COMS Communication Styles

COMS is a communication framework that reveals how people naturally connect and share information. Through eight simple questions, your team sees where each person fits on the COMS grid. This visual makes it easier to understand style preferences and how they affect collaboration. Our facilitators guide you through the process, turning insight into practical skills you can use every day.

They do different jobs, and we facilitate both. DISC is a broader behavioural profile covering how someone tends to work generally, and it carries decades of familiarity, which counts for a lot if your organization already uses it. COMS is narrower on purpose. It looks only at communication, in workplace settings, and it runs live in the room, so the team’s pattern builds on screen together rather than arriving afterwards as a stack of individual reports. If the friction on your team is mostly about how people talk to each other, COMS gets there faster. If you want a fuller behavioural picture, DISC is the better tool, and our guide to DISC covers it. We will tell you which we think fits on the first call.

Four, and they are what give the framework its name.
Commanding: bold, decisive and focused on results.
Outgoing: warm, expressive and quick to connect.
Measured: steady, thoughtful and grounded in harmony.
Systematic: precise, analytical and driven by accuracy.
No style is better than another, and most people lean on a second one under pressure.

The session starts with each person completing the short assessment. Results are mapped on the grid, creating a shared picture of team dynamics. We then guide participants through exercises that highlight differences and encourage adaptation. Workshops are interactive, so your team can practise new strategies in a safe environment.

Yes. Many conflicts are the result of clashing styles rather than intention. COMS provides a neutral language that makes those differences easier to discuss. Teams often discover that past tension was based on expectations, not capability. By reframing differences as strengths, participants learn to reduce friction and build trust.

COMS works at every level of an organization. Front-line groups benefit from improved collaboration, while leadership teams gain tools to manage and adapt across styles. We recommend bringing entire teams through the process so everyone shares the same framework. This creates consistency and makes it easier to sustain results.

COMS sessions run anywhere from 90 minutes to a full day, depending on what you want the session to achieve. The assessment itself takes less than 10 minutes to complete, so the rest of the time goes into interpretation, discussion, and practice. A 90-minute session works well as an introduction or as an opener within a larger offsite, giving your team the shared language and the grid. A half-day allows for deeper exploration of how styles interact in your specific team. A full day makes room for extended application work, scenario practice, and building the framework into how your team runs meetings and makes decisions. We will recommend a length based on your goals, your team size, and how much time you realistically have.

Both, and we also run hybrid sessions where some participants are in the room and others join remotely. In-person delivery works well when you want the energy of a shared space, particularly for the movement-based exercises that help people physically map themselves on the grid. Virtual sessions use collaborative tools to recreate that experience, with digital grids, breakout rooms, and structured activities that keep participation high across screens. Hybrid sessions need more deliberate design so remote participants stay equally involved, and we build that into the plan from the start. Our virtual facilitation page sets out how we design for a screen, including why we ask everyone to join from their own device when any part of the group is remote.

COMS works for groups of all sizes, from a leadership team of five to a full department or conference of five hundred. Because everyone responds on their own device and the results build live on screen, the experience scales without losing the personal insight. For larger groups, we structure the session so every table still gets time to explore what the results mean for them.

A COMS session equips your team with a shared language for style differences and practical tools for daily communication. Participants leave with greater clarity, fewer misunderstandings, and improved collaboration across roles and departments. The framework encourages ongoing dialogue and helps teams navigate challenges with more adaptability. Where a team wants the shared language practised rather than only introduced, COMS often sits inside a longer team development programme.