I attended the Wilson Learning workshop on Building Relationship Versatility last week, facilitated by Suzy Hillard. A key concept to the workshop is focused on understanding the people you interact with most so that you can better adapt your social style to their needs.
Here are the four social styles they’ve identified:
- Analytical – thorough, focused on high quality, deliberate
- Driver – focus on results & business, direct, clear, concise
- Amiable – values people & team, support org over long-term
- Expressive – enthusiastic, feeds off energy of others
The four types are based upon two axises which identify tendency to Ask vs. Tell and to focus more on the Task or on the People involved. As part of the workshop your co-workers submit a questionnaire which identifies your Social Style. By understanding yourself better and by guessing the social styles of others you work with, you can develop more effective working relationships with them.
I’ve already found it useful and would guess that if you like assessments which identify how you interact with others (e.g. Myers-Briggs, Six Styles of Leadership) then you’ll probably like this one as well.