1FAMOUS MODELS

Sorry, not a reference to the catwalk, but to all those circles, grids and acronyms that you either love or hate.  Most of us have met a few models that mean something to us, but different ones work for different people.  In these pages you'll find a brief summary of the more common models, and how to get more information about them.  A word of

caution: we've just given the main principles of each model, enough to understand how they apply, so please don't view these pages as a definitive reference.  Where we know of a good book or website to get the full picture, we've

included it.

  They're listed below in three broad groups.

Organisations Teams & Groups Individuals

Organisations

This section looks at how organisations behave, change, etc, and how work gets done in them, largely regardless of the individuals that do the work.

← Task, Team & Individual; John Adair ← 7S Strategy Framework

Teams & Groups

This section looks at how people behave when they’re in organised groups or teams, or towards other people in general.

← Belbin Team Styles ← Stages of Group Development ← Six Thinking Hats ← Situational Leadership ← Transactional Analysis

Individuals

This section looks at how people behave as individuals, generally independent of the world around them. It also includes some of the more common personal profiling models used by occupational psychologists.

← Covey's Seven Habits ← Maslow Hierarchy of Needs ← Other motivation models ← Assertiveness at Work ← Johari Window ← Myers Briggs Type Indicators ← Cattell 16PF Personality Profile

For a quick reference guide to common business jargon, you can also visit the comprehensive Buzz-word glossary at the Learningbuzz.com web site.

FAMOUS MODELS

Adair's Three Circles

John Adair developed his three circles approach to leadership at the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst during the 1970's.  He observed what effective leaders did to gain the support and commitment of the followers.  His model is important for two reasons: it's simple, so is easy to understand and apply, and he was one of the first to look at effective leadership from the point of view of those being led.

2

THE THREE CIRCLES

John Adair found that effective leaders pay attention to three areas of need for members of the team: those relating to the task, to the team itself, and to individual members of the team.  At any time, the emphasis on each circle may vary, but all are interdependent and so the leader must watch all three.

Task needs include setting a clear goal and objectives, and organisation and management of the process.

Team needs are things like effective interaction, support, shared work and communication within the team and with other teams.

Individual needs will of course vary from person to person, but the effective leader will pay attention to, and deal with, how each person is behaving and feeling.

The three circles model is nowadays seen as rather basic, especially by managers who want to be considered sophisticated and up-to-date.  However it's a good approach to learn early in your leadership career, providing a solid foundation for more complex human relations.

FAMOUS MODELS

7S Framework

It's all very well devising a strategy, but you have to be able to implement it if it's to do any good. The Seven S Framework first appeared in "The Art Of Japanese Management" by Richard Pascale and Anthony Athos in 1981.  They had been looking at how Japanese industry had been so successful, at around the same time that Tom Peters and Robert Waterman were exploring what made a company excellent.  The Seven S model was born at a meeting of the four authors in 1978.  It went on to appear in "In Search of Excellence" by Peters and Waterman, and was taken up as a basic tool by the global management consultancy McKinsey: it's sometimes known as the McKinsey 7S model.

Managers, they said, need to take account of all seven of the factors to be sure of successful implementation of a strategy - large or small. They're all interdependent, so if you fail to pay proper attention to one of them, it can bring the others crashing down around you. Oh, and the relative importance of each factor will vary over time, and you can't always tell how that's changing. Like a lot of these models, there's a good dose of common sense in here, but the 7S Framework is useful way of checking that you've covered all the bases.

The Seven Factors are:

Strategy A set of actions that you start with and must maintain

3Structure How people and tasks / work are organised

Systems All the processes and information flows that link the organisation together

Style How managers behave

Staff How you develop managers (current and future)

Superordinate Goals Longer-term vision, and all that values stuff, that shapes the destiny of the organisation

Skills Dominant attributes or capabilities that exist in the organisation

There's a lot more to the 7S framework of course, especially how you apply it in practice. It may appear as an outmoded concept in today's environment of "constant change and learning", but the basic principle that you've got to watch a lot of factors all the time as you implement any strategy still applies. Just don't let the apparent rigidity of the framework make you heavy on your feet.

