In world of work, the masters of the universe are usually those who have mastered people skills.
Sometimes, these skills appear to be innate. But don’t be fooled; they can be learned.
The key to interpersonal skill mastery is understanding what makes people tick and adapting your style based on that knowledge. Once you’re able to do that, you’ll gain an upper hand for your career.
5. THE PREDICTIVE INDEX
When you understand
behavioral drives...
You understand yourself better
You understand your colleagues better
You understand your boss better
You create environments where they thrive
AND YOU THRIVE
7. THE PREDICTIVE INDEX
The 4 “primary factors”
DOMINANCE
EXTRAVERSION
PATIENCE
FORMALITY
These 4 drives explain for a
disproportionate amount of
workplace behaviors.
If you understand which of
these drives are strongest in
an individual, and you
understand how to appeal to
those drives, you can deal
with that person in an effective
manner.
8. THE PREDICTIVE INDEX
Judgment free zone
On all 4 primary
factors, we all fall
somewhere on a
spectrum, and some
drives overshadow
others.
There’s no “good” and
there’s no “bad.”
10. THE PREDICTIVE INDEX
Traits associated with dominance
Common traits of low dominance people Common traits of high dominance people
• Cooperative; comfortable working under the
supervision of others or as a member of a team
• Unassuming and unselfish; willing to do things for
others and deriving satisfaction from service-oriented
activities
• Accepting of company policies, standards, systems
and authority; less likely to originate or put forward
ideas for change
• Agreeable; willing to accommodate the decisions,
attitudes or leadership of others
• Seeking harmony rather than conflict in relations with
others; able to get along well with most people
• More concerned with group or team achievement,
recognition and association than with individual
achievement and recognition
• Confident, independent and sure of the value of his
or her own ideas, decisions, opinions and actions
• Primarily interested in the achievement of tangible
results; competitive; determined to do more and do it
better than others
• Innovative and venturesome; willing to make waves
and take responsibility for the risks of change and
innovation; able to tolerate the pressures of criticism
or the possibility of failure
• Self-assured and a self-starter; likely to value own
judgments over others.
• Primarily interested in facts,things, concepts,
systems or strategies; technically oriented
• Direct, frank, factual and authoritative in style of
expression; aggressive when he or she encounters
resistance or opposition
12. THE PREDICTIVE INDEX
Traits associated with extraversion
Common traits of low extraversion people Common traits of high extraversion people
• Serious and introspective; thinking things through
before speaking or acting
• More interested in and more comfortable with work-
related activities than activities of a primarily social
nature
• More effective dealing with tangible, concrete and
factual matters than with intangible matters of
communication
• Relatively quiet and factual
• Reserved; uncomfortable or awkward meeting new
people or groups, but friendly and communicative with
people he or she knows well
• Unsure or uneasy about placing trust in other people
Comfortable working alone; stressed or tired from
frequent social contact
• Outgoing and communicative; socially (rather than
technically) oriented
• Pleasant, friendly, cheerful and optimistic in social
contact; preferring to be liked.
• Articulate; capable of being stimulating, enthusiastic,
and persuasive in expression.
• Empathetic, able to recognize and understand the
other person’s point of view or concerns
• Effective working with and through other people—a
team worker and a team builder.
• Able to meet new people easily; effective in groups;
lively company, a good public speaker.
• Delegator of authority, actively interested in the
development of people and organizations
14. THE PREDICTIVE INDEX
Traits associated with patience
Common traits of low patience people Common traits of high patience people
• Tense and driven to release that tension in action —
now
• Impatient for results; able to work, think and function in
general at a faster-than average pace
• Moved and pressured by a sense of urgency and
communicative of that pressure to others
• Able to adjust quickly and often to change, variety and
fast-paced action
• Restless and impatient with repetitive, routine
activities,or work that involves staying in one confined
place
• Intolerant of delays, driven to “cut through the red tape”
and get on with things
• Stable, with consistent, reliable and systematic
behavior
• In harmony with the environment; inclined to accept
things the way they are, rather than seeking change
• Relaxed in a physical sense; not tense
• At ease and secure in a familiar, unchanging
environment and with familiar people
• Comfortable with familiar work done in a familiar place
• Amiable and easygoing with familiar people; easy to
get along with, but slow to adjust to new people, new
situations, or change in general
• Calm, deliberate and generally unhurried in activity
16. THE PREDICTIVE INDEX
Traits associated with formality
Common traits of low formality people Common traits of high formality people
• Flexible in his or her approach to work
• More concerned with results than details or specifics
of how those results are achieved
• Inclined to delegate details when position permits
• Independent in the sense of not feeling a strong
obligation to do things strictly by the book
• Tolerant of risk and uncertainty; not a worrier
• Unimpressed by traditional, structured systems of
rank, authority and seniority
• Open and receptive to new ideas and change, often
preferring them over the traditional, established or
conventional
• Frank and uninhibited in expressing himself or herself
• Most comfortable and effective in relatively
unstructured situations and informal organizations.
