Knowing me, knowing you: the Social Styles theory

Knowing me, knowing you:
the Social Styles theory

The key to effective management is understanding how to harness the potential of each member of your team. In the first of a series of management-focused articles, Ama Verdi-Ashton looks at the Social Styles theory and how, through knowing your team and yourself better, you can increase productivity.

Thought is often given to what makes an effective team, however, how often do we consider what is making a team ineffective? What is happening when we find dissension in the ranks? Why is this group of people having such difficulty in working together -- backbiting, inability to co-operate and ultimately under-performing? You ask yourself as a manager, why are they so challenging, why can’t they just get on with it? Then there is the tiny voice in your head that says ‘Is it me, is it my leadership?’

The answers to these questions are many and complex, but most definitely seeped in psychology and, in this series of articles, we will attempt to explore models that will help us to achieve that vision of a happy, productive and highly effective team.

Let’s consider this group of individuals working for you. They could be seen as a group of personalities. They certainly all communicate in a preferred style or, to put it simply, they are a particular ‘social style’.

What do I mean by ‘social styles’?

Social styles is a theory by two pyschologists – Reid and Merrill, who found that everyone has natural behaviours and a preferred style of communication. For example, why is it that some representatives like to interrupt in meetings and others say nothing at all? Which representatives do you gravitate towards and why? Reid and Merrill believe people demonstrate behaviours depending on which of four social styles or categories they fall into. You gravitate towards those people who are similar styles to yourself. Identifying the social styles within your team will help you to create an effective team that will ‘gel’ and, to quote Ken Blanchard from the One Minute Manager, “keep the team productive”.

The diagram in Figure 1 has axes horizontally to represent Assertiveness (the way in which we influence the thoughts and actions of others) and vertically for Responsiveness (how we choose to show our feelings and emotions when communicating with others). On the Assertiveness axis there are two extremes of communcation style. You either ‘Ask’ people to do something or ‘Tell’ them. In the same way, there are two communication styles for Responsiveness – Task Focused or Emotion or People Focused. When we bring Ask and Tell, Task and Emotion together social styles are determined.

The Driver

Do you focus on the task, talk about actions and results? Are you business-like and factual? Are you concise, precise and organised? Do you argue about facts not feelings? Do you hate wasting time? Is your style of speaking fast paced? If you have answered yes to most of these – you are a Driver.

A Driver aims to be a high achiever – they tend to want to be seen as a mover and shaker. This person is definitely not risk averse. The individual is usually extrovert, willful, direct, practical and organised, forceful and decisive. They look for a manager who tells it the way it is and can be very persuasive in a forceful way. Watch out, or you will be worn down or bowled over. A Driver, being task rather than relationship orientated, usually wants immediate results. They are not concerned about how you get coverage and frequency, just that you achieve it! The Driver can be stubborn, domineering, insensitive and short tempered with little time for niceties. A Driver manager would make demands and control the team with a style that is uncompromising, overbearing, cold and harsh. ‘Autocratic’ is often a word used to describe them.

Famous Drivers are Madonna and Alan Sugar.

The Expressive

Do you have a representative who is engaging, offers to take on extra work for you and is supportive of others in the team? In fact, they hate being isolated and love to meet up with the team for ‘business meetings’. They also have the gift of the gab and can persuade the receptionists where others can’t. This person is the life and soul of the party – he or she always arranges the team nights out. They love to be centre of attention and are relationship rather than task orientated. These are the team players who love that new sales aid – they love new product launches and show it by their enthusiasm and their ability to inspire. Recognise this person? They are an Expressive.

Watch out for this almost-perfect representative, they can get impatient and bored if they are too involved in detail. Whilst they love the new sales aid, it’s best to check their knowledge of the data that backs it up, as they hate detail of any sort. They can also be seen to be egotistical, manipulative, undisciplined, reactive and abrasive. This is the representative that will be late with deadlines as they can be disorganised. If you challenge them unfairly, they will quickly set about gathering supporters, causing dissension in the team. The Expressive readily talks about what happened to them, often exchanging quite personal information and life experiences. One of the keys to make these representatives more productive is to recognise their efforts – they love approval.

