Introduction
If you're like most people, you want to improve your interactions with others. This book shows you a simple, yet proven, way to positively influence others.
The purpose of People Smarts is threefold: to give you a conscious awareness of what people do, to help you predict what people are likely to do and why they do it, and to accept yourself and others as worthwhile so you can adapt and successfully relate. Managers want to know how to maximize productivity and efficiency from their staff, salespeople need to build better rapport with customers, employees want to get along with their peers and managers. Those in helping professions want to provide better care for their patients and clients. Parents want to relate well with their children-and vice versa. In short, virtually everyone is fascinated with making their working and living relationships better.
People Smarts will not only help you become a better you, it will help you behave more maturely and productively by teaching you how to focus on your goals instead of your fears. Then you can develop and use more of your natural strengths, while recognizing, improving upon, and modifying your weaknesses. This book does not deal with values or judgments. Instead, we concentrate on individuals' needs and fears-our natural tendencies that cause us to do the things we do.
Every person has his or her own special way of doing things and an identifiable and predictable behavioral type. Behavioral type is a pattern, or group of recurring habits, resulting from the way you typically do things-the way you deal with people and situations. It's your comfortable method of behaving, most of the time, when you relax and just act yourself.
Often, when we do what comes naturally we alienate others without realizing it. Why? Because that same behavior may not be natural for them. If we want to get along with our colleagues, employees, bosses, friends, and families, it's essential we become aware of our natural tendencies-and their natural preferences! Then we can defuse extreme behaviors before we sabotage ourselves. We do this by temporarily using behavioral modification to change only our own behavior so the other person feels comfortable. When this happens, tension lessens and cooperation zooms.
Your technique of interacting with people succeeds when you receive and heed their external signals; it fails when you ignore and cross them. Of course, everyone experiences the same basic human needs, but each of us ranks some needs higher than others.
When you understand something about your own habitual style and how it differs from others' styles, you can modify your approach to get on the same wavelength with them. The ideas you present don't change. But you can change the way you present those ideas. And people will teach you how to treat them if you're willing to discover their unique signals.
For example, one type of person measures his success by results. He heads for the finished product and the bottom line. He'll do whatever it takes, within reason, to get the job done. In fact, his natural response to what he views as other people's lack of accomplishment is, "Don't just sit around wasting time! Get busy!" He needs achievements.
Another type places high value on recognition and measures success by the amount of acknowledgment and praise she receives. Consequently, she typically follows that route to attention and applause. She gravitates toward friendliness and enjoyment, popularity and prestige-while consciously avoiding rejection, negativism, and arguments.
Then we have the steady, cooperative type of person who needs close relationships. He places a high value on sharing and trust, but bases his feelings about people and things on concrete evidence. He wants the security and predictability found in daily routine-so he resists sudden, unplanned changes and needs stable, predictable environments. He thrives on the familiar. Changes or surprises make him uncomfortable.
The last type concerns herself more with content than with congratulations. She wants to know how things work so she can evaluate how correctly they function. At the extreme, this tendency toward perfectionism can result in paralysis by analysis. Because she needs to be right, she prefers checking processes herself. Concerned with appearances, she focuses on the process-how to perform a task-while complying with established rules and regulations. As the most cerebral of the four types (in terms of how they deal with people and situations, not I.Q.), tasks win over people and a slow pace prevails.
Part One, "Understanding People Smarts," helps you to identify and better deal with virtually everyone. In "The Platinum Rule," we show you more about treating others the way they want to be treated, not the way you want to be treated-without being phony or underhanded. In "I Know Who You Are, But What Am I?", we describe each behavioral style and help you determine which one you are. Next, we assist you to identify other people's natural styles. The Adaptability chapter includes both versatility and flexibility characteristics and helps you to determine how adaptable you are in life's varying situations.
Part Two deals with "Workplace Applications." The chapters here help you identify and appropriately respond to the four basic types in a work environment. And we show how the different types typically lead and want to be managed.
In Part Three, we delve into more specific behaviors, combination patterns that more accurately describe you and others. Then we summarize all 15 commonly combined patterns and show you what they specifically want, need, and fear.
This is a reader-friendly book. You can use and reuse it as a constant companion for dealing with difficult people and stressful situations. It gives you the tools to get what you want in various work situations and equips you with the power and knowledge to cash in on these insights through more positive and productive exchanges with others. You can realistically take charge of improving all your work relationships and this book shows how.
