The People
Puzzle
by Dr. Tony Alessandra
One of
your most valuable skills in any business is the ability
to "read" people. The people you interact
with each day send you signals on how to work with
them most effectively. If you learn what to look and
listen for, each person will tell you exactly how
to treat him effectively.
So what
is there to read?
Dozens
of signals--verbal, vocal and visual, tell you when
to speed up or slow down, when to focus on the details,
or when to work on building the relationship with
the other person. But why does your technique work
sometimes and not at other times? Mostly because people
are different.
Personality
Needs
Everyone
experiences the same basic human needs, but with each
person some needs are more dominant than others. The
four major groupings of needs are results, recognition,
regimentation, and relationships.
For
example.
One person
may be the type who measures his success by results.
To him, the finished product is the most important
thing, and he'll do whatever it takes, within reason,
to get the job done. His dominant need is for accomplishment.
Then there
is the sensitive, warm, supportive type of person
whose dominant need is relationships. This appeal
that would work well with a results-oriented person
might be totally inappropriate for the person interested
in relationships.
A third
type of person usually places high value on recognition
and measures success by the amount of acknowledgment
and praise he receives.
Conversely,
another person will be more concerned with the content
than the congratulations. The primary need appears
to be for regimentation. In other words, things must
be put together in neat packages that can be clearly
understood.
You can
quickly see that a different type of appeal is necessary
for each of these four "personalities."
Recognizing this is very important because once you've
learned the needs of each major behavior pattern,
you will know how to work more effectively with each
type of person.
Behavioral
Style Characteristics
When people
act and react in social situations, they exhibit clues
that help to define their behavioral styles. You can
identify behavioral style by watching for the observable
aspects of people's behavior - those verbal, vocal
and visual actions that people display when others
are present.
Undirected,
you could observe and try to catalogue thousands of
behaviors in any one person. That would quickly become
an exercise in futility. But identifying behavioral
style is possible by classifying a person's behavioral
on two dimensions: openness and directness.
It is much
like measuring a foot for a shoe; make it wide enough
for the widest part and long enough for the longest
part, and the rest of the foot will fit someplace
in between.
Openness
is the readiness and willingness with which a person
outwardly shows emotions or feelings and develops
interpersonal relationships.
Others
commonly describe open people as being relaxed, warm,
responsive, informal, and personable. They tend to
be relationship-oriented. In conversations with others,
open individuals share their personal feelings and
like to tell stories and anecdotes.
They tend
to be flexible about time and base their decisions
more on intuition and opinion than on hard facts and
data. They also are likely to behave dramatically
and to give you immediate nonverbal feedback in conversation.
Guarded
individuals commonly are seen as formal and proper.
They tend to be more guarded and aloof in their
interpersonal relationships. These people are more
likely to follow the letter of the law and try to
base their decisions on cold, hard facts.
Guarded
individuals are usually very task oriented and disciplined
about time. As opposed to open people, they hide their
personal feelings in the presence of others.
Now
consider the second dimension--directness.
This refers
to the amount of control and forcefulness that a person
attempts to exercise over situations or other people,
their thoughts and their emotions.
Direct
people tend to "come on strong," take the
social initiative, and create a powerful first
impression. They are fast-paced people, making swift
decisions and taking risks. They easily become impatient
with others who cannot keep up with their fast pace.
They are very active people who do a lot of talking
and appear confident and sometimes dominant. Direct
people express their opinions readily and make emphatic
statements.
On the
opposite end of the spectrum, indirect people give
the impression of being quiet, shy, and reserved.
They seem to be supportive and easy-going. They tend
to be security-conscious-moving slowly, meditation
on their decisions, and avoiding risks. They frequently
ask questions and listen more than they talk. They
reserve their opinions and make tentative statements
when they must take a stand.
Openness
and directness levels vary among individuals,
and any one person may be high in one, low in the
other, or somewhere in between. In other words, everyone
has some usual level of openness and some level of
directness.
Behavior
Styles
When directness
is combined with openness it forms four different,
recognizable,
and habitual behavior patterns or behavioral styles:
the socializer, the director,
the thinker, and the relater.
