Adaptable Management

During management, we learn that there are many different personalities within our team. Some work well together, they listen and get the job done, whilst others are more of a challenge. With these challenging cases, I implore you not to micromanage them and to look at taking a different approach. Micromanagement is the destruction of the team environment. There may be cases where micromanagement is useful in short spurts, but overall, as a manager, you need to remember that everyone in your team brings something unique to help the business excel. Without their input, you may not do as well. Or you may still do very well, but have miserable staff. Consider working with your team’s personalities instead of against them.

People are vast, varied and unique, but in our working life, we can categorise them into four groups. These are the listener, the talker, the thinker and the controller. It is important to remember that most people will have a few of these traits, but what is their overall driver?

The listener is a compassionate personality who does not like confrontation. They will sit and listen to what you have to say, and even if they disagree, they will still agree. To them, the most important thing is the team, being friends with the team, there not being any disagreements within the team and being supportive of the team’s direction. For this personality, you need to make sure that you are giving them a safe environment to voice their opinions. They take things to heart very quickly, and if you do not create a safe environment for them, they may take something you say in a harsh upsetting way and will eventually resign. From a sales perspective, this person needs to see value in what they are selling and believe in their product and price point. If they do not, then selling will be nearly impossible for them as they will lose confidence which will be evident to the client.

The talker is warm, dramatic and very opinionated. They are distracted easily by others, and in your one, on one meeting they will try to talk more than you to prove to you that they are doing a good job and have listened to you. You, as their Manager, need to learn to take control of your one on one meeting with them in order to keep your authority. They want recognition from you, so the most important thing is to praise them for the things they have gone well and use the right language around their improvements. Call them areas of opportunity. These personalities will work hard for your recognition, but they need to be reminded to focus. From a sales perspective, this person will also want recognition from their customer that they are full of knowledge, so they will talk their clients ear off to get the sale. It is crucial to, where possible, match clients to their preferred method of selling. If they are struggling, it may not be their performance at all, but in fact, that the client wants a more direct approach to information.

The thinker is very analytical; they are great listeners and absorb every detail. This personality wants to feel valued for their time, their knowledge and they want predictability. It is essential to work with the thinker and support their ideas. They will listen to you with great detail, remember everything you say, and they will keep you on your toes. They will be coming up with new and better ways of doing business all the time; however, they will get frustrated if they are not able to implement these ideas. They may get irritated by the talkers as they want to focus within their workplace. From a sales perspective, they will be straightforward and give their customer information in a clear, precise manner. For some clients, this approach will be exactly what they are looking for, for others it may not be ideal, and the thinker may be confused when a client needs more information then what they have given. The thinker is suited to clients who have busy lives and want to get straight to the point. They will do well with selling to busy corporates and CEOs.

The controller is confident, assertive, and ambitious. You will find many managers are the controller, but they need to be careful not to micromanage and control too much. As a member of the team, the controller will want results above comradery. This will mean that processes used by the team will need to be controlled by them, and they may clash with team members who are struggling to provide results. If you have someone in your team who is a controller and they are not in a management position, it may be beneficial to give them a plan to work towards which doesn’t involve any of the other team members. This could be a promotion or a personal goal within their work. This personality will have no trouble reaching their results in sales. The sale is their life, so they will go above and beyond, and adapt to any person or customer to achieve their desired outcome.

Once you have labelled each team member with their prominent personality, it will be much easier to manage them and help them to achieve success within the business. Keep in mind that some people may hold more than one of these personalities, for example, some may be the thinker, but with tenancies of the controller. Just make sure to adapt your management style in order to fit their behaviours. Remember, it is not going to solve every problem, but it will make your job as the Manager much more comfortable and in turn, create tremendous respect for you amongst the team environment.