Style Stepping to Overcoming Conflicts and Avoid Misunderstandings

00:01 In this lecture, you'll learn more about style stepping, how you can use it to form more effective teams, how you can use it to avoid conflict and misunderstanding.

00:09 How you can use it to say things like, Thank you and I appreciate you in someone else's specific language and how you can use it to motivate people using their language.

00:21 Let's start out by talking about how you form a team based on somebody's personality style.

00:28 Normally, when we form teams, if we have not learned anything about the different working styles or social styles, we think, Well, I've got four positions.

00:38 I've got four people A, B, C, D, and many new managers or supervisors do not place people in positions based on their natural strengths and weaknesses. Many of them do it simply randomly.

00:50 Don't make that mistake if you choose the right members for your team, or if you choose the right person to partner with someone based on his or her strengths and weaknesses and the other person's strengths and weaknesses, you can form exceptional teams very easily.

01:06 Remember, we talked about the four different social styles.

01:09 No matter what system you may use at work, all of the systems are the same.

01:14 There are four basic social styles.

01:16 There's the analytical, the driver, the amiable and the expressive type.

01:21 Remember that if you choose one style for a job and you need to partner that person with someone else who will help them work more efficiently, they will complement them.

01:34 First, look at the person who would sit opposite from them on the social style scale. For example, if you have an analytical person that you chose to do a job, you may want to consider partnering them with an expressive because that's their opposite personality type, just as if you have a driver.

01:53 You may want to partner that driver with an amiable personality type because that's their opposite. Now, if this concept is new to you, you might think, why would I want to partner people with or opposites all the time? And it's because if you are by nature, more of an analytical type, you may be really good at details.

02:12 You might be really good at getting all of the information and making sure that something is done perfectly.

02:17 But analytical types, by nature, while they get things done perfectly, they don't tend to get things done on time.

02:24 For example, they are really good at finishing things up perfectly, a little bit late, not so good at getting started.

02:31 That's why you might want to choose an expressive type, because expressive types, if they're partnered with an analytical, they help them get started.

02:39 They just don't necessarily finish things with detail.

02:44 You may have seen, for example, two people work together and an expressive type tends to say, What's the job? Yep, I'm ready.

02:52 Let's go. Without having really all of the details or the information that they may need later on to finish the job, but they get started.

03:00 They don't worry about those little details.

03:02 Then you have the analytical types who will say things like, Wait, wait, wait, wait.

03:06 I do not have all of the information that I need.

03:09 And while they can focus on the details that the expressive might miss, they tend to get paralyzed in the getting started phase because they're always saying, just a minute, let me gather more information before I begin.

03:21 And that's just one example.

03:22 Generally, the strengths of one personality type are going to be the weaknesses of whatever type is opposite from them on whatever personality scale you use.

03:34 So the more familiar you are with the different types, the more easily you can form teams that are going to incorporate all of the different strengths that we either naturally have or do not have.

03:45 And you will be able to form teams that will pick up the slack for other team members rather than simply form a team of people who all share the same working style, therefore will always think the same way and get things done the same way.

03:58 For example, if you have a conflict resolution team that you're forming and you chose to form that team with all drivers because they all said, Oh yeah, I'd like to head up that team because I'm sick of the conflicts around here distracting us from getting the job done.

04:13 So if you said, okay, great, you have four drivers, they all want to head up the conflict resolution team.

04:18 So there you go.

04:19 You're going to have four people then that when a conflict arises, would say things like, oh, you have a problem.

04:25 Okay, what's your problem? Yeah, I have a solution for you.

04:29 Get over it. That's your solution.

04:31 That's what drivers tend to do.

04:33 That's why you don't always want to partner people with others who think as they think. It's great to partner people with people who think opposite from how they think. That's what we tend to do, for example, when we get married.

04:45 And now I'd like you to listen to the following positions that you might have to fill, and I'd like you to think, based on the four personality types as you know them.

04:55 Which type might you choose for the following job positions? You ready? Let's say that you had to choose somebody to project profit or loss for some proposed initiative at work.

