Working with Different Personalities
How Recognizing Social Styles Can Build Success
Some people are easier and more comfortable to work with and be around–we get them, and they get us. I believe you can expand the number of those you do well with by seeking first to understand; if you can “get them” you may enjoy working with them better. Let me share a couple of experiences with you and invite you to share the stories you have of building a better together team.
We landed a big client; it was exciting, but the excitement soon soured. As we sought to do great work and provide a great client experience, I felt push back. I thought this doctor client was harsh and hard to please. He always seemed curt and though I’d initially been glad to bring him into our practice, I found the price we paid to serve him was a high emotional drain on our entire team.
We visited him in his work environment one day. He was head of the department at the hospital and taught at the university. He was well respected and had a great many demands on him. People were calling him from around the country for advice. After that day with him, we started to think of him as “House”–the character that Hugh Laurie plays as a brilliant physician with no bedside manner. We started to get him.
In the world of social styles, our doctor is a driver analytic. Once we mentally placed him there, we all got it. He’s a give-it-to-me-straight, bottom-line, no-relationship, numbers guy. One day he said during a meeting, after going over how he was progressing toward his goals, that “that’s not necessarily bad”. We all high fived after the meeting (clearly this was not during the Coronavirus crisis) and said that was high praises from House!
We actually started to enjoy the meetings with him and when he invited me to meet with his colleagues at dinner, I was floored. He actually considered me a friend and referred me to them.
Before we lay out more about social styles, I want to share another story about how reframing how we see people, it changes us, makes us more sensitive and aware and, in the last story, less offended by them when we understand them.
This is going on all around us every day and it can really improve how we feel and relate to people. We are different. That is a good thing, but sometimes it throws us for a loop. Learning to understand the differences can make a huge difference. That is not to say that anyone should ever treat you poorly or abuse you, but that we need to recognize what is underlying our perception, so we don’t draw wrong conclusions about people.
I worked with a practice where the office manager and advisor were not getting along particularly well. The advisor was a top achiever, charismatic and was really well connected. The advisor shared his office manager was often confused and did not communicate well. He felt like she needed way more hand-holding then she should after five years. He was happy with the quality of her work; it was the fact that she asked too many questions in the process and it was hugely frustrating to him. She had a graduate degree and he knew she was not mentally slow, but he wanted her to take more control and be more positive in helping lead his team.
When I met with this office manager, she impressed me as methodical and organized. She seemed to never get ruffled and her work product was apparently timely and exceptional quality. All good stuff.
As I observed the interactions between the advisor and office manager, I started to understand the rub. The advisor was interrupting her workflow to address the needs that arose during his client meetings. The environment and communication behind the scenes felt harried. She carried on with professionalism. The advisor was ready to go, and we planned to have dinner together. The office manager asked to meet before he left. I sat in. She asked a several clarifying questions and for some help with prioritization and deadlines on the projects that had arisen that day. I could tell the advisor was glad I saw this, and I noticed him roll his eyes at me. This is what he was talking about. He thought the questions were things she did not need to bother him about and that she could figure them out for herself. After about fifteen minutes of this, we left for dinner.
We had a nice meal during which the advisor explained that this is what he was talking about. He asked me if she was just not a leader, or super insecure, or in need of more training. I said I wasn’t sure, but I’d like to speak to her in the morning.
I asked the office manager if she could leave for coffee. She said she could not because she had a meeting with the rest of the staff to go over their day. I suggested a later time and she obliged.
It was helpful to be out of the office with her. I did my best to recall the questions she had asked and to get her impression of how things were going. Before we finished coffee, I was convinced they were a perfect match and that we could alleviate both his frustration and hers. We had an expressive advisor working with an amiable analytic. He was high on relationship, and she was high on task. It felt to her that he was throwing things at her with only half the story. The few times she tried to take the ball and run, she’d gotten it wrong and was given a harsh warning.
I’ll bring you to what happened with them, but first, let’s go over a quick primer on social styles. There are a plethora of different resources for this from DiSC to Myers Briggs to Enneagram and so forth. I’ve taken lots of them. I’m using the one I’ve seen most often used in my work environment which is the SOCIAL STYLE Model™. This focuses on communication preferences and building interpersonal skills.
They break social styles into these four main categories:
Analytic - low on assertiveness (asks), low on responsiveness (controls)
Amiable - low on assertiveness (asks), high on responsiveness (emotes)
Driver - high on assertiveness (tells), low on responsiveness (controls)
Expressive - high on assertiveness (tells), high on responsiveness (emotes)
Perhaps I don’t even need to tell you the end of the story, you may have already guessed it. The advisor was unintentionally throwing things at the office manager all day, in a manner that seemed random and incomprehensible. The office manager was trying to make order out of the chaos she perceived by sitting him down and making him commit to details of what he was expecting. Once they understood each other better, the mutual respect rose, and the frustration diminished. The office manager started to make more decisions on her own as the advisor provided more gentle and respectful guidance.
Neither was intentionally irritating the other, but they were not recognizing the needs of the other. While I wish everyone understood this, even if it is one-sided, you can make the simple adjustments. I think you will find more enjoyable interactions with better outcomes.
We have facilitated a number of these kinds of assessments with teams and have always found some tensions release and some better understanding result. There is so much more information on this subject and it may be worth diving into at some point. I think that self-awareness and sensitivity to others is a huge part of being successful.
There are a great number of high-functioning teams and we’d like to see even more. If you think this is something you’d like to do together, let your project manager know. We can point you to tools or set up a way to provide facilitation.
About the Author
Bernie DeLaRosa, CFP®, ChFC®, CRPC®, CLU®, APMA®, CASL®, BFA™
Managing Business Consultant
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