So when I was on my training we did this thing about our "Social Styles". Basically your social style is the perception of your personality, the behavioural response you have that other people observe and interact with. When the session starts I was thinking "oh joy this is going to be another pink and fluffy" but it turned out to be rather interesting. In fact at some point I recall thinking "Screw work, this is really useful to help me work out what went wrong in my relationships."
Prior to the training course you had to send a survey to 5 people you worked with and they had to fill it out. As did you. The survey consisted to about 100 words and you had to choose whether the word described you or not. These were words like "understanding", "optimistic", "calculated" etc.
So once how the social styles worked and how we could use this to improve how we worked and interacted with others was explained we went back to our sections rooms, and we got the results from our survey. Likewise I'll explain quickly how it works, and then talk about my results. I was surprised at my results, but apparently no one else was.
Forgive me if the post goes on a bit, but it's fairly pointless explaining my social style without any context. So bear with me a bit. Unless you find this dull, in which case I expect a stupid comment or no one to read it. I'm going with, "no one to read it."
You social style is broken up by looking at grid. On the x-axis are your assertive behaviours. ASKS behaviours tend to the left side of the grid, and TELLS behaviours tend to the right side. On the y-axis is your responsive behaviours, with controlling behaviours tending to the top and emoting behaviours tending to the bottom.
So what does that actually mean? Some examples
- ASKS - Slower, quieter, Less talking. More relaxed and laid back.
- TELLS - Faster, louder, talks a lot. Leans in, lots of eye contact and hand movement.
- CONTROLS - Talks more task based and with facts and data. Body and face less expressive.
- EMOTES - Lots of vocal infections, talks about people and opinions. Very animated & more casual.
So from that we get the grid you see below. This gives four different base styles and each style has a secondary style which is the self same grid re-imposed in each quadrant.
A quick summary of each style to help it make more sense.
- Analytical - Serious; Exacting; Indecisive; Logical.
- Driving - Independent; Formal; Practical; Dominating.
- Amiable - Dependable; Supportive; Pliable; Open.
- Expressive - Animated; Forceful; Opinionated; Impulsive.
The bubble in each corner with the arrow pointing to it, is the back up style. This is the style that when under pressure, when facing a toxic relationship the person reverts to. So this basically is how you can be described when you snap or crack or lose it.
So back to the graph. Whilst the whole social styles thing is being explained to us, I've got myself pegged as an Expressive Expressive. I mean I'm clearly TELLS and I'm pretty much an emotional wreck so clearly I'm bottom right. (Orange Star 1).
Then we get our styles (attached at the bottom if anyone is interested to know how I tick) and I'm rated myself as a Driven Driven (Blue Star 2). Which was entirely surprising me. My own perception of myself was in conflict with what I thought I was. In fact my perception of myself can be summarised as "Controlling Prick". But apparently, over half the time, our perceptions of ourselves is off.
So this leads us to Pink Star 3. The perception other people have of me is a Driven Expressive. Which actually starts to make sense. As I observed my behaviour during the course, I clearly was a driver. I pushed ideas, I lead the direction we should proceed in. As I reflected on my relationships, under stress I definitely shift between autocratic and attacks (sometimes both). I am an emotional disaster and this is clearly part of my personality, when it's not subsumed by being a driven
The only curious thing, is when I observed my behaviour, I noticed than when shy or nervous or put in situations I wasn't comfortable with, I did a 180 and became completely amiable. Again this explains how I am fine with girls when I'm on steady ground, but put me out of my comfort zone and I'm a completely different person.
1. Ian
I think this pink star is reasonably accurate. I am suprised that your x-axis rating of yourself was exactly the same as others rated you.
Then again it’s all pop-psychology and really shouldn’t be used to draw any kind of important inferences about yourself. Used in context the most it does is provide some insight,which should always be considered in the light of context. For instance this is the way your colleagues have perceived you and a straw-pole of your ex-girlfriends opinions may yield a completely different result.
2. Adrian
It’s not actually psychology at all (I think), as it’s baselined or normalized against a fairly extensive sample of similar people (in a work context).
However if this is based on other peoples perceptions of me, it cant really be wrong. Apparently by increasing the number of people doing the survey rarely adjusts the results much.
They did ask us to not ask friends and family as friends and family normally have a better understanding of the true us as opposed to our observed behaviour. So a straw pole of my ex-girlfriends (all 2.5 of them) could yield a different result, but I would be very surprised if it did. The more I thought about the results, the more I could see it in my past behaviour.
One interesting thing, is that your “social style” apparently doesn’t really change much. However one chap had done the thing at a course 3 years prior and his results had shifted. The change in his life: new girlfriend between taking the surveys.
3. stroppycow
I remember a friend coming back from an assessment centre ranting about the profile that had been made of him, and how it was innacurate, and how they couldn’t possibly know him on the basis of answers to a few questions. We had a look at the profile they had drawn, it was spot on. We still don’t know what irked him the most, that he was less complex than he thought or that his perception of himself was different to how others perceived him.
4. Nuge
I did a similar profile assessment designed to suggest a perfect career post Uni.
Sadly, I decided against the “TV aerial repair” business. Although it did sound like a hoot.
5. Roger
Who was the .5 girlfriend? And what exactly does that mean anyway?
6. Adrian
I dated girl for 2½ months at the back end of 1996. We always new it was going to end 2½ later, as I was going backpacking for 4 months. So it was a fun relationship without any of the normally stress, because we both knew it was going to end at a fixed point we could just do the fun stuff.
It was only after the relationship that we refer to each other as ex’s as it seemed simpler.
Hence she is my ½ ex. I also sometimes referred to her as my little ex, my big ex being the long big heavy six year on and off I had had at the time.
7. Gordon
Reading the comments others left about you I’d say they sound fairly accurate actually.
Of course I’m basing that purely on your blog and your comments on my site, so possibly that shows that it IS possible to express yourself in text form??
I’m still trying to “place” myself on this though. I’m thinking bottom right as well.
8. Stacey
I do agree somewhat with the pop psychology as there are soooo many of these things. Best one I have ever done is the EQ test as opposed to the IQ test. The trick to these things - otherwise they are a complete waste of time in my opinion - is not how accurate/inaccurate they are - they point out faults and pluses - so how are you going to keep the pluses and minimise the faults - I mean by your own admittance you say you are a control freak - this doesn’t get the best out of people around you - so particularly when in a leadership position you need to find ways to minimise the faults and capitilse on the pluses. Why else would your work want you do the test anyway…..if they don’t stand a chance getting an “improved you” at the end of it?
9. Adrian
The thing is, it’s not meant to be psychology. It’s not an interpretation of the WHY but more the WHAT. It’s about what people perceive your behavioural actions to be.
As their said, their are no bad styles. It’s just what you are. The reasons we did this, was not to find our faults, the styling profile isn’t designed to find faults. In fact once could say their are no faults, as their are no bad styles.
The reason for it was to help us identify both our style and the styles of others so that we can use this information to have less toxic relationships, say for example when selling work or an idea to a client or when dealing with colleagues.
It’s more about understanding other peoples styles so that we can work better with them than about identifying problems with ourselves.
10. Extreme Boarder
I think it’s the nature of the job that actually influences your behaviour. I know people who are very different outside work.
11. Adrian
That is true, although I am not one of those people.