For more about strategy and strategic management in general, look out "Strategic Management" by Dess & Miller (McGraw Hill 1993). It's not a bedtime read, but is a useful reference work of ideas and case studies.  If you want more on the 7S model, read Richard Pascale's subsequent "Managing on the Edge" (1990).

FAMOUS MODELS

Belbin Team Roles

R Meredith Belbin published "Management Teams - why they succeed or fail" in 1981.  Driven by the increasing importance of team-working in organisations at the time, Belbin set out to identify what made a good team, based on research in the UK and Australia.  Although the book offered a number of important factors, it's the team roles that became famous.  Belbin found that in successful teams all eight roles could be seen in operation, and concluded that when selecting people for a team, filling the eight roles was as important as choosing technical skills or experiences.

Belbin's ideas continue to be used by thousands of organisations because they make sense and they work.  You can buy all sorts of tools to identify individuals' preferred roles, and help teams to make the best use of each role.  Although your preferred roles are relatively unchanging over time, most of us can happily perform two or three of the roles, thus filling any gaps in the team's profile.  That also means that one person can cover more than one role - clearly important if you have a team of less than eight people!

The concept works best when used openly within a team or across an organisation.  Individual preferences are only useful if they're known to others, so teams can assess who can best fulfill each role.  You can use role identification as a form of team-building: it reinforces the fact that everyone is bringing something to the team, so you all need each other if you are to be successful.

The eight roles are follows.  The brief descriptions are of the "pure" roles that you're unlikely to find in practice:  what you'll see depends on the mix of preferred roles in each individual.  The abbreviations after each title are the common shorthand used when describing and charting the roles.

EXTROVERT ROLES

- outward looking people whose main orientation is to the world outside the group, and beyond the task(s) in hand.

Plant

PL

The Innovator.  Unorthodox, knowledgeable and imaginative, turning out loads of radical ideas.  The creative engine-room that needs careful handling to be effective.  Individualistic, disregarding practical details or protocol - can become an unguided missile.  

Resource Investigator

RI

The extrovert, enthusiastic communicator, with good connections outside the team.  Enjoys exploring new ideas, responds well to challenges, and creates this attitude amongst others.  Noisy and energetic, quickly loses interest, and can be lazy unless under pressure.

Chairman

CH

Calm, self-confident and decisive when necessary.  The social leader of the group, ensuring individuals contribute fully, and guiding the team to success.  Unlikely to bring great intellect or creativity.

Shaper Energetic, highly-strung, with a drive to get things done.  They challenge inertia, ineffectiveness and complacency in the team, but can be abrasive, impatient and easily

4

SH

provoked.  Good leaders of start-up or rapid-response teams.

INTROVERT ROLES

- inward-looking people principally concerned with relations and tasks within the group.

Monitor Evaluator

ME

Unemotional, hardheaded and prudent.  Good at assessing proposals, monitoring progress and preventing mistakes.  Dispassionate, clever and discrete.  Unlikely to motivate others, takes time to consider, may appear cold and uncommitted.  Rarely wrong.

Team Worker

TW

Socially-oriented and sensitive to others.  Provides an informal network of communication and support that spreads beyond the formal activities of the team.  Often the unofficial or deputy leader, preventing feuding and fragmentation.  Concern for team spirit may divert from getting the job done.

Company Worker

CW

The Organiser who turns plans into tasks.  Conservative, hard-working, full of common sense, conscientious and methodical.  Orthodox thinks who keeps the team focussed on the tasks in hand.  Lacks flexibility, and unresponsive to new ideas

Completer Finisher

CF

Makes sure the team delivers.  An orderly, anxious perfectionist who worries about everything.  Maintains a permanent sense of urgency that can sometimes help and sometimes hinder the team.  Good at follow-up and meeting deadlines.

 Different roles are important at different times, and the effective team will be aware of who should be 'centre stage' at a given time.  You can of course link Belbin roles to personality types, where you'll find common words like 'Extrovert' and 'Analytical', but remember that Belbin roles are less definitive.  A sales team might apparently be full of extrovert, expressive and energetic people, but someone will still be able to act as the Company Worker or Completer Finisher.