05:08 Who do you think would be the natural fit for a position like that one? The analytical type, the driver type, the amiable type or the expressive type? Which would you choose? If you said the analytical type, you're probably right on when I say probably. That's because of course there are going to be some expressive types that would be a better fit.

05:29 There are going to be some amiable types that would be a better fit.

05:32 However, I'm a tactical communicator and I go for the odds.

05:36 But in general, I want to take someone's personality style into account when I'm choosing the right fit for a job for him or her.

05:43 Just as people do with us when we are in job interviews.

05:47 You know how many times you've been asked in a job interview? So tell me, what are some of your strengths? And you'll say, Well, I am very dedicated.

05:55 I'm very detail oriented.

05:57 I'm a people person.

05:58 And then people will say things such as, all right, can you tell me what some of your weaknesses may be.

06:04 If in the past you've said things such as a weakness? Hmm. I'm a I'm some people say I work too hard, I'm too dedicated to my job. I'm just a workaholic.

06:15 People will know that you're making that up.

06:18 Instead, if you are asked a question such as What are some of your weaknesses during an interview or during a review, or someone's considering you for a promotion? Remember, people who do those interviews are all going to be familiar with these systems.

06:31 It's something that they use when selecting the correct candidate.

06:34 And so if they've already asked you which they will have, what are some of your strengths when it comes time to talk about your weaknesses? Just think back to this personality scale.

06:45 What's the opposite person from you? And use that as an example of things that you might want to work on based on your personality style. For example, if someone were to say to me, Dan, can you tell me what some of your strengths are? I'd say, Sure, I'm a natural, expressive person, so it's easy for me to come up with new ideas and creative thinking is something that comes naturally to me.

07:04 And if they were to say, Great, what some of your weaknesses? I would say, Well, because I'm a naturally expressive personality type.

07:10 As I mentioned before, things such as details and crossing the T's and dotting the i's are things that I need to be conscious of because they aren't natural traits of mine. And they would think, Hmm, very honest, makes perfect sense.

07:23 And they'd move right along while you can be honest and increase the odds that you will get the position because you'll be talking about personality types and interviewers love that because you will be throwing in.

07:35 I invest in my personal and professional development.

07:37 I know about those personality types you're talking about right now.

07:41 So there are many reasons why I want to familiarize myself with these systems, not just so that I can choose effective teams, not just so that I can speak the language of these different types and relate to them more effectively.

07:55 But I also want to be in the know and when I'm in an interview or trying to impress upon somebody that I invest in me and my professional development, talking about these systems and using them in examples is going to do just that.

08:11 However, what if you're leading a new sales initiative? Who might you choose for that position? Think about that. You may have said the expressive personality type because they're great with people.

08:24 They can go out and they will say, Sure, I'll go sell that for you.

08:27 And they have no fear when it comes to meeting new people and talking to new people, which is something you generally have to do for a sales initiative.

08:34 However, if you look at the characteristics and the natural strengths of the driver, the driver is the one who will say, What's the goal? Okay, who do I have to be to accomplish that goal? All right, I'll be that person and accomplish that goal.

08:49 So if you are specifically looking for someone for a sales initiative, drivers statistically tend to be the best sales people of the four when they choose to enter into a sales position because it's about goals and competition and drivers are about goals and competition.

09:09 What about if you are looking for a team member to head up the welcome wagon? If you're someone who finds it natural to welcome people into your organization, your neighborhood, your school, your home.

09:22 Chances are you're an amiable type and you'd be perfect for a position like that.

09:27 You would not, however, want to go to a driver type because driver types aren't naturally people who like to welcome others into their organization.

09:36 And if they were, if somebody who wanted to do that, if they were someone who would say, Yeah, I would like to volunteer for that position and welcome people into this organization, it tends to be because they have a reason that would make that person work harder for them. It would help them be more productive so that they can accomplish goals. It wouldn't tend to be for the same reasons that an amiable would list as to why they would welcome someone into their organization.

10:01 Amiable is tend to do it because it's the right thing to do.

10:05 Drivers tend to do it because it will help them achieve goals.

