Smart Managers Read Behavior

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>> Edward Munzio: Hi, I'm Edward Muzio, CEO of Group Harmonics, and I'm going to tell you how smart managers read behavior. When an employee or coworker comes to you agitated, upset, or excited it's in your best interest to respond in such a way that you increase the communication flow, but you don't add to the emotional content. To do that smart managers know they need to read their behavior of the other person and respond accordingly. When it comes to reading behavior there's two questions you can ask yourself. The first has to do with how the other person is approaching their environment. I'm going to draw a scale here. On this end of the scale, we say the person is trying to shape their environment. This is somebody who's acting outwardly for themselves to quickly make changes in the world around them. On the other end of the scale, we say someone is trying to respond to their environment. This is somebody who's moving more slowly to carefully understand the constraints and be acted upon. Stay within those rules, another words. The second question you can ask yourself all draws a vertical scale, and that has to do with the person's primary focus. Are they focusing on things like tasks. This is to do lists, details, over all goals, things like that. Or are they focusing on people. Relationships, interactions, who's involved; those kinds of questions. Now both of these are scales, the horizontal one and the vertical one. Both of them are something where you can fall kind of anywhere along the scale. But in most cases if you're reading someone's behavior in the moment, you'll be able notice on one or both scales that they're more this way or that way. More this way or that way. Once you've got their behavior read then there's one simple rule. And that is rule number one for reading behavior. Give them what they need. Now here's how you do that. We'll start over here on this side of the board. When someone is trying to shape their environment by focusing on tasks, this is somebody who is pounding on your desk saying, "I need more resources." This is somebody who is trying to direct. What do you do with someone like this? You allow them to direct. You allow them to have some authority if you can. You don't over control them or micromanage them. If you do, they'll just get more angry, and communication will stop. How about someone who's trying to shape their environment by focusing on the people? This is a person who's focusing on relationships. They're excited. They're waving their hands around telling you about a new idea with a lot of emotional content. This is somebody who's trying to inspire you. What do you do here? You let them inspire you. You get a little bit excited. You go there at the emotional content for a bit. You don't shut down the conversation too soon. This is somebody who needs to verbalize in order to share information. Now let's go to this side of the board, someone's who's trying to respond. What if they're trying to respond to the environment by focusing on the people, again. Well, this is somebody who's going to come to you in a more reserved way and talk to you about changes; how they're going to affect the people all around them. Is everything going to be okay? This is someone who's trying to stabilize. Again, what do you do? You allow them to do what they need. You let them stabilize. You show them that you're systematic. You give them time to consider the people implications of what's going on. You don't rush changes or give them the idea that changes are happening in an unplanned matter. That will cause them stress, and they'll shut down. Finally, what about someone who's trying to respond to the environment focusing on the tasks? This is the person who brings you a lot of data and wants to go through it with you. It's somebody who wants to follow the rules, who wants to regulate. And as always, you give them what they need. You allow them to do analysis. You look through the analysis with them. You focus on the data. You don't dismiss the importance of the data, and you don't give them the idea that you're making decisions without information. If you do, you lose trust, and communication ceases. Now you can see that this model gives you a very simple four-square system for reading behavior. Rule number two is that when you use this model, you use it to read behavior. You don't use it to label people. When you measure peoples' actual behavioral styles, it's far more sophisticated than four squares. But in the moment, you can read someone's behavior. When they come to you, are they trying to direct? Are they trying to inspire? Are they trying to stabilize? Are they tying to regulate? If you read their behavior appropriately and respond accordingly, you'll be a smart manager, and you'll get a lot more communication and lot less strife.

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==== Transcribed by Automatic Sync Technologies ====