12.1 Ways of Communicating and VARK Language Style Preferences

APMG Change Management Foundation Exam

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1 Chapter 1: The v3 Foundation Exam and the Organisational Context

1.1 Exam Structure, the Five Syllabus Areas and the Certification Path 1.2 Scene Setting: External and Internal Factors Shaping Change 1.3 Change Management, Benefits and Dis-benefits

2 Chapter 2: Understanding the Change Context

2.1 Kelman's Three Levels of Adoption 2.2 VUCA and the Cynefin Framework 2.3 Planned Change versus Emergent Change 2.4 Systems Thinking in Change 2.5 Organisational Culture and Its Three Levels

3 Chapter 3: Diagnosing and Structuring the Change Approach

3.1 Lewin's Force Field Analysis 3.2 Co-Design 3.3 The ADKAR Model 3.4 Evolving the n-Step Process and Kotter's Eight Accelerators

4 Chapter 4: Delivery Strategy, Agile Practices and the Change Strategy

4.1 Delivery Strategy: Big Bang, Phased, Voluntary and Iterative 4.2 Agile Practices and Agile Change Practices 4.3 The Continuous Change Management Cycle 4.4 The Change Strategy

5 Chapter 5: People and Change — Individual Difference and Response

5.1 Differences in People and Personality Preferences 5.2 Neuroscience and Change: SCARF, Mindset and Insight 5.3 The Change Curve 5.4 Bridges' Transition Model

6 Chapter 6: Motivation, Resilience and Learning

6.1 Rewards, Punishment and Pink's Three Motivators 6.2 Positive Psychology, Resilience and Appreciative Inquiry 6.3 The Beckhard-Harris Change Formula and Schein's Two Anxieties 6.4 Competence, Learning and the Learning Dip 6.5 Learning Preferences: Kolb, Honey and Mumford

7 Chapter 7: Key Roles in Change Leadership

7.1 Key Roles in the Change Process 7.2 The Role of the Change Sponsor 7.3 The Change Agent's Role and Personal Influence 7.4 The Role of Local Leadership in Change

8 Chapter 8: Psychological Safety, Leadership and Culture

8.1 Psychological Climate and Psychological Safety 8.2 Carolyn Taylor: How Leadership Shapes Culture 8.3 Leadership Styles and Organisational Climate

9 Chapter 9: Teams and Change

9.1 Team Structures and Change Agent Networks 9.2 Tuckman's Stages of Team Development 9.3 Lencioni: Assessing and Growing Team Effectiveness 9.4 Harvesting the Value of Team Diversity

10 Chapter 10: Stakeholder Identification, Analysis and Engagement

10.1 Stakeholder Definition and Identification 10.2 Stakeholder Analysis, Segmentation and Empathy Mapping 10.3 Stakeholder Mapping and Sources of Power 10.4 Barriers to Engagement 10.5 Planning Stakeholder Engagement

11 Chapter 11: Communication Theory, Messaging and Emotional Connection

11.1 Communication Theory and the Communication Process 11.2 Barriers to Communication and Cognitive Biases 11.3 Messaging: Setting Context and the Tell, Sell, Include Approach 11.4 Appealing to Hearts and Minds

12 Chapter 12: Communication Channels and Planning

12.1 Ways of Communicating and VARK Language Style Preferences 12.2 Communication Channels: One-Way, Two-Way, Lean and Rich 12.3 Communications Planning

13 Chapter 13: Assessing Change Impact and Severity

13.1 Change Management as Risk Management and the Two-Step Assessment 13.2 Step 1: Categorising Impacts and Identifying Impact Areas 13.3 Step 1 Continued: Gap Analysis, Impact Profiles and Monitoring 13.4 Step 2: Change Impact Severity

14 Chapter 14: Resistance to Change

14.1 Causes of Resistance and Oreg's Four Neural Factors 14.2 Common Reasons for Resistance and How to Deal With Them 14.3 Building a Strategy to Manage Resistance

15 Chapter 15: Change Analytics and Exam Readiness

15.1 Measurement Types and the Change Delivery Scorecard 15.2 Building a Change Analytics Strategy 15.3 Exam Technique and Final Revision

12.1 Ways of Communicating and VARK Language Style Preferences

Key Takeaways Explain This Topic AI

The ways we communicate and connect are non-verbal, listening, visual and verbal

Visual communication allows the brain to absorb information more quickly

Verbal communication includes both spoken and written communication

VARK language style preferences are visual, auditory or aural, reading and writing, and kinaesthetic

Kinaesthetic relates to doing and experiencing things, and is not a single mode because it can involve sight, touch, taste, smell and hearing

Last updated: September 2026

Having established what to say, CM3 turns to how to say it. Two lists are examinable: the ways in which we communicate, and the VARK language style preferences.