• Conscientious, thorough and careful that whatever
he or she is responsible for is done correctly
• Particularly attentive to and accurate with details
• Respectful of established, proven rules, policies,
standards and authority
• Knowledgeable in a specialized field or skill
• Conservative; confident in established, proven,
accepted standards, policies, systems and
instructions
• Skeptical and critical of anything or anybody new,
unfamiliar or unproven or any suggestion of change
• Strongly motivated by the need to avoid the
possibility of blame or punishment for having made a
mistake or having done anything wrong
17. THE PREDICTIVE INDEX
Primary Factors
• Major factors combine to create a
specific behavior.
Primary Colors
You can think of “primary factors” like
primary colors. The interplay and overlap of
the factors are what reveals a richer picture
of the whole person.
18. THE PREDICTIVE INDEX
Primary Factors
• Major factors combine to create a
specific behavior.
Whole Picture
You can think of “primary factors” like
primary colors. The interplay and overlap of
the factors are what reveals a richer picture
of the whole person.
19. THE PREDICTIVE INDEX
We often times think we
know what someone’s
behavioral drives are. And
often times, we’re wrong!
21. THE PREDICTIVE INDEX
Try the PI Behavioral
Assessment free!
• Scientifically validated through 350+ studies
• Takes roughly 6 minutes to complete
trypi.com/free
Notes de l'éditeur
David Cancel…
Has founded five companies, all of which have extremely successful exits… famous in the Boston area in the startup scene. He’s working on another startup now called Drift.
He has a podcast called Seeking Wisdom, which I’d definitely recommend checking out. They cover a lot of interesting material in that podcast.
And here’s what David has to say about business problems….
All business problems are people problems.
——-
ESPN
Friend… heads up a big software technology team there.
He has technology works across multiple continents
He has scores of people in his organization
I asked him how in the world he is able to review the technology work of so many people.
He said he hardly ever looks at a line of code
He said, “Thad, I spend almost my entire day just trying to get people to talk to each other or communicate with one another more effectively”
—-
Jennifer Tenfelde — Polysciences
A team was formed to source, select, plan, and implement an ERP system, which is a massive undertaking for any company.
Leaders were chosen, the team assembled and the project got started.
Initially things were going fine.
And then they just got stuck. The whole project stalled, and it was excruciating for the entire company, because this was this gorilla on everyone’s back.
They ended up doing behavioral assessments of everyone on the project team, and and it turned out that every single person on the team was extremely high in the drives on patience and formality (and we’ll get into what those terms mean exactly later). They were also all low in introversion.
They simply didn’t have the behavioral make up to do something pioneering.
They shook up the team; took some people off and put new people with different behavioral drivers on.
And low and behold, the project got unstock, and they’re about to go live with their ERP system.
Not being able to carry through with a plan to launch an ERP system is a major business problem. But in the words of David Cancel, it was a people problem.
We’re all different and we all see things through our own lens.
We have biases that we’re not even aware of, and we make assumptions without even realizing we’re making them.
And it turns out that our assumptions are sometimes accurate… and sometimes they absolutely suck.
Oh… and when we’re not making assumptions, we busy being oblivious to the things that other people really care about.
But how do they do this? How do they know what’s awesome?
PI uses a talent methodology that measures drives, needs and behaviors.
Drives create needs and behaviors are then a response to a need.
Some drives are born in us – like the drive to survive. Some other drives are the result of heredity, experience and learning.
For example, everyone has the drive to survive. That drive causes us to feel a need to eat food every day. The need to eat food (being hungry) results in the behavior of walking across the street to a café get a sandwich. The drive creates a need and the need results in observable behavior. However, people are different. They have different drives and needs. You may see similar behavior, but the drive and need behind it isn’t the same.
Some customers are at that café because they are hungry, but others may be there because of a need to socialize and meet up with friends. Again, similar behavior, but the need for being there is different.
Having true behavioral understanding helps you…
Understand yourself better — which is probably the most important element of career success. There’s that idiom about “being comfortable in your own skin” and knowing your own behavioral drives helps get us there.
Behavioral understand lets us understand our colleague and our managers in more constructive ways.
And when you have that deeper understanding, you create environments where your colleagues thrive and you thrive.
Like we talked earlier, when it comes to being truly great at understanding behavioral drives and how to work with them, we’re pretty miserable.
And that’s why you can create a massive advantage for yourself apart when you become a Jedi master of understanding workplace behaviors. You’re creating an unfair advantage for yourself.
OK…. So let’s jump in. We’re going to start by talking about the 4 behavioral drives that explain so much of how we conduct ourselves at work.
These are primary drives. When you mix and match the drives, that’s when the true colors come out. Primary colors lead to many others.
These are primary drives. When you mix and match the drives, that’s when the true colors come out. Primary colors lead to many others.
You can think of your career like a massive summit, and you have all these base camps along the way. And having that rock solid understanding of people’s behavior and what drives them serves you throughout that entire career expedition. It helps you deal with your boss, with your colleagues. It’s massively important when you’re managing people and when you’re dealing with cross-functional teams — think back to the ERP implementation example I talked about. And if you’re interacting at the executive level, it’s critically important.
But the trailhead for this entire journey is self-awareness and understanding your own behavioral drives.
So I’d really urge you to take advantage of the Predictive Index and take your own behavioral assessment for free. Click that little button on your scree that says “Take a behavioral assessment.” The Predictive Index behavioral assessment is amazing in the sense that it takes about 6 minutes and its accuracy is astounding. So take advantage of it.
So that wraps up the presentation, and now we’re going to open it up for questions.