Today at the Marketing Partner Forum Craig Brown, a consultant at Law Vision shared a quick technique that can be very helpful in assessing the personality of an individual you are working with or coaching. Gauging their personality type can be a powerful window into how they are wired and what motivates them.
There are two simple questions you need to ask to determine which of four personality types an individual belongs to.
Question 1: Is the person in front of me task oriented or relationship oriented?
Question 2: Is this person methodical or fast acting?
So based on the answer to these two questions, we can get a guess of whether a person is:
Analytical (want information)
Directors/Drivers (need to be in charge, get it done)
Directors/Drivers (need to be in charge, get it done)
Relator/Amiables (want to get along)
Performers/Expressives (need to get appreciated)
Performers/Expressives (need to get appreciated)
If you try to rush an Analytical person, you may end up frustrated. If you try to ask a performer to take one for the team, this might not sit well with them. Understanding what motivates people can facilitate much better communication.
Steve Bell at Womble Carlyle says that years ago his firm had all of their lawyers tested for personality types. Posted on their doors for all the others to see they had listed the five strengths of each of these lawyers. This led to mud more effective meetings, because right before communicating with or having meetings with different types of lawyers they could check their strategy and make sure they were going in with the right approach.
Think about someone you work with directly. Which personality type do they belong to? Which personality type is your spouse? Your best friend?
This was one of the first great takeaways I learned from the Marketing Partner Forum in Naples, Florida. I’ll be here for the next couple of days. You can follow more of my comments about the conference on Twitter at #MPF14