Ways in which we communicate and connect with people

Mode What it covers
Non-verbal Body language, facial expressions, gestures
Listening To people's concerns, opinions, feedback
Visual Allows the brain to absorb information more quickly
Verbal Includes both spoken and written communication

Two points catch candidates out.

Listening is a way of communicating. It sits in the list alongside the output modes, which is not an accident. In change work, listening is often the strongest communication a leader can perform — it signals respect and interest more convincingly than any statement, and it is the only mode that generates information rather than just transmitting it.

Verbal includes written. In everyday usage "verbal" often means spoken as opposed to written. Here it covers both, because both use words. The distinction that matters in CM3 is words versus non-words, not speech versus text.

The emphasis on non-verbal connects back to the finding that words make up only around 7 per cent of the message, with tone, body language and leaders' actions carrying the rest.

Tone and language style

Choose the right tone and style for the audience , and consider the type of change you are aiming to bring about. Tone that suits a routine process update will read as flippant when announcing redundancies; tone that suits a serious restructure will read as ominous attached to a minor system upgrade.

VARK language style preferences

VARK describes the different preferences we have for receiving and processing information :

Preference Description
Visual Favours images, symbols, charts, diagrams over other ways to receive information

Auditory or Aural Likes listening to information, favouring presentations, podcasts and other primarily audio media

Reading / Writing Finds reading and note-taking a highly effective way of taking information in and learning

Kinaesthetic Relates to doing things and experiencing things , so mainly about actions and feelings . This is not a single mode , because experience and actions may take in multiple modes like sight, touch, taste, smell and hearing

The kinaesthetic definition

Kinaesthetic is the most examined of the four, and its definition has two parts worth memorising. It relates to doing and experiencing things — not to "practical" or "hands-on" in a loose sense. And it is explicitly not a single mode , because doing something engages several senses at once.

That second clause has a practical consequence: kinaesthetic preference cannot be served by adding a diagram or a recording. It requires an actual opportunity to do the thing, which in change terms means a practice environment, a pilot, a walkthrough of the real process — the same interventions that build ADKAR's ability .

VARK and learning styles are different models

Candidates sometimes merge VARK with Honey and Mumford's activist, reflector, theorist and pragmatist. They are distinct:

VARK is about the sensory channel through which someone prefers to receive information — visual, aural, read/write, kinaesthetic

Honey and Mumford is about the stage of the learning cycle someone prefers — doing, reflecting, theorising, applying

They overlap at the edges — a kinaesthetic preference and an activist style both favour hands-on experience — but they answer different questions and CM3 places them in different syllabus areas.

Applying the preferences in change communication

The practical rule is the same as for learning styles: cover the range rather than picking one . A well-designed change communication offer typically includes:

A one-page visual — process diagram, before-and-after picture, timeline — for visual preferences
A recorded briefing or a live session with Q&A for aural preferences
A written summary people can read and annotate for reading/writing preferences
A hands-on session, demo environment or walkthrough for kinaesthetic preferences

This is usually the same content in four formats rather than four different pieces of work, which makes it far cheaper than it first appears. It also serves the guidance to repeat information and make it available in multiple formats so people can digest and process it in a way that suits them.

And it connects to the accessibility point: some people may not have easy access to technology and therefore require printed formats. Format variety serves both preference and access.

Listening as an active practice

Because listening is one of the four ways of communicating, it deserves treating as a designed activity rather than an attitude. In change work, three distinctions make it operational.

Listening to gather versus listening to reassure. These require different behaviour. A leader who responds to every concern with reassurance is not gathering information; they are closing the conversation. Where the purpose is discovery, the useful response to a concern is a question about it.

Listening in the right forum. People will say things in a small group with a trusted peer that they will never say in a town hall, however genuine the invitation. Designing listening means choosing venues where the thing you need to hear can actually be said — which is why change agent networks and small participatory sessions produce better information than open forums.

Visibly acting on what is heard. This is the symbolic point from the hearts-and-minds material: how responses to feedback are managed symbolises the extent to which contributions are valued. Listening that produces no visible consequence teaches people that speaking is pointless, which is worse for the change team than never having asked.