Each
style represents unique combinations of openness and
directness and is linked to separate and unique
ways of behaving with others. The name given to each
style reflects a very general characteristic rather
than a full or accurate description. As you better
understand why people behave the way they do, your
knowledge can help you communicate with others effectively
and openly to help them feel more comfortable in their
interactions with you.
Socializer:
Open and Direct
The
socializer is high in both directness and openness,
readily exhibiting such characteristics as animation,
intuitiveness, and liveliness. He is an idea person--a
dreamer--but he also can be viewed as manipulative,
impetuous, and excitable when displaying behavior
inappropriate to a particular situation.
The socializer
is a fast-paced person with spontaneous actions and
decisions. He is not concerned about facts and details,
and tries to avoid them as much as possible. This
disregard for details may prompt him at times to exaggerate
and generalize facts and figures.
The socializer
is more comfortable with "best guesstimates"
than with carefully researched facts. He thrives on
involvement with people and usually works quickly
and enthusiastically with others.
The
socializer always seems to be chasing dreams, but
he has the uncanny ability to catch others up in his
dreams because of his good persuasive skills.
He always seems to be seeking approval and pats on
the back for his accomplishments and achievements.
The socializer is a very creative person who has that
dynamic ability to think quickly on his feet.
Director:
Direct and Guarded
The
director is very direct and at the same time guarded.
He exhibits firmness in his relationships with others,
is oriented toward productivity and goals, and is
concerned with bottom-line results. Closely allied
to these positive traits, however, are the negative
ones of stubbornness, impatience, toughness, and even
domineeringness.
A director
tends to take control of other people and situations
and is decisive in both his actions and decisions.
He likes to move at an extremely fast pace and is
very impatient with delays. When other people can't
keep up with his speed, he views them as incompetent.
The director's motto might well be "I want it
done right and l want it done now."
The
director is typically a high achiever who exhibits
very good administrative skills; he certainly gets
things done and makes things happen.
The director
likes to do many things at the same time. He may start
by juggling three things at the same time, and as
soon as he feels comfortable with those he picks up
a fourth. He keeps adding on until the pressure builds
to such a point that he turns his back and lets everything
drop. Then he turns right around and starts the whole
process over again.
Thinker:
Indirect and Guarded
The
person who has the thinker-style behavior is both
indirect and guarded. He seems to be very concerned
with the process of thinking, and is a persistent,
systematic problem-solver. But he also can be seen
as aloof, picky, and critical. A thinker is very security
conscious and has a strong need to be right. This
leads him to an over-reliance on data collection.
In his quest for data he tends to ask many questions
about specific details. His actions and decisions
tend to be extremely cautious.
The
thinker works slowly and precisely by himself
and prefers an intellectual work environment that
is organized and structured. He tends to be skeptical
and likes to see things in writing.
Although
he is a great problem-solver, the thinker is a poor
decision-maker, he may keep collecting data even beyond
the time when a decision is due, justifying his caution
by saying, "When you are making vast decisions,
you cannot do it on half-vast data."
Relater:
Open and Indirect
The
fourth and last style, the relater, is open and unassertive,
warm, supportive, and reliable. However, the relater
sometimes is seen by others as compliant, soft-hearted,
and acquiescent. The relater seeks security and belongingness
and like the thinker, is slow at taking action and
making decisions. This procrastination stems from
his desire to avoid risky and unknown situations.
Before he takes action or makes a decision, he has
to know how other people feel about it.
The
relater is the most people-oriented of all four styles.
Having close, friendly, personal, and first-name relationships
with others is one of the most important objectives
of the relater's style.
The
relater dislikes interpersonal conflicts so much that
he sometimes says what he thinks other people want
to hear rather than what is really on his mind.
The relater has tremendous counseling skills and is
extremely supportive of other people. He also is an
incredibly active listener. You usually feel good
just being with a relater. Because a relater listens
so well to other people, when it comes his turn to
talk, people usually listen. This gives him an excellent
ability to gain support from others.
NEXT:
What's Best? 