10:08 You want to keep the motivations in mind.

10:11 Whatever someone's motivation is, there's no good or bad about it.

10:14 But you want to know what it is because we're going to be addressing that at the end of this chapter. And now that we've talked about how to use the social styles to more effectively choose the right person for the job, let's talk a little bit more about language patterns for the different social styles we've so far discussed the four popular social styles that people tend to reference at work.

10:36 In this chapter, however, I'm going to reference the Five Languages of Love. Now, you might be saying to yourself what we're talking about love in the workplace, but what we're going to do here is we're going to talk about the five languages, not just of love that you can use in your personal life.

10:55 And you'll see what I mean when we talk about them.

10:57 But the five languages that we use when we are expressing love or the five languages that we recognize as signals of love coming to us, those are the same languages that you use to show appreciation, respect, to apologize, and to thank people at work.

11:15 If you are a really savvy communicator and know how to style step using the five languages, the five languages of love, appreciation, respect, thank you's apologies are these.

11:28 Number one words of affirmation.

11:31 If words of affirmation is your language, you're going to recognize that somebody appreciates you, respects you, or loves you.

11:38 If they do things for you, like tell you that they appreciate you, they might come up to you at work and say, You know, I wanted to take a moment to tell you how much I appreciated what you did this afternoon.

11:50 And that might be how you would express love, appreciation and respect as well.

11:54 The second language is acts of service.

11:58 If acts of service is your language, you would recognize that somebody really appreciates you.

12:03 If they did something such as washed your car for you at lunchtime during work.

12:09 And that would be something maybe that you might do for somebody if you wanted to show them that you appreciated them.

12:15 The third language is giving and receiving gifts.

12:18 If this is your language, you would recognize that someone really values you.

12:22 If they stop by and give you a gift, the gift doesn't need to be expensive.

12:26 It doesn't even need to be bought.

12:27 But that's also how you would show somebody thanks or appreciation or love. You'd give them something.

12:35 The fourth language is quality time.

12:37 You would recognize that somebody appreciates you if they did things like spent time with you, even if you didn't say anything at all.

12:45 And that's how you tend to express appreciation and love as well.

12:49 And the last language is physical touch.

12:52 If your language is physical touch, you're going to notice that somebody does not appreciate you or is not respectful of you.

12:59 If, for example, while you're talking during a presentation, they get up and leave the room. And if you ever do that to somebody who's language is physical touch, they're going to notice and think that about you.

13:11 All right. That was a brief introduction to the five different languages of respect.

13:16 Love, thank yous and apologies.

13:18 And this system can potentially have more of an impact on your life, both personally and professionally, than any other system.

13:26 You'll find that it's very practical to use.

13:28 However, it's much more complicated than it may appear.

13:32 It seems really simple.

13:33 Oh yeah. If somebody's language is quality time, that's how we'll speak to them.

13:36 When I want to show them respect.

13:38 It's not that easy when it comes time to do it.

13:40 So in your materials you have a worksheet that has the five different languages on it and three blanks next to each language.

13:48 In those blanks you'll see, it says You are instructed to put an example of how you might thank somebody, how you might show appreciation for somebody, and how you might apologize to somebody using their language.

14:02 What I'd like you to do is take a few minutes now, and without taking too much time quickly go through all of the five languages and write your answers. How would you thank somebody? How would you show appreciation for them? How would you apologize to them in their language? And when you're done, I'd like you to compare your answers to the answers given in your materials.

14:25 Did you think of different ways to thank each one of the five types in their language? Did you think of five different ways to show appreciation? Did you think of five different ways to apologize? The topic of style stepping for the five different languages is something that we could talk about for days.

14:45 So what I'm going to do is leave you with that information and the resources that you can use to investigate more on that and many more styles, stepping and social styles topics.

14:56 And finally, I'd like to wrap up this social styles style stepping section talking about one of the most effective things that you can do when it comes to motivating or inspiring a team.

15:08 Speak their language.

15:10 It's interesting how many people do not know how to properly speak benefit language, benefit languages.

