Welcome to “Driving Businesses by Developing People” written by me, David Huynh. For those who do not know me, I am a people-focused business professional who builds team members to generate results. Thank you for joining me. If you are not on my email list yet and want to dive deeper into the intersection of business and people with me, you may subscribe here:
At one of my past companies, we tried to exclusively hire talented individuals that can manage their own work, meaning each individual can take on the responsibility of producing output with limited oversight. However, sometimes we would hire talented individuals that were not ready or did not desire to manage their own work. They were mostly functional geniuses (e.g., great at marketing, great at programming), but perhaps had poor project management skills. Let us now take on the perspective of a manager leading this diverse team on individuals. Should the functional geniuses be treated the same as the employees that are more 'well-rounded'?
Equal treatment means giving each team member the same resources (e.g., training, guidance, involvement) and the same expectations to succeed. Managers supporting equal treatment put the onus on the employee to adjust to the company/team and believe it is the most fair approach to all individuals; whereas, managers supporting unequal treatment believe each individual requires a tailored approach to nurture their development. I argue that the latter approach, a tailored treatment of team members, will lead to greater team and individual success. This translates to channeling the work of the functional genius into their specialization and reducing the individual's need to manage their own work. We can tailor our working approach with our team members by altering the following levers: Speaking Angle, Time Spent, and Work Allocation.
This week's article will capture the Speaking Angle or the manner in which we convey our messages. This will be the first of a three part series reviewing "A Tailored Approach". Subsequent articles will be released on spending varying amounts of time and allocating work unevenly across team members.
The way that we speak to our team members should not be equal. Within the workplace, everyone has a speaking angle. An effective leader is able to vary their speaking able to communicate effectively with different types of communicators. We will breakdown the different types of archetypes, then discuss the approach to tailoring our response to each one.
Archetype Breakdown
To breakdown these communicators, let us segment speaking angles into three major archetypes: commanding, conversational, or complaisant. Within these three, there may be multiple deviations and sub-branches, which we will touch on, but not dive into every edge case. Furthermore, each individual can portray a different archetype when it comes to different situations. For example, an individual may be commanding while they are leading a project, but conversational when working on a cross-functional team. Additionally, although most individuals typically do not change their speaking archetype, some individuals may change their archetype over time.
Commanding
A commanding speaker is directive and seeks to push their own agenda. This approach can be effective if they have a clear vision towards the right direction. These individuals typically will not want to move from their position. Commanding speakers do not like to debate ideas, but rather prefer that others accept their ideas. This speaking style is seen most often in senior executives, but can be seen in other team members as well.
Conversational
As the name suggests, a conversational speaker enjoys conversing and discussing. Within conversational, we will explore a further segmentation into conversational-lost and conversational-guided. A conversational-lost individual does not have a clear vision or hypothesis for the best potential solution. These individuals may end up speaking in circles, without getting anywhere. They may be referred to as "talkative", or even possessing a Boisterous and Messy vocal demeanor. Conversely, a conversational-guided individual does have a hypothesized solution in mind. However, unlike the commanding individual, the conversational-guided individual is willing to adapt their idea based on input from others.
Complaisant
A complaisant speaker is passive and tends to simply agree with statements or directions from others. They typically do not want to create conflict and will do so by following orders, even if they do not believe they are correct. Speaking with a complaisant individual may feel like a one-sided conversation, because they will simply acknowledge statements without adding to them. This speaking style is seen most often from junior team members, especially in company or national cultures where there is a negative connotation to disagreeing with a more senior team member.
Tailored Approach per Archetypes
After we have detected an individual's archetype, we can tailor our speaking archetype towards each individual. Tactically, tailoring our archetype translates to the way in which we suggest ideas, build on the ideas of others, or ask questions. The following diagram outlines how we can think adapt our response based on the team member's speaking archetype.
In the diagram, "team member" represents any individual that we are speaking with, whether an executive, another department lead, an external partner, or our own team members. Conversational is the most commonly suggested response archetype, however, the approach to being conversational will differ based on each situation. Also note that complaisant is not a suggested response type in any circumstance, because it does not supplement the ideas of others. Even if we acknowledge that an idea is correct, adding additional rationale for why we believe it is correct will further support our team members' understanding. To expand upon the tailored approaches, the following tailored responses are built under the assumption that we are trying to solve a problem, any problem, together as a team.
Commanding Team Member & Conversational Response - Planting Ideas
If our proposed solution is different from the commanding speaker's proposed solution, we need to outline facts that point towards our solution, but allow them to arrive at the conclusion themselves. Since commanding individuals get their sense of importance from coming up with the solution themselves, if we want them to support our proposed solution, we will need to Plant Ideas in Their Brain. We should only provide our hypothesis if they explicitly ask for it, otherwise, we should continue to provide evidence until they have convinced themselves. For avoidance of doubt, let us discuss why the other two archetypes would not be suitable in this response. A complaisant response to a commanding team member can be detrimental to a team, because no discussion will ensure to reach the best potential solution. A commanding response to a commanding team member will result in two stubborn opinions, that do not want to find agreeable points to align on.
Conversational - Lost Team Member & Commanding Response - Directing then Conversing
When a team member is lost, but still quite verbose, we need to provide clear direction so that they will become aware of the vision, goal, and tasks at hand. After we have provided this clear direction, their conversational response should be to reiterate our idea(s) alongside their own. At which point, we can switch to a conversational archetype to be flexible to their ideas as well. A probing response initially would not be beneficial in this circumstance because the team member is unaware of the correct direction. A complaisant response would be detrimental as well because this would result in two lost individuals.
Conversational - Guided Team Member & Conversational Response - Sharing Hypotheses
For team members that have a clear vision and also are engaged in discussions, either party can provide an initial 'flexible' hypothesis, and then ask for the other individual to provide their opinion with supporting rationale. This is the most straightforward circumstance, because it does not require additional maneuvering like in the other cases.
Complaisant Team Member & Conversational Response - Probing for their Opinion
If a team member is not sharing their thoughts, we need to take the initiative to ask for their opinion at critical points. This will add another brain to our team and force the complaisant team member to think critically, building their skill set. When individuals seem to agree to everything without attempting to add additional content, we should not assume that we are right, the conversation should end, and everyone should go on with their tasks. If we know an individual skews towards passively agreeing, our conversations need to guide them to voice their opinion. Order wise, we should aim to ask them for their opinion before providing our ideas. Otherwise, their opinion may simply follow our idea.
Closing Remarks
In every circumstance, we and whoever we are speaking with are following a speaking archetype. If we want to be the bridge that connects conversations to build better solutions, we need to understand the archetype of the other individuals. We can then leverage this information to decide if we are going to plant ideas in their brain, direct then converse with them, freely share our hypotheses, or probe for their opinion.
Once we are able to balance the conversation by tailoring our speaking approach, our team is more likely to reach a better solution and each individual will be challenged, further accelerating individual and team growth.
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