OBJECTIVES

TEAM BUILDING I – PERSONAL STYLE TRAINING

•To understand the concept of personal styles

•To know how to recognize personal styles

•To learn how to flex our style temporarily to improve communications effectiveness with other styles

•To understand the effects of stress on personal styles

Differences in People

• If you were to look at a bin of lemons you would not find two alike. You could roll the lemons, squeeze the lemons, inspect the lemons. There would not be two alike. Just as lemons are different, so are people.

• Each of us has a way of interacting with others. This comes from our trying out different ways of relating to others early in our lives – then repeating those that seem best to us. In time these behaviors become habits, which make us comfortable whenever we relate to other people. These habits become our Personal Styles. Personal Styles or Social Styles as they are sometimes called are based on Behavior.

• To make our relationships more comfortable and more productive sometimes we must flex our own personal style. We do this in the spirit of acceptance, respect and graciousness. This doesn’t mean you have to change your style.

Type of Personal Styles

DRIVERA take-charge person, exerts strong influence to get things done, focuses on

results.

EXPRESSIVEA social specialist, expresses opinions and emotions easily; prefers strong

interaction with people.

ANALYTICALLikes to be well organized and thought out; prefers specific project and

activities; enjoys putting structure to ideas.

AMIABLEAdaptive specialist, high concern for good relationships, seeks stability and

predictability, wants to be part of larger picture.

There is no perfect personal style – one style is not better than another.

Strengths and Weaknesses of Personal Styles

• Driver (strengths) - determined, requiring, thorough, decisive, efficient, direct

• Driver (weaknesses) – dominating, unsympathetic, demanding, critical, impatient

• Expressive (strengths) – personable, stimulating, enthusiastic, innovative

• Expressive (weaknesses) – opinionated, undependable, reactionary

• Analytical (strengths) – industrious, persistent, serious, orderly, methodical

• Analytical (weaknesses) – indecisive, uncommunicative, critical

• Amiable (strengths) - cooperative, supportive, dependable, helpful

• Amiable (weaknesses) – conforming, uncommitted, hides true feelings

Interaction With Others

• Whenever we meet another person, there is a mutual feeling of tension or stress. In business, if this relationship tension is high, it gets in the way. It can cause needless distress and interfere with our getting our work done, our task, including the quality of our work. Unless we are able to solve our relationship problems, it isn’t likely that we will reach full effectiveness in solving our task or work problems.

• Our attempts at solving task problems often get bogged down by relationship problems. It is, therefore, increasingly necessary to solve relationship problems, before attempting to solve the task problems.

• Relating this concept, we can use the analogy of a bicycle. The back wheel is the drive wheel. It makes the bicycle go. Think of the back wheel as business expertise, computer skills, SPC, product knowledge – the things we need to solve task problems. Without the back wheel, we don’t go anywhere.

Interaction With Others (Continued)

• The front wheel, on the other hand, steers and directs the back wheel power where it has to go. If the back wheel is task knowledge, the front wheel is relationship knowledge, people knowledge.

• The front wheel steers our back wheel power skills through the maze of potential relationship problems. Without good front wheel skills, we cannot maximize the effectiveness of our back wheel skills.

• Knowing and understanding the different personal styles can help us work more smoothly and productively with others. It also helps us to recognize when a person is under stress.

Interaction With Others (Continued)

• It is helpful to understand there are individuals more task-oriented than people-oriented – more focused on the job at hand than on relationships with coworkers

• An individual may be more of a thinker than a doer; thinkers are reflective about their work whereas doers are more likely to discuss their work openly.

• Even though everyone is both task and people oriented, both a thinker and a doer, every individual strikes his or her own balance between these choices. This gives every team member a distinctive profile.

• Understanding and Accepting people as different from you in the first step towards becoming a strong team member.

The Cracked Pot

A water bearer in India had two large pots, each hung on the ends of a pole which he carried across his neck. One of the pots had a crack in it, the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water.

At the end of the long walk from the stream to the house, the cracked pot arrived only half full. For a full two years this went on daily, with the bearer delivering only one and a half pots full of water to his house.

Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments, perfect for which it was made. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it was able to accomplish only half of what it had been made to be.

After 2 years of what it perceived to be a bitter failure, it spoke to the water bearer one day by the stream, “I am ashamed of myself, and I want to apologize to you. I have been able to deliver only half my load because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your house. Because of my flaws, you have to do all of this work, and you don’t get full value from your efforts.”

The Cracked Pot (Continued)

The bearer said to the pot, “Did you notice that there were flowers only on your side of the path, but not on the other pot’s side? That’s because I have always known about your flaw, and I planted flower seeds on your side on the path. Every day as we walk back, you’ve watered them. For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate the table. Without you being just the way you are, there would not be this beauty to grace the house.

Moral: Each of us has our own unique flaws. We’re all cracked pots.

But it’s the cracks and flaws we each have that make our lives together so interesting and rewarding. You’ve just got to take each person for what they are, and look for the good in them. Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape. Remember to appreciate all the different people in your life!

TEAM BUILDING I – PERSONAL STYLES QUIZ

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