15:17 When you talk to the right hand side of the brain and stimulate that side of the brain to care about whatever it is you're talking about.

15:25 It's not just used, for example, in a sales situation many of us have already heard about or maybe learned about benefit language if you were in a sales position. However, the savvy communicator delivers benefit statements when they're saying no.

15:42 The Savvy Communicator delivers benefit statements when they're trying to elicit a change in behavior.

15:48 They deliver benefit statements when they're trying to impress upon someone that they should do something or take action based on whatever it is that they're saying, and they do it in the other person's language, if at all possible.

16:01 And here's what I mean by that.

16:03 What social style or personality style are you? Are you a director or a amiable type or an expressive type or an analytical type by nature? Which are you? Now, let's say that you're coming into work and you want to inspire an employee or a coworker to do something for you.

16:23 How would you do it in their language if they were, for example, an amiable type or a driver type and you're not? How would you inspire people to take action based on their personality type? Would your language change? Does it already? Because most of us come into work and we will practice the golden rule.

16:44 And you know what the Golden Rule is? Treat others how how you'd like to be treated.

16:50 Do not do that. One of the first mistakes that we need to correct in most professional communicators as they're developing, is to learn not to treat others the way you want to be treated because others want to be treated the way they want to be treated. Right.

17:05 We want to learn the way we want to learn, not the way others want to learn.

17:10 We want to be spoken to in our language.

17:12 So what you're going to do is the savvy communicator is you're going to focus on style, stepping in many different situations.

17:19 What we're going to focus on right now is benefit language.

17:22 So if I were to say to you, Hey, I want you to do this for me and here's what you'll get out of it.

17:29 What's your language? Are you a driver and amiable and expressive and analytical? And before we talk specifically about how to style step when delivering a benefit statement, let's clarify what a benefit statement is.

17:44 Have you bought a car lately? If you have bought a car, you know that when you go to purchase a car, a good salesperson, when they're selling you that car is not going to focus on the features that that car has.

17:58 They're going to focus on the benefits of those features that stimulates right brain activity. And remember, we make decisions based on right brain activity, emotions. Then we back up those decisions with the left brain facts and figures to try and justify the decisions that we made.

18:14 But we make them based on emotion.

18:16 So if you want to inspire somebody to do something at work, you want to use benefit language that stimulates the right hand side of the brain.

18:23 And then you want to style step and do it in their language.

18:25 And that will be giving like a12 punch when it comes to inspiring people and motivating them and persuading them to do what it is that you would like.

18:35 So think about the last time you purchased something like a car.

18:39 Chances are the salesperson said to you things such as this car goes from 0 to 60 in 10 seconds, or this car gets great gas mileage, or this car has heated seats, things like that.

18:50 Right. That's how feature language, if you bought the car from that salesperson, chances are they follow it up with benefit language.

19:00 So let's talk about that.

19:02 Benefit language is going to be what the features do for you.

19:06 Just like when you're speaking benefit language to an employee or to a coworker, you're going to be talking about what they will get out of, whatever it is you're asking them to do. For example, if you're asking for a change in behavior, here's what you will get out of that. Change in behavior is going to inspire people to make a change in behavior. Let's go back to the car.

19:26 If you bought a car recently, buying a car, buying a home or buying anything from a professional, polished salesperson can illustrate clearly the difference between feature and benefit language.

19:40 Once you see the difference between benefit and feature language, you can then use that when you need to talk benefit language at work.

19:48 For example, if you're buying a car from a professional salesperson who knows how to speak benefit language, that then motivates people to take action, they might talk about the car has heated seats, they might talk about the car goes from 0 to 60 in 10 seconds.

20:03 They might talk about how it has a stylish modern design.

20:06 Those are all features that is going to stimulate left hand brain activity.

20:12 We don't make decisions or take action based on left brain activity.

20:16 So how can I take those features and turn them into benefits which will help motivate the person to buy the car? What is a benefit of having heated seats? Think, how would you tell somebody? Well, the benefit of having heated seats is what if you said something such as, well, the seats will be warm in the wintertime.

20:37 That's still feature language.

