Social Styles

Tanit-Isis was curious about the social styles I mentioned from my training course last week.  I know my own style well, but I wanted to have my notes to really comment on the other styles.

The quadrants of style are determined by two aspects of your personality.  Relationships on the vertical aspect and how you deal with information on the horizontal.  I summarized it here.

I have described Amiables in my previous post, it's essentially me.  I like to collect information, I'm pretty slow to share unless I'm feeling secure.  I build relationships and it is important for me to keep those relationships.

Analyticals are not as driven by people.  Not to say they don't have friends, but that's not part of their motivation and can seem distant or aloof because of this.  Collecting information, having the absolutely positively RIGHT answer drives them.  These are the people that you ask, "So why did you buy that sewing machine?" and they pull out 17 web sites, 100 product reviews and then a pro/con list for their favourite 8 machines.  And in the end don't buy any of them because maybe they missed something and there is a new model in 2 months that is that much better.

Drivers are, in the wrong situation, the ones that piss me off the easiest.  They want to control situations and if they trust that you did your homework, then cut to the chase and just tell them the 3 top features of the top 2 machines and let them control which to buy.  They can be frustrated by Analyticals and Amiables because we want to share all of the information we patiently collected to show we have the right answer, Drivers just want to make a decision and move on. 

Expressives are motivated by people and relationships.  They want people to like them, they enjoy a little of the spot light, they are outgoing and look like happy people.  When I'm comfortable, I shift a little to Expressive and probably fool a lot of people on first impressions.  Expressives can be bored easily, so collecting a crap ton of information on sewing machines is taking them away from shiny fabric.  They will buy what they see first, possibly whatever their friend has spoken positively about.

So when you put two personality types together you can see how conflict can arise.  I mentioned Drivers have the potential to drive me crazy.  Their firm stated opinion irritates me because there are likely perspectives they aren't considering.  They don't have patience for me needing to consider options so I feel steam rolled by their decisions that involve me.  This just gets my back up and then I go all passive agressive on them because I don't like conflict but I'm not going to do whatever it is they want me to do.  No where in this does is say I can't be a stubborn Amiable.

Everyone probably has a little of two if not three of the styles.  Some people are one style at work and another at home.  As mentioned, in the right situation I get a little Expressive.  I definitely get a little of the analysis paralysis of Analyticals from time to time. 

I posted about the Pay It Forward game a little while ago.  Expressives should want to participate because it gets their name on the spotlight and builds a relationship with me.  Drivers, well, probably don't have the time, particularly since my blog isn't established enough to really help them.  Analyticals (and Amiables for that matter) have had enough time now to process the pros and cons and think about it, however you need a blog to participate and I'm not sure how many Analyticals are bloggers.  Amiables will want to do it to make me feel better.

So what style do you think you are?  Are there situations that make you more one or another?  Or is this all just silly nonsense?