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Styles, continued The four styles of people are driven by their need to compete, get along, understand, or socialize. The entire Dilbert cartoon series was written to make fun of the conflicts that occur between people with different styles. Failing to understand why a co-worker, employee, boss, or customer is different can lead to many problems. Understanding why people are different can go a long way toward making a business run smoother. In order to maximize our effectiveness, we need to consider the style of another person. Most people need professional training to correctly assess the styles and adjust appropriately. Evaluating a person’s style is based on the other person’s tendency to be open verses closed and their tendency to be direct as opposed to being indirect. These two simple attributes can be used to evaluate another person’s style and to make adjustments to aid communications. Many internal company problems are related directly to style issues. There is a natural tendency for business people to hire managers and employees who are in the same style. This creates the appearance of an easily managed organization, but can also be the cause of bigger problems. I usually recommend that owners and managers seek to build teams made up of representatives from all four of the styles. This helps to maintain a balanced organization, but introduces conflict between the viewpoints of the different styles. This conflict can be managed through training on how the people with different styles interact with each other. It is not difficult for employees and managers to learn the skills to assess the different styles of customers or employees. It is productive to train employees and managers on how to make adjustments to their own personal style to improve communications and understanding. Advertisements and memos need to be written in a way that addresses all four styles, or the communications will fall into the quarter-half-quarter rule. Does anyone want to write an ad knowing that it is only partially effective? I have trained many successful people on how to assess another person’s style to increase their communications effectiveness. Call today for a free consultation to see if our Personality Assessment training services can help you grow your company. Keith T. Chiles, MBA |