20:39 If you said, however, well, you'll be warm in the wintertime more quickly.

20:43 That's benefit language.

20:45 And what about a car going from 0 to 60 in 10 seconds? What's the benefit of having that? If you said something such as, well, it goes really fast.

20:54 That's feature language.

20:56 If you said, however, you can go really fast, that's benefit language.

21:01 And what about if I were to say, well, the car is stylish and it has a great, sleek, modern design. Is that feature or benefit language that's feature.

21:10 How would you wrap that up in a benefit statement? You will look stylish.

21:15 That is the benefit.

21:17 Remember that when we talk about things, ideas, concepts, that's feature left brain language.

21:23 When we talk about what that does for you, when you talk to the other person, that's benefit language.

21:30 So how can we ensure that we're speaking benefit language? I mean, if I need to motivate an employee to do something, I have to ensure I'm using benefit language. If I want to deliver a no like a really savvy, polished professional, I want to infuse a benefit statement in there.

21:45 How can I ensure I'm doing it? Benefit language is very easy to deliver if you just use these two simple lead lines.

21:54 Remember these. Repeat these after me.

21:57 You ready? Say this so that you.

22:01 So you can say that again so that you so you can one more time.

22:08 So that you.

22:10 So you can.

22:13 And remember, the next time you're trying to motivate somebody to make a change, let's say that you were to say, John, from now on, you need to be at your desk by the time that clock hits 9:00.

22:23 That means you're on time.

22:25 If you're giving someone instruction like that, the savvy manager knows that delivering a simple benefit statement, it's going to increase the odds that the person will do what it is that the manager is asking them to do.

22:37 So saying something that ends with so that you are so you can is going to increase the odds of that employee or the coworker or whomever it is will do what it is that you're asking them to do.

22:47 Now, in that last example of delivering benefit language, I said, the next time you're in a meeting for a promotion or a job review, you'll be more likely to get that promotion. What language was that? Was that the language of the driver or the amiable or the expressive type? Who is I most likely speaking to if that's the benefit language I was delivering? That tends to be the driver type language.

23:12 But let's say that I'm talking to an amiable if you were talking to an amiable and you were asking them to come on time from now on for work.

23:20 What type of benefit language would an amiable be more likely to respond to? Because it would not be, Oh, I'm doing it so that I can be seen as a professional and get a promotion while there are many amiable where that would motivate them.

23:33 Statistically, what's most likely to hit the target if I know I'm dealing with an amiable. It would be something more along the lines of your coworkers would appreciate that your teammates would benefit from this.

23:46 Amy Abels Want to hear about that? And analyticals want to hear benefit statements such as so you can learn, so you can develop.

23:54 An expressive type is going to want to hear things such as so you can be noticed, so you can be seen a driver.

24:01 So you can achieve so you can accomplish the amiable.

24:05 So you can help.

24:06 So others can benefit.

24:09 When you are a professional communicator who not only knows how to speak benefit language, but knows also how to wrap it up in somebody else's social style and style step with benefit language, you will be able to achieve your communication goal much more frequently than the average communicator, who neither knows how to deliver a benefit statement nor style step.

24:32 If you can do both of them, you will be in an elite class of professional communicators.

24:38 And I'd like to leave you with this thought.

24:40 In this lesson, we talked about many different ways to shift your language and speak differently from the way you spoke yesterday.

24:47 And it can be a lot of work because concepts like style stepping are things that you can't just do overnight.

24:54 You have to really think about it, study it, read it, go through different resources and make it part of your communication style.

25:02 It takes a lot of work because as I mentioned before, if you speak the same way tomorrow as you spoke yesterday, you will have the same experience tomorrow as you had yesterday. If you want to change your experience that you have with the entire world, change the words you use.

25:19 And remember that change is not only the experience that you have with the entire world. It changes the experience the entire world has with you.

25:27 So in this lesson we learned how to use style, stepping to do things such as more effectively select people for different positions in a team.

25:35 We learn how to use it when we're apologizing, thanking somebody or showing them respect. And we learn how to motivate people by using not just the proper benefit statements, but by coupling that with their language.