1. Portrait of an Analytical’s office. The Amiable Devoted, consistent, dependable, and loyal, the Amiable is a hard worker. The Expressive, a verbally adept. The four terms (Driver, Expressive, Amiable, and Analytical) were originally coined by Dr. David Merrill, founder of Tracom Consulting Group.
2. Well, if you think driver, analytical, expressive and amiable are types of screw drivers then read on. What’s your communication style? Read on to find out which of the four styles below you fall into.

A couple weeks ago I went to a leadership development training hosted by Wilson Learning called Leadership Foundations II. It’s part of a series of programs Publicis Healthcare Communications Groupe (PHCG) makes available to its employees to help them develop leadership skills. The goal of the training is to provide managers with tools and techniques that help them lead teams more effectively and achieve greater productivity. Of all the things I learned in this two-day workshop, the most valuable was the concept of “Social Styles”—what they are, how they differ from person to person, how to recognize them and how to modify behaviors to communicate more effectively with others.

Understanding customer personality styles (Analytical, Driver, Amiable, and Expressive) will quickly tell you just how and what to say to each customer. Although every customer is different, most can be grouped into one of four groups: Analytical, Driver, Amiable, and Expressive. Here are some basic characteristics of each of these personality. Analytical They don’t have feelings They don’t know how to have fun! Amiable They place too much emphasis on relationships They move too slowly on decisions Driver They are impersonal and pushy Expressive They are flighty They joke around too much They are not task-oriented + + +. Explanations Preferences Social Styles. Assertiveness Responsiveness Driver Expressive Amiable Analytical So what? Social Style Theory is based on work originated by David Merrill, who used factor analysis to identify two scales, identified as assertiveness and responsiveness.

So what exactly are we talking about when we talk about Social Styles?

“Social style” is the behavior that one exhibits when interacting with others. Being aware of your own social style helps a person develop relationships, particularly at work. “Social Styles” is the name of a particular psychometric instrument that helps people to better understand and work with others through appreciation of their basic decision making and control needs.

In short, everyone can be categorized into one of four Social Styles buckets: Driving, Expressive, Amiable or Analytical. And it’s pretty easy to figure out what bucket you, or anyone else, fall into by asking the following questions:

• Is the person more task oriented or more people oriented?
• Does the person tend to ask more questions or tell others what to do?

Answering those questions, and charting the answers on the graph below, is how you identify a person’s Social Style.

Here’s a quick definition of each Social Style:

• Driving: strong willed and more emotionally controlled
• Expressive: outgoing and more dramatic
• Amiable: easy going and more supportive
• Analytical: serious and more exacting

Take a second and think about what bucket you fall into. (I’m a Driver.)

At the leadership development training I attended, we all were tasked with figuring out our personal Social Style. The results were interesting to see. Most of the Managers were Drivers; the Creatives were Expressives; the people with Human Resource like jobs were Amiables; the developers, programmers and finance people were Analyticals. Makes sense when you take a step back and think about it.

We were then asked to think about the people we considered difficult to work with. Using the following chart, which summarizes each Social Style’s strengths and weaknesses, we were asked to come up with ways to improve our relationships with these people.

To improve a relationship with someone else, according to the Social Styles model, you need to do two things: recognize the other person’s Social Style and then modify your Social Style in a way that enables reaching a mutual goal efficiently.

Recognizing someone else’s Social Style is relatively easy. Plot them on the Social Style matrix. Or, if you’re in the midst of communicating with someone and haven’t pinpointed their Social Style yet, keep an eye out for what’s called a Back-up Behavior. A person will exhibit their Back-up Behavior when they feel attacked or not an equal part in collaboration. Analytical people will avoid confrontations; Amiable people will give in; Drivers will take over; Expressive people attack or get defensive. If you notice this behavior, that’s when you need to realize it’s time to modify your behavior.

When modifying your behavior, look at the chart above, find the column for the Social Style of the person you’re engaging with and find the corresponding “Make Effort To Be” and “Support Their” rows. This is how you should consider modifying your behavior.

For instance, say you’re working on a project with me (a Driver) and you thought I was taking it too much into my own hands, not being a team player and not on the right course.

The thing you would not want to do is stop by my desk for a 15-minute chat about your feelings. I don’t care. I’ll likely drop subtle hints about my disinterest in our conversation until you catch my drift and leave. Now we’re both angered by the interaction, our relationship hasn’t improved and we’ve both wasted time with no positive results.

But, taking my Driver Social Style into consideration, you’d realize there is a better way to engage me—request a brief meeting, outlining exactly what you want to discuss; support my conclusions and actions so far; in an effort to get the project back on course, provide options for alternative ways we should proceed, noting outcome probabilities for each. In essence, you’re catering to my Social Style, persuading me to see things your way by making your argument in a way that I can most easily digest.

