When you are new to working with influencing styles, many challenges can head your way from the client. In this article, I will share and explore some of my experiences, and a few hard lessons, which will help you to maximise the value you bring to your client.
The first one explains what I often refer to as development indigestion.
It isn’t me, but who am I?
This actually happened on a training course. After handing out the reports, one young lady seemed to be in some distress. She complained that the report was not a bit like her. She didn’t recognise herself in the description. Her main problem was that it had made her realise that she didn’t know who she actually was.
As you can imagine, this took some handling, and it needed to be handled immediately. To cut a long story short, it turned out that at 27, she was flying in her career. Since university she had been moving from position to position very quickly, and her upwards trajectory was fast. She had been exposed to a number of highly talented managers, and she had lapped up everything they said, doing exactly what they suggested in behavioural terms.
Consequently, she had lost her sense of self. Flexibility was not her problem — awareness of her baseline preferences was missing entirely. I’m sure there are some psychological theories which explain this and if you know them, please let me know.
In the training room, all I could do was settle her down and point her in the right direction. In my view, she definitely needed to take a breather in her career, reconnect with her values and consolidate her performance. Moving too fast.
It has only happened a few times, but you need to be aware that it is a possibility and have a suitable way of handling it. This is much easier to do in the coaching environment.
Oh, and another lesson here was that during the dimension exploring, someone had made a joke about split-personalities, and I had not reinterpreted this for the group. Her emotional reaction was fuelled by the thought that everyone thought she was psychotic!
Defensive Reactions
On a number of occasions, I have got into a situation where a client was arguing the scores with me. That was when I worked out that I was using a wrong sequence of events. This happened when coaching over the telephone. I’d send the report to the individual to read before the session, and before exploring the nature of the different dimensions.
What was wrong is that they saw a score without really understanding what it meant, and more importantly, how the profile works. Although it was possible on both occasions to turn it around, my job was made so much more difficult because they had become defensive. That is why I now always ensure they understand the principles before sharing their report.
Incidentally, the way I do this over the telephone now is to email the handouts but not the report before the session. I ask them to be by their email during our session and then email the actual report during the session. Although it may seem a little complicated, it has so far worked for me every time.
Note: Just be aware that the system is programmed to reveal the actual Influence Profile report if an individual logs in one month after completing their questionnaire. Unless you are doing many different questionnaires over a period of time with your client, this is unlikely to cause any problems.
Tough Decisions
Another one to watch out for is that despite the clear wording, not everyone answers the questions based on how they “prefer” to behave. The purpose of the ipsative method is to present difficult choices that force the client to make a decision. How they choose makes a difference to the final report.
I usually cover this upfront by asking about their reaction to the process of completing the questionnaire. Most will say it was pretty easy, but some of the statement pairs they wanted to tick both options, or neither option. This is caused by the forced comparison of incompatible statements. It’s a bit like asking someone if they care about people or like parties (tact and diplomacy or sociability and networking). Most people would say yes to both, and some might be inclined to say no to both!
Once they have shared that they sometimes faced a dilemma, I simply ask how they handled it. Most will say they went with their gut-feeling. That’s ideal. Others may say that they answered based on how they generally behave, or how they would like to behave. These are okay; however, they will not give an accurate preference report at the end. That doesn’t matter too much since the main purpose of the exercise is helping them to explore the nature of the dimensions and how to become more adaptable.
Unfortunately, on occasion, someone will admit to trying to second guess what the coach might be looking for, or trying to enter the “correct” answer. That pretty much makes the report redundant, although you can still work with the dimensions.
Accuracy
Before handing over a report, I will remind them that the point of the exercise is to grow awareness and build greater flexibility. Although I hope the report will be fairly accurate, there may be things that they don’t agree with. That is fine, later we will be exploring it in more detail.
There is always likely to be something in the report that they don’t agree with. Although there are 33 different reports, generalisations will still be made. The reports are created by determining the order of preference of each of the dimensions and the scale of the differences between those preferences. That builds a general picture which triggers a specific report.
To be honest, I’m not really worried that this happens because it enables me to refocus on the fact that there are no rights or wrongs here, just preferences, behaviours and what might work better with a certain person, or in a certain situation. Labelling people is counter-productive.
Having said that, I’m delighted with how accurate they tend to be. It is extremely rare that anyone will say that the profile is completely wrong (see above). At worst, people may disagree with one or two statements made in the report. Most of the time, they say it is highly accurate and even wonder if I have been reading their performance appraisal.
Increasing Standard Deviation
Style 25 is special. This is the report that shows the most balanced preference on all the dimensions. It potentially makes the individual very adaptable to different styles in others. However, it also is likely to make them unremarkable (in the report the actual word used is “bland”).
What these people need to make sure of is that their actual behaviour varies. Dancing up and down the scales to adapt to different objectives, people and situations, makes for a very colourful and engaging influencer.
In essence, they need to increase their standard deviation in behaviour. Sometimes dropping their tact, other times maximising it (etc.).
Always be ready to recover a client that I have just called boring!
Other Quick Tips and Suggestions
- Make sure and remind them that their actual behaviour may vary from their preference.
- Gaps between preference and required behaviour need to be made up with skill, effort and practice. That’s what makes flexibility easier.
- Clients may say they are completely different outside of work. This means that they can do other behaviours but choose not to in work. This gives them more options. Consequences, risk and familiarity, are common reasons why people behave differently at work.
- Self-scoring may be different from the actual scoring because it is impossible to re-create the trading off technique used by the questionnaire. Generally, if people have studied the dimensions carefully, they will be quite accurate with their scores.
- Discussions around styles required for different types of work are fascinating and will give you the opportunity to help your client explore the implications of different preferences.
- Don’t forget to get them analysing other stakeholders around them (see this exercise).
Finally, and this is an unabashed plug, make sure and read Chapters 11 and 12 of Influential Leadership. These chapters give the latest and most complete coverage of this important topic.
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