Established behavioral techniques can improve business operations and the office environment.

 

By John Kimmel

This is the second article in a three-part series. (Part 1, Part2).

Warren Buffet said, “The one easy way to become worth 50% more than you are now, at least, is to hone your communication skills.” At the time this article was written, Buffet was worth $117 billion, making him the seventh-richest person in the world. Listening to him sounds like a good plan. If you agree, and want to improve your communication, then read on.

This is the third article in a three-part series. If you missed the first and second articles, you can find them online at www.fuelsmarketnews.com.

As a quick reminder, DISC is an acronym for the four styles of human behavior that describe each of us.

  • The D personality style is outgoing and task-oriented. D stands for Dominant. Your style is the least common and only makes up about 15% of the population.
  • The I personality style is outgoing and people-oriented. I stands for Inspiring. Your style makes up about 25% of the population.
  • The S personality style is reserved and people-oriented. S stands for Supportive. Your style is the most common and makes up about 35% of the population.
  • The C personality style is reserved and task-oriented. C stands for Cautious. Your style makes up about 25% of the population.

 

While all of us have at least a little of each style, most of us have one or two styles that monopolize our behavior. In our last article we explored the two outgoing personality styles: D and I. In this article, we will dig into the two reserved styles: S and C.

S personalities are reserved and people-oriented, and are naturally the nicest people we know. They live their lives like soldiers: No man left behind. They will sacrifice themselves for others and value fairness to an extreme degree.

Every personality style has at least one secret fuel, but S’s have two. Peace and harmony. At first glance those may sound like the same thing, but they are not. Peace is the lack of conflict. S’s hate conflict and will go out of their way to avoid it. Harmony is what happens when people get along with one another and work together as a team. If an S has peace and harmony happening in their work environment, then they can be amazingly valuable members of your team, but if your office is filled with drama, you might just see them emotionally shut down.

While peace and harmony are key positive attributes for an S, like all the styles, the Supportive people we know also have a blind spot. Sometimes, they have a tough time getting started. Have you ever spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on new software only to find a key employee doesn’t want to use it? And when you question them about it, they confirm that the new software will be better and faster, but for some reason they just can’t bring themselves to use it. This has nothing to do with the software and everything to do with their personality style.

It may help you to understand why S personalities are so averse to starting something new if you hear what their biggest fear is. They fear change. Especially those who score as high S can be truly terrified of change even if they know that the change is the best thing to do. Ironically, S personalities are the best finishers of all the styles, so once you get them off the ball, they will work late and do whatever they need to do to get the job done.

People with a Supportive personality style usually speak quietly and slowly. Unlike the D’s, who speak slowly because they want to make sure that you understand what they are telling you to do, the S personalities speak slowly because they don’t want to startle you or spook you. They want to keep the conversation drama-free.

If you want to get the attention of an S, you will need to focus your attention on people. People are always more important than tasks to an S. And if you are trying to sell something to this style, you had better not be pushy. If you try the “special price today only” tactic with an S, you might as well pack up your samples and leave, because they are not going to buy from you.

One of the most unique nuances of the Supportive style is that they will only make decisions once they have bounced the situation off their confidant. Who that person is can be difficult to determine, but there is someone in their life that they use as a sounding board to make sure that they are on the right track.

The Cautious people among us are also reserved like the S types, but they are not people-oriented. Instead, they are task-oriented. The C personalities are the smartest people you will ever meet, or at least they seem to be. When a cautious person answers a question, the answer is correct. It’s not that C’s have higher IQs or that they have a higher level of education. The answers they give are correct because before they answered, they checked, double-checked and maybe even triple-checked the data.

C personalities don’t trust the copy machine. I have seen a C make a copy, and then hold the original and the copy side by side to make sure they are the same.

Cautious people have three secret fuels, and they need to be getting all of them to run at peak performance. Their secret fuels are being correct, adding value and giving quality answers. If you were to ask a C how sales are going this month, you are likely to get an answer like this, “As of this morning, we are at 102.4% compared to this date last year. That includes that big order we just got from Bob’s new customer and don’t forget, we still must return that cross-drop into the system, so that will pull us back down by .7% when it is entered.” They will give you more than just the data you requested. They will also give you detail and context, making the answer even better than what you asked for.

While perfectionism can be fantastic in certain situations, it also has its dark side. The blind spot for a C is analysis paralysis. If a C needs five pieces of information to make a decision and the first four all point to the same conclusion, but they can’t find the fifth piece of data they need, they may not make any decision at all.

For most of us, that makes no sense, but when you hear what cautious people are afraid of, I think you will understand. C personalities are afraid of making a mistake. As I mentioned in the second article in this series, my personality style is I. If I make a mistake—no problem! I just make a new decision. That is not the way that C types are wired. Even a minor mistake can keep a cautious person awake at night days after everyone else has forgotten that it took place.

Cautious people communicate with business-like, straight-forward speech. They focus their points on data that can be verified and speak in specifics like exact numbers, avoiding generalities that might be vague. While C personalities speak quietly, they also speak quickly. They think quickly, too. Sometimes C’s think so fast that when they are speaking, they might leave the last word or two off the end of a sentence and start speaking their next sentence because their mouths can’t keep pace with their minds.

Have you ever shaken someone’s hand only to have them pull away from you slightly or break eye contact with you? If you have, you were likely shaking hands with a C. Remember, C stands for cautious, and they are very cautious with other people, especially those they are meeting for the first time.

In this series of articles, we have learned about all four personality styles: D, I, S and C. Which of these styles describes you? Did you see the different members of your team in your mind as you learned about the different styles? Do you feel more equipped to talk to them in the language that they understand? According to Gallup, 70% of employees who quit their jobs quit for the same reason; they don’t like working with the person they report to. The last thing you want is to lose the most valuable members of your team because you are not speaking their language. So, take the time to learn how to communicate more effectively. Your team members will be glad that you did.

 

John J. Kimmel is the author of Selling with Power and has spoken at many state and regional petroleum marketer associations. Kimmel provides custom solutions to increase the effectiveness and profitability of sales teams for petroleum marketers all over the United States. To learn more, visit www.johnjkimmel.com.