Say you were an Amiable person, a people person, someone who likes to get everyone on board with their ideas—taking such a cold, direct approach to an interaction might feel out of character. But by modifying your Social Style, our interaction would be more likely to have a positive outcome.

Understanding the Social Styles model is easy, but applying it in real world situations is difficult. It’s something you have to actively work on incorporating into your communication style. It’s not intuitive to recognize someone’s Social Style and immediately know how to cater to it. But there are things you can do to make implementation of the model easier.

What I did was list out all the people I work with and plot their Social Style. This took maybe 15 minutes to do. Then, I spent some extra time thinking about those people who I felt were difficult to work with and considered how my failure to recognize their Social Style was contributing to the difficulties in our communication. Completing this exercise made it obvious rather quickly that I was as much to blame for our troubled working relationships as they were. Now, when I engage with these people in the future, I already know where they’re coming from—what their motivations are, what assurances they need, how to make them feel valuable, because I’ve already done that prep work—and can focus on seemlessly modifying my behavior in a way that promotes a more productive working environment and acheives a common goal more efficiently.

The leadership training I went to was mostly about how to “manage down” or manage those who report to you. But I find having an understanding of Social Styles helps me also “manage up” or get what I want from my bosses, as well as improve my relationships with peers, in general.

There are countless leadership development courses out there. Tons of tools and techniques to learn. But if you ever see a session that specifically lists Social Styles in the curriculum, I encourage you to attend.

1. Excellent thanks a ton for explaining this so beautifully

2. […] common tool used in adaptive selling is the social style matrix. This tool splits individuals into four of the most common communication styles: Drivers, Amiables, […]

3. Id be really interested in learning to master this skill

4. I have been at the forefront of decentralizing the One Health approach in my country Uganda and social styles training has been one of the key components in our Leadership training modules. It has been the most appealing and interesting to participants as they get to appreciate their different social styles. We the trainers too have been able to enhance our knowledge and skills. Am still learning more.

5. Very interesting- knowing what type of social style I am.

This past week, I led two sessions with the management team and the ushers at the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center on how to leverage and flex the 4 communication styles for world-class customer service.

It was a thrill for me to be at the theater because I have been a balletomane since high school. In fact, when I was 17, I applied to be an usher at the New York State Theater just so that I could go to the ballet every night! I didn’t get the job but my enthusiasm for the ballet never died.

Working in the theater as an usher entails seating a large number of patrons quickly and efficiently and in such a way that patrons enjoy the experience of being in the theater. When a patron complains about a seat mix-up or long lines at intermission, ushers need to be flexible with changing circumstances and follow established protocols to deal with illness or other emergencies that may arise. Thus, time is short and the stakes are high!

The goal of my sessions was to help the ushers master the skill of how work with the4 communication styles under pressure in order to provide patrons with the world-class experience that they expect at the theater. Here’s what we can learn from these ushers on how to leverage and flex the 4 communication styles.

What are the 4 Communication Styles?

Think about the last time you were at a large gathering and had the opportunity to observe a lot of people in action:

• Who dominated the conversation and put a premium on being right and convincing others to go along with his solutions?
• How about the serious person who rather cautiously talked in precise detail?
• And how about the person who was bursting with enthusiasm and could not wait to tell you her great idea?
• Who walked into the room and began by introducing herself to others, spending time with each person to establish a connection?

These are examples of 4 different communication styles:

• Driver: the person who takes charge and wants solutions;
• Analytical: the person who values accuracy and details;
• Expressive: the person who thrives on fun and excitement and loves to be around other people; and
• Amiable: the person who is warm and friendly and wants everyone to get along and be happy.

Our ushers come into account with the four styles as follows:

• The Driver Patron who barges in and goes right to his seat of 30 years;
• The Expressive Patron who can’t wait to tell you about her favorite dancer and with whom you would love to talk but it’s 7:27pm and the show is about to begin;
• The Analytical Patron who wants you to tell her EXACTLY what row her seat is in and how far down the aisle she has to walk.
• The Amiable Patron who calmly and warmly says “thank you” when you hand her a program.

The four styles are tendencies, not absolute rules. Most people have characteristics in more than one area. However, we each have a default style or styles—the style(s) we go to first. Knowing how to use these styles can help you to become a better communicator. Indeed, strong communicators learn how to use their default style to the best advantage. They also can flex or adapt to each situation in order to insure that they are using the right style with the right person under the right circumstances.

