Personality vs. Behavior
Here’s a brief video summary of the important difference between these two aspects of our identity. https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/1081004596/b815d31d5c
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Responding to a Crisis: Building Bridges with Empathy
Difficult conversations are inevitable. Whether in personal relationships, at work, or in society, we all face moments where perspectives clash and emotions run high. Too often, empathy falters, and walls go up. In a time when division seems to be encouraged to a point of crisis, our culture and workplaces have an urgent need for
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A Hidden Dynamic in the Behavior Style Model
In the world of workplace behavior and communication, the Behavior Style model is a powerful tool for understanding how people interact, make decisions, and handle tasks. Many organizations use Effectiveness Institute’s Behavior Style model to identify the four patterns of Controller, Analyzer, Stabilizer, and Persuader. These categories help individuals and teams understand their behavior tendencies,
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Why Choose People Skills?
We recently interviewed Theresa Little, Talent Development Manager at McKinstry, to find out why they chose Effectiveness Institute’s People Skills program as part of their core content. Thank you, Theresa, for allowing us to interview you. We are grateful to be a part of the outstanding work of McKinstry and their excellent People Skills Certified
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How to “Flex” Your Behavior – Part 4 of 4
How well do you recognize and adjust to different behavior styles in others? Over the past few weeks, we’ve been discussing simple strategies to help you adapt your approach based on the behavior patterns you observe in those around you. For instance, it’s easy to spot when you’re interacting with someone who’s relationally focused. These
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How to “Flex” Your Behavior – Part 3 of 4
When you are interacting with someone, what behavior are you seeing, hearing, or reading? These clues give you a good idea of whether flexing your behavior a little could be helpful (and it often is). Learning how and when to modify our behavior to better connect and work with others is the goal of People
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How to “Flex” Your Behavior – Part 2 of 4
The goal of People Skills assessments and training is to learn how to modify your behavior (i.e., rotate your iceberg) to improve relationships and outcomes. Do you know someone who prefers to carefully think through things before making decisions or taking action? They often speak thoughtfully to make sure they say only what is correct
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“Escape & Engage: Team Dynamics in Action”
We are excited to announce a new partnership with Reality Break Escape that combines an enlightening escape experience with a Behavior Style Assessment. Enhance collaboration, improve communication and watch individuals discover their strengths and how they rely on each other (or not) as they work together to unravel the mystery and solve an exciting escape game!
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What Do You See?
What do you think of when you see this grid? Some people view this visual as a tool for understanding an individual’s personality. Some see a model they have seen before, possibly many times. Some just see four different colored boxes. For me, this is: However, I also recognize how it can be: It’s essential
Are You Using Behavior Styles for Hiring?
While going through a behavior style workshop, participants often ask if behavior styles should be used to help make hiring decisions. It’s an understandable question because it seems like it would be best to hire certain Styles for certain types of work, or to hire someone if you need their Style to create balance on
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The Challenge of Being Trustworthy
We often hear or read about the importance of trust. Research is often cited that reveals how central it is for effective relationships and teams. But while it’s easy to make the connection about how important it is and to talk about trust, it is challenging to build and maintain, even if you believe you
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Five Ways People Leverage Behavior Styles
Recently, a visitor to our blog page responded to Suzi Kalsow’s post about the common misuses of Behavioral Styles. This individual raised some thought-provoking questions and even suggested a couple of ideas for future blog topics. One of these suggestions has become the focus of this post: “What are five ways people can leverage Behavioral
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Moving From Speaking “At” to Engaging “With” Others in Conflict
I’ve noticed an alarming trend in how people communicate with one another—a growing tendency to speak at others instead of engaging in genuine dialogue. This manifests in various ways, such as lacking active listening skills, failing to confirm understanding, and disregarding the impact our words have on others. One particular scenario where this style of
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Do You Really Get it?
Have you ever been in a conversation where someone utters the phrase, “I understand”? How does it make you feel? In a friendly exchange, those words might foster a sense of connection or agreement. However, when emotions are heightened, they often evoke frustration. Have you experienced that before? Personally, when I hear those words, my
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What’s So Important About Behavior Styles?
When participants in a People Skills workshop receive their Behavior Style Self report, an intense quietness suddenly falls over the group. This is partly because everyone is reading their results, but it’s also due to a natural curiosity to learn more about ourselves. You may have heard the famous line by C.C. Bloom, a character
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Laughing at Ourselves: Comedy in Behavior Styles
For many of us, the best humor is based on real-life situations, scenarios, and quirks that we identify with. That’s one reason there’s a lot of comedy in Behavior Styles. They are real, common, filled with humorous quirks, and easy to identify with. In fact, much of what makes shows and movies meaningful, funny, tense,
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Don’t Let Your Behavior Style Preference Become a Cultural Bias
Like individuals, organizations and even cultures have Behavior Style preferences. Sadly, these preferences can also manifest as damaging cultural biases.
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Surviving Remote Work as a Persuader
The biggest driving need for Persuaders is people. Remote work creates some unique challenges for them, especially when they can’t leave the house.
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Here’s the Fundamental Difference Between Behavior and Personality
While personality more closely aligns with who we are, Behavior Style reflects what we do and the impact we have on others. Deeply understanding this distinction makes all the difference in relationships.
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Pitfalls to Avoid When Your Team Goes Remote
For good reason, distributed teams are on the rise, but doing them right can be a challenge. Here are several principles to keep in mind to ensure that your team culture remains effective and that distributed arrangements work well for everybody involved.
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Two Problems I Have with Leadership Development
One way to illustrate these problems would be to consider what happens when a client asks for help in the development of a leader in their organization.
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Receiving Feedback Doesn’t Have to Be Painful
Receiving feedback often triggers the internal “fight/flight/freeze” mode in each of us because there’s a good possibility that what comes next will not be a positive experience. However, there are some things we can do to make receiving feedback a more productive encounter.
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The Limit of Impact
For healthy relationships, it is essential that we know and manage our impact. However, we also need to take responsibility for what we do when someone has a negative impact on us and avoid playing the victim role.
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