Better Versatility = Better Relationships

(2012年4月2日)

By Tom Roth

In conversations with clients about the impact of the current economic downturn, I keep hearing one concern everyone seems to share: "how can we help our people manage the strain of all the budget cuts, layoffs, and reorganizations?"

Employees are worried about their jobs even while adapting to major changes in their work environment — new reporting relationships, restructured work teams, different job assignments. Even when they understand the necessity for all the changes, the effects can be debilitating — communication gets more difficult, morale sags, and productivity slows.

So what’s the answer? How can companies deal with these problems and maintain productivity and efficiency? If you are a leader concerned about this question, you know you can’t control the external economic conditions. You can, however, do everything possible to help your people cope. A simple place to start is to make sure communications breakdowns aren’t adding to everyone’s stress and getting in the way of trust, teamwork and collaborative effort. As people struggle to adjust to new realities at work, it’s normal for them to experience misunderstandings and increased relationship tension. By becoming more versatile in their interpersonal communications, employees, managers and leaders can better understand differences in communication preferences and create more effective and productive relationships.

Versatility can be learned, practiced and improved over time. It’s based on understanding your own and others’ Social Styles — defined in Wilson Learning’s model in terms of four categories – Analytical, Driver, Expressive and Amiable. Each style is characterized by being either more or less "Tell" or "Ask" oriented and more or less "Task" vs. "People" oriented. People generally feel very comfortable communicating with others who share their style, but can have problems with different styles. If you’ve ever felt impatient, intimidated, or frustrated in a conversation with a colleague, friend or family member, there’s a likelihood that the root problem is a style difference neither of you recognizes.

To improve versatility, managers and employees need to:

• Get feedback from others to understand their own social style. Knowing how you are perceived by others is critical. Study after study shows that most of us have no idea how we are coming across to others.
• Learn to identify the social style of others (e.g., Analyticals, Drivers, Expressives, and Amiables)
• Learn to adapt their own style of communicating to match the preferences of others, putting them at ease, building trust, and allowing both parties to work together to accomplish the tasks at hand.

Have you experienced a communication problem at work caused by different social styles? What happened and what affect did it have on your work performance?

These are our thoughts…What do you think?

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作者介绍

Tom Roth

Tom Roth担任Wilson Learning全球首席运营官。他负责Wilson Learning全球战略发展方向和经营业绩的运营，并带领全球的市场服务团队和研发解决方案团队。同时，他还曾担任Wilson Learning美洲区的总裁。他协助全球管理团队解决员工敬业度、领导力发展、战略调整和业务转型方面的相关问题。

Roth先生在开发和实施人力绩效提升解决方案的研究上有着超过35年的经验。他是《创建高绩效团队》的合著者，并在众多商业出版刊物上发表过文章。美国、各类国际会议和客户活动经常邀请Roth先生进行演讲。他的演讲涵盖多个方面的议题，包括领导力、员工和客户敬业度、变革和战略实施等。

阅读更多， Tom Roth