Know and Understand Your Default Style

4 Personality Types Analytical Driver Amiable Expressive Test

The ushers themselves told us what they were like on the job:

Drivers: Drivers wanted everyone to get to their seats with a minimum of fuss so that the show can start on time. They are great at getting the job done and at solving problems.

Drivers can come on strong so they need to be sensitive to patrons who love to talk and patient with people who need a lot of detail.

Analyticals: Analyticals like to have a specific plan for the evening and and specific instructions.

They ask precise questions and want to know the details about a problem. They also tend to get frustrated if people give you vague answers.

Since analyticals need specific information before coming to a decision, their questons may come across as cold or even critical. Therefore, they need to watch their tone of voice, ask questions kindly and be friendly with the patrons.

Expressives: Expressive ushers love to engage with the patrons with an outgoing, sociable manner They love the ballet and want to share in the magic of the event. They care about the big picture. If a problem arises, they may lose patience with a problem that requires focusing on details.

They need to watch out for patrons who just want to be shown to their seats!

Amiables: Amiable ushers like to listen to patrons and intuit what the patrons need to build rapport and make sure that everyone is happy. They are terrific listeners and are easy to talk to. They sense how others are feeling and tend to be warm and friendly. They get engaged when they feel valued and they want everyone to be happy.

Amiables don’t like conflict so if a patron complains, this can feel hard. And when a patron does complain, their first instinct is to do whatever it takes to get them to be liked.

Each style can be used effectively depending on the context.

• Drivers are great when there is a problem to solve. In a crisis, they want to solve the problem quickly and don’t want to get bogged down in details.
• Analytical ushers are terrific at making sure that everything is organized and goes according to plan.
• Expressives are wonderful at engaging with the patrons and conveying the excitement of being at the ballet.
• Amiables listen carefully and know just what to say to make a patron feel at home.

How to Spot The Communication Styles

Analytical Driver Amiable Expressive Test Practice

Once you know about the four styles, you can spot the style in others. This will help you to adapt your default style to make sure that other people hear and understand your message.

These ushers work in the fast-paced environment of a world-class theater. They need to read their patrons and situations very quickly which entails a lot of emotional intelligence. Indeed, theability to leverage communication styles effectively is a powerful emotional intelligence skill.

Here is how to spot the different styles:

Driver Patrons:

Driver patrons can be bossy. In their communications, they are short and to the point. They don’t want chit chat. Just get them to their seats.

Analytical: The analytical patron wants precision. If a problem arises, they will ask a lot of questions before they are satisfied. You can spot an analytical by a somewhat skeptical tone of voice until their problem is resolve.

Expressive: Sociable! Loves to talk and talks fast! Very excited! Passionate! Loses focus!

Amiable: Amiable patrons tend to speak slowly. They are warm and friendly. They won’t raise a fuss but needs assurance if a problem arises.

How to Flex TheCommunication Styles

Once you spot a style, the real trick is to be able to adapt your style, in a skill known as “flexing to other communication styles”.

By flexing, you can deliver your message in such a way that others will hear you. That will go a long way to creating rapport, getting buy-in from the listener and contributing to a successful outcome.

Our ushers were very adept at using all 4 styles as needed. Our session showed them a few more ways to read and flex to the different styles.

For example, how you interact with patrons largely depends on how much time there is.

When patrons arrive early, many of our ushers enjoy speaking about the evening’s performance and sharing their love of the ballet. As curtain time approaches, they are focused on getting everyone seated and have less time to talk, but they strive to be polite, solicitous and smiling in order to make patrons feel welcome.

In an emergency—such as if a patron becomes ill during a performance—the goal is to communicate the details of the problem quickly and efficiently in order to solve the problem with a minimum of disruption.

Driver ushers had no problem switching to crisis mode because they want a solution!

Analytical ushers follow the protocols for dealing with emergencies because they like a plan and are most comfortable executing on the plan.

And Expressive and Amiable ushers use their rapport-building skills to intuit the needs of the patron, while following the emergency protocols.

Here are some more tips on Flexing:

Drivers: Check the need for a quick solution and allow for an exchange of ideas

Analyticals: Check the need for accuracy so that you don’t shut other people down

Expressives: Focus on 1 or 2 ideas that will help to solve a problem, rather than getting flustered or putting out too many ideas.

Amiables: Share your ideas instead of focusing only on how others are feeling.

Bottom Line:

So let’s take a page from these world-class ushers:

• Know and understand your default style: both when it is helpful and when it might hold you back;
• Learn to spot styles in the people with whom you are dealing; and
• Flex to the 4 communication styles by reading other people and understanding your context so that you are building rapport and providing what is needed for the best possible outcome.

See you soon at the New York City Ballet!