Famous Expressives are Russell Brand and Jonathon Ross (no wonder there was trouble).

“The Amiable enjoys cooperation and hates change, chaos and disagreement. A key to making these people more productive is to be relaxed and agreeable with them and build that relationship – it will get you lots and lots of loyalty”

The Amiable

Picture this – an area meeting, there is a certain member of the team who comes across as quiet. They are co-operative, however, and their results are good. Someone in the meeting starts ‘mouthing off ’ about target GPs – the quiet representative’s body language shrinks – they hate confrontation. At coffee time, you watch this representative talk to other members of the team – they know and care about the families of the team, they know and care about the lives of the team. This member of the group is demonstrating the behaviours of the Amiable.

These are real team players – trustful, sensitive and good listeners. They enjoy and contribute to stability. Sometimes, however, they come across as passive, as they are reluctant to have strong views and would not want to upset their friends by having a radically different point of view. They can be painfully slow in making decisions. Be sure to ask about their families, animals etc, as building a relationship with you is what keeps them productive. The Amiable enjoys cooperation and hates change, chaos and disagreement. A key to making these people more productive is to be relaxed and agreeable with them and build that relationship – it will get you lots and lots of loyalty.

Famous Amiables are Richard Hammond and Terry Wogan.

The Analytical

This is the representative you ask to write a presentation on competitors, as you can rest assured that you will get all the information you need. The presentation will be considered and written with a systematic approach. This is the representative who knows all the clinical data that supports the sales aid and more. He or she is the one that has strong product knowledge, the expert in the team.

The Analytical can sometimes be reserved and withdrawn, but they are usually analysing situations. Perfection is what drives them and they hate being wrong. For this reason they take time to get all the data they can before making decisions. Others may see them as being quiet, boring, reclusive, even sullen. This perception is often inaccurate, however, as it is usually just a result of their preferred methodical pace. They can be indecisive sometimes due to their strong need to assess all the data before moving forward. One of the keys to communicating effectively with an analytical is to focus on the task and not people or feelings.

Famous Analyticals are Jon Snow and Jeremy Paxman.

Facts to remember 1. There are no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ styles – the only time one is wrong is if it doesn’t work for the person you are communicating with. 2. You can learn to be another style as you go through your career. You can also learn some of the other behaviours for development, e.g. an Expressive taking more time over tasks to be more of an Analytical for, say, a management role. 3. The best communicators are those who can adapt their styles to suit those of other people. 4. Some people may be very adaptable and be able to flex throughout the four categories. 5. Your social style is not as important as how you use it.

Understanding your people is the first step to a successful team and an appreciation of social styles helps you to do that. The trick is to firstly identify which social style you are and then identify what your team members are. Use this to help you to adapt your style, begin to match or mirror their behaviours, even down to their body language and the way they speak. Demonstrating this versatility, i.e. adjusting your behaviour with each style, will ensure you maximise the outcome, overcome barriers in communication, reduce conflict and improve productivity.

In addition, you will be able to get the most out of the Analytical on your team or be able to harness the energy of the Expressive to create more sales and more bonus. You will be able to use the Amiable’s strong team skills to help build the team and give specific tasks for the Driver to fulfill for the team. You gain buy-in, you encourage ideas, create a motivational atmosphere and, most importantly, move closer to your vision of a high performance team. And don’t forget, as they become more aware of their social styles, the team will learn how to recognise the social styles of their customers too. This will lead to stronger relationships, which means more formulary inclusions and that will increase the business.

We have all heard that ‘knowledge is power’, what I have learnt and truly believe is that ‘self-awareness is power’. This has been supported over and over again by organisational developmental research. Being self-aware gives you the power and ability to get the most out of your interactions with everyone, not just your team. I leave you with a quote from Bob Nelson, Motivational Speaker and author of 1001 Ways to Reward Employees: “An employee’s motivation is a direct result of the sum of interactions with his or her manager.”

I wish you every success.

Ama Verdi-Ashton has 25 years experience in the pharmaceutical industry. Her roles have included hospital representative, head office trainer and 12 years managing primary and secondary care teams, taking her last team to the highest accolade in AstraZeneca of the AstraZeneca Academy. More recently, Ama has been working as a Training Consultant.