The Analyzer
From original Beauty of Styles video by Effectiveness Institute founder, Tom Champoux
This group is the hardest to talk about for two reasons. #1, far and away they are the most private of all the styles. #2, far and away, they are the most protocol-oriented of all the styles. “mama taught me long time ago that if you can’t say something nice about someone, don’t say nothing at all.” And, they don’t. They even know what you need to be doing, but they won’t tell you Why? Well, if I want help, I’d ask, but you didn’t ask, so you must not want my help. They walk by you…oh, I see you’re working on such and such. That’s actually an offer to help. And watch the Controller or Persuader, yeah, Jan, I am and I’m kinda busy, you need something? Oh, no, no…good luck. And, then a little while later you find out that they knew the answer… so, accountability…you go ask them. How come you didn’t tell me? What will they say every time? You didn’t ask. It’s as simple as that…you want an Analyzer’s help, you’ve got to ask.
They are only going to answer the question asked, no more, no less. Jan, would you be willing to help me? They’ll say, I’ll be glad to, let me get my files. Analyzers have lots of files. They drag them rascals out. If you can’t see the forest for the trees, let the Analyzer have at it. Just like the Stabilizers—they will take the work home and figure it out. I believe the Analyzers have more tools in the toolkit to help the team than any other style. Why? Because they…never…forget.
Like the Stabilizers, the Analyzers are also systems-oriented, but the Analyzer is systems TASK. The systems of the Analyzer are set up for quality, accuracy, and perfection. Their whole life is set up around those three words: quality, accuracy, perfection. If we’re going to do, let’s do it right. They look at facts, available data, and they always look back to history. They bring the historical perspective with them. Have you ever heard these words before? “Here’s the way we’ve always done it” or “the team I used to be with” or “the company I came from.” Guess what Controllers and Persuaders say? If you liked it so much, why don’t you go back there?
This really confuses the Analyzer. They say “why do you say that to me? I’m not saying I want this team to be like that team. What I’m saying is that if another team dumped money down a rathole to prove something doesn’t work, we’ve got to dump more money down the same rathole to prove it doesn’t work one more time because of your ego?”
I wouldn’t fight with an Analyzer if I were you. Analyzers don’t fight unless they have data to back up every single thing that they say.
Let’s talk about their strengths. 1: thorough, comprehensive and complete. You see they don’t work to the clock do they? If we’re going to do it, it needs to be done right. It’s got to be thorough, comprehensive and complete. If it could be done in 3 pages, let’s do it in 4 so we can get the data to go with it too. Other people will say they’re slow. But that’s the impact that they make. If we’re going to do it, let’s do it right.
Now here’s their magic. Here’s the thing that separates them from all the others. And I admire this. The Controller, the Persuader and the Stabilizer all want to HAVE integrity — the Analyzers wants to BE IN integrity. Now that’s very subtle, but it’s very important. 1, 2, 3, want to have integrity, the 4th one wants to BE IN integrity. Interpretation for an Analyzer: I AM MY WORK. If you criticize my work, it’s a criticism of me.
Well, I don’t think this will work. This chart’s wrong, this one doesn’t look right, so I’m not using it. The Analyzer sees those as a personal attack. The other styles will all say that it wasn’t a personal attack but Analyzers see it that way.
You CAN criticize their work, but you have to be careful, here’s how you do it. Uh, Analyzer, uh, this chart and this chart are not going to work; here’s WHY it’s not going to work — because see their word is WHY. Remember facts, data, accuracy, perfection? Here’s WHY it’s not going to work. I mean the chart’s accurate, but I probably didn’t do a good enough job of explaining what I really wanted. Is it possible for you to modify this chart to bring this variable in and then it would flow with the rest?
If you validate their work, it’s an affirmation of them as a human being. They are SOOO easy to deal with. They have very very high standards for themselves, most of which they keep on the inside and you don’t even know about them. So, if something goes wrong, on the outside you may not know about it, but on the inside they just beat themselves up….”How could I make even one mistake?” They beat themselves up.
GENERATE THE IDEA … PROMOTE THE IDEA … FULFILL THE IDEA … and HAVE QUALITY CONTROL AROUND THE IDEA. In your job and in your life, don’t you have to end up with all four of these? I do; and I think you do too. So one of the things I wanted to do in this segment was to help you understand that there’s four different patterns. One that generates, one that promotes, one that fulfills, and one that puts all their energy into a focus on quality control. And, one’s not better than the other. It’s just the different points of the iceberg that you will turn up.
Bottom line, I HAVE A CHOICE on which strengths I’m going to use. And I contend that that’s what we need to do as professionals and as managers. Share all our strengths with the team and don’t label me as one of these because I’m all four and you’re all four.