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Improving performance by helping employees understand their work styles

Workplace conflict is as old as the workplace, as are attempts to understand and alleviate it, or even to turn natural differences to productive advantage.

As early as 400 B.C., the Greek physician Hippocrates attempted to understand human behavior. He characterized temperament into four general categories. In the 1920s, Carl Jung, considered the father of modern psychological typing, also described four general personality types, which he called thinkers, feelers, intuitors and sensors.

Today's work style models, while owing a debt to the Greeks and Jung, are more sophisticated, more externally focused and provide practical insights in an environment of challenges that Jung, much less Hippocrates, could never have imagined.

"Differences between our work style behaviors create stress in the workplace," explains Sherry Goetze, Ceridian vice president of Learning and Development. "People need to focus on producing results while maintaining relationships. We all have more to do in less time, and that constant stress makes us anxious. Plus, in a service economy, there is more interaction with different people at all levels of an organization than in the past, and more interface points means more potential for conflict."

Find your quadrant
Goetze also notes that honing interpersonal skills is not something too many of us study in school, yet a few simple insights can generate enormous improvements in a team's productivity -- and an individual's ultimate career success.

"The first step in improving relationships is for each of us to identify and understand our own work style, then the work styles of other people we work with. Then we need to understand how to flex our behavior to accommodate the differences in styles to reduce the stress," Goetze states.

Goetze notes that there are hundreds of experts who specialize in helping organizations use work style concepts to their advantage. While their methods might all be slightly different, they have many similarities.

Goetze further explains that most processes start with two behavioral continuums. When these are combined, they result in four quadrants which help people identify their work styles. One popular model, the Social Style Model, conceived by Dr. David Merrill, uses the continuums of how direct/assertive a person is, interspersed with how much emotion/responsiveness they tend to show. This result is four basic quadrants: less direct/less emotion, more direct/less emotion, less direct/more emotion and more direct/more emotion.

"People who are less direct/more emotion are the ones who want to hear all about your weekend, and are very interested. People who are more direct/less emotion are the ones who are all business. They want the report now and don't invest time in asking about personal things," explains Goetze. "It is vital to understand there is no right or wrong, good or bad, every style has strengths and weaknesses."

For example, if you find that you're naturally an "all business" type, you might make an effort to meet the natural style of a less direct individual by asking for their help, rather than making the request sound like a demand.

"It takes seconds, but can make an enormous difference in how people respond to each other and work together," adds Goetze.

Interestingly, research shows that each of these four quadrants correspond roughly to 25 percent of the U.S. population. "Whatever quadrant you're in, you have to understand that 75 percent of people have a work style different than yours, so learning how to deal with the majority more effectively is no small matter," Goetze says.

Better input, better insights
It is important, notes Goetze, that the work style assessment process selected uses a 360-degree instrument, soliciting insights from several colleagues who are familiar with the person's work style behaviors.

"Since we are assessing outward behaviors, we want external input, as opposed to tests which are self-reporting," says Goetze.

Another important thing to look for when selecting an assessment process is neutrality of terms, to help ensure that people don't perceive that one quadrant is "better" than the other. Quadrant labels should be avoided or carefully selected to avoid implying a value judgment. Sometimes, word labels are avoided altogether, and style quadrants are referred to by color or shape.

Understanding how work styles work together
Do different work styles correspond to different jobs? "Perhaps," says Goetze. "Generally speaking, sales people might find themselves in the more assertive/more emotional quadrant, and financial analysts may find themselves in the less assertive/less emotional one. But there are always exceptions."

"The most successful teams are those with a mix of people, balancing strengths and weaknesses. These assessments can help team members understand the benefits of different work styles, while minimizing the natural friction that results when people of different work styles work together," she explains.

In addition to team building, many companies also include work style insights in training for new managers. "Through knowledge and role playing, managers can very quickly see which quadrant each employee aligns with, and can readily map out a strategy to work with each most effectively," says Goetze. The end result, she notes, is a more productive workforce, a more pleasant environment and more fulfilled individuals.

"I believe that each of us strives to come to work in the morning and get along with people and produce great results," Goetze states. "Simply having some knowledge about the work styles and the behaviors associated with them can really make a difference in our ability to build better working relationships, produce higher quality work and go home happier at the end of the day."