Shortcut

Introduction The fact that you are reading this suggests you are struggling with a degree of frustration in getting certain people to move faster to do what you need them to do. You’ve probably had the same conversation, on the same issue, with the same person, more than once and have thought, “what is going on here, why can’t I get through to this person?” What started out as disappointment in someone’s work has now grown into full-blown frustration. When these employees don’t “get it,” you fi nd yourself spending more time explaining things and less time getting the job done and moving on to the next task. You think to yourself, I can do it faster and better myself. So why waste time and energy trying to explain to certain direct reports what they need to do and how to do it? I’ll just do it myself. As tempting as this can be, doing both your job and their job is not a long-term strategy. What makes this situation so critical is that you manage people and work in teams. Your superiors expect you to get things done through others. The longer you are in management, the more others evaluate you on your ability to get things done through your employees and peers. Otherwise, your company is paying for a pricey individual contributor and not a manager. Your department’s productivity begins to lag as you take on more and more responsibility that should belong to your employees. Eventually all of this catches up with you and you fi nd your career ladder noticeably shortened. You could also be in a situation in which the company you lead is in desperate need of change and adaptation. You need to infl uence an entire organization, its very culture. You might assume that the grimmer the circumstances facing the organization, the greater the likelihood the culture will be motivated to adapt to survive and move forward. No matter the circumstance, the pace of organizational change is often that of a snail. Now back to your frustration. Why can’t I get through to this person (or organization), no matter what I say or do? The fact is you’ll never get through if you’re not speaking their “language.” This book is fundamentally about understanding, recognizing, and speaking the language of different ways of approaching work – what some call behavioral styles. You yourself have a preferred way of operating and a big focus of your style is getting things done, working through obstacles to move things along. Everything around the value you place on progress constitutes the language of your behavioral style. Most likely you’ve been thwarted to date with some individuals simply because you are not speaking their language. You’ve assumed everyone speaks your language. That’s not how the world works. This book is your guide to learning the language of differentbehavioral styles. Becoming adept at speaking the “style language” of every person and culture you need to infl uence will open your eyes to more effective ways of motivating people. What’s in it for you is lower frustration and greater infl uence. But only if you approach the situation like a traveler in a foreign land – you can’t expect to get through to people if you don’t speak their language. What’s more, relying on others to make the switch to your language has its own set of risks. Given your frustration, it sounds like it is time for a visit to the language lab of behavioral styles.