You can talk about those new shoes of yours at anoth­er time. Wast­ing my time is an intol­er­a­ble show of disrespect.Disagreement works very stim­u­lat­ing. But I’ll make my own deci­sions, tyvm.

It does not come nat­u­ral­ly to Sti­jn to…
Eas­i­ly per­cieve the emo­tions of oth­ers.
Com­fort some­one in a sad sit­u­a­tion.
Reveal vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty to build trust.
Feel nat­u­ral­ly empa­thet­ic.

Nope. Don’t agree with any of this.

What was your result? And did you agree with it or not?