Many, if not most, personal development programmes understandably concentrate on personal behaviours.
Know thyself: Your whims and foibles, and understand what motivates you they say, and you are half way there … but that’s the easy half.
You live with yourself 24/7 and have had a lifetime to learn what makes you tick. But other folk are a real puzzle aren’t they? Why can’t they all be reasonable sensible people like us?
Have you ever made some (to you) innocent comment and been blown over by someone’s angry reply, or perhaps carefully explained to someone how you want a particular task carried out only to have them go away and carry on in their own sweet way. Ugggh!
One learning, derived from the field of NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming), is that the meaning of a communication is the reaction you get from it. The same words can provoke different reactions from different people and you have to present your communication in a way that is tailored to the way the other person thinks in order to achieve the result that you want.
This was my task in a client company last year, where the owner was pretty easy going but as it was his mortgage, his company’s profit and loss, his reputation on the line, he naturally wanted things done his way. His staff though, didn’t seem to agree. Each - in their own way - appeared to want to put a spanner in the works.
I interviewed the employees and the picture which they projected was very different. Each of them was doing what they thought was their best and each of them was convinced they worked in the bosses interest – so why was the business so disorganised?
I demonstrated that, though similar instruction was given to each employee, they all interpreted that instruction very differently. If we were to take the business forward the owner would have to recognise each employee’s communication style and then issue his instructions in the right way – a way that each individual would understand.
We analysed the patterns of the key personnel first and this enabled us to make a huge shift in their relationship with the owner, their colleagues, and the company’s objectives. We also taught this key group how to cascade this understanding into their teams and it wasn’t long before an unfamiliar harmony broke out.
That year the company’s profits soared and the competition to get a job in a company where your managers really understand you meant there was a low turnover and no shortage of applicants for the jobs which became available.
And of course it is the same out of the workplace. In family and social groups, if we really take the trouble to put our message across in a way it can be understood by others the world can be a happier place.
My next posting in this series will help you begin to do this by describing proactive and reactive people, how to spot them and how to use language to influence them.
With all good wishes
Tony
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