Belbin's original book ("Management Teams - why they succeed or fail") is still in print and is a good place to go to understand his concept.  Following the wide acceptance of the Team Roles concept, he later published "Team Roles at Work", exploring the practical application of his ideas in more detail.  You can also buy team games that bring out each person's roles, as well as electronic or paper-based questionnaires.

 FAMOUS MODELS

Stages of Group Development

Often quoted, often misunderstood.  Bruce Tuckman's classic description of the stages of group development is easy to understand and remember, but it helps to go back and look at what's behind each stage.

Bruce W Tuckman is a respected educational psychologist who first described the (then) four stages of group development in 1965, soon after leaving Princeton.  Looking at the behaviour of small groups in a variety of environments, he recognised the distinct phases they go through, and suggested they need to experience all four stages before they achieve maximum effectiveness.  He refined and developed the model in 1977 (in conjunction with Mary Ann Jensen) with the addition of a fifth stage.  Since then, others have attempted to adapt and extend the model - although sometimes with more of an eye on rhyme than reason.

 

FOUR STAGES OF GROUP DEVELOPMENT

Tuckman described the four distinct stages that a group can as it comes together and starts to operate.  This process can be subconscious, although an understanding of the stages can help a group reach effectiveness more quickly and less painfully.

Stage 1: Forming

5Individual behaviour is driven by a desire to be accepted by the others, and avoid controversy or conflict.  Serious issues and feelings are avoided, and people focus on being busy with routines, such as team organisation, who does what, when to meet, etc.  But individuals are also gathering information and impressions - about each other, and about the scope of the task and how to approach it.  This is a comfortable stage to be in, but the avoidance of conflict and threat means that not much actually gets done.

 

Stage 2: Storming

Individuals in the group can only remain nice to each other for so long, as important issues start to be addressed.  Some people's patience will break early, and minor confrontations will arise that are quickly dealt with or glossed over.  These may relate to the work of the group itself, or to roles and responsibilities within the group. Some will observe that it's good to be getting into the real issues, whilst others will wish to remain in the comfort and security of stage 1.  Depending on the culture of the organisation and individuals, the conflict will be more or less suppressed, but it'll be there, under the surface. To deal with the conflict, individuals may feel they are winning or losing battles, and will look for structural clarity and rules to prevent the conflict persisting.

Stage 3: Norming

As Stage 2 evolves, the "rules of engagement" for the group become established, and the scope of the group's tasks or responsibilities are clear and agreed.  Having had their arguments, they now understand each other better, and can appreciate each other's skills and experience.  Individuals listen to each other, appreciate and support each other, and are prepared to change pre-conceived views: they feel they're part of a cohesive, effective group.  However, individuals have had to work hard to attain this stage, and may resist any pressure to change - especially from the outside - for fear that the group will break up, or revert to a storm.

Stage 4: Performing

Not all groups reach this stage, characterised by a state of interdependence and flexibility. Everyone knows each other well enough to be able to work together, and trusts each other enough to allow independent activity.  Roles and responsibilities change according to need in an almost seamless way.  Group identity, loyalty and morale are all high, and everyone is equally task-orientated and people-orientated.  This high degree of comfort means that all the energy of the group can be directed towards the task(s) in hand.

 Ten years after first describing the four stages, Bruce Tuckman revisited his original work and described another, final, stage:

 Stage 5: Adjourning

This is about completion and disengagement, both from the tasks and the group members.  Individuals will be proud of having achieved much and glad to have been part of such an enjoyable group.  They need to recognise what they've done, and consciously move on.  Some authors describe stage 5 as "Deforming and Mourning", recognising the sense of loss felt by group members.

 Tuckman's original work simply described the way he had observed groups evolve, whether they were conscious of it or not.  But for us the real value is in recognising where a group is in the process, and helping it to move to the Perform stage.  In the real world, groups are often forming and changing, and each time that happens, they can move to a different Tuckman Stage.  A group might be happily Norming or Performing, but a new member might force them back into Storming. Seasoned leaders will be ready for this, and will help the group get back to Performing as quickly as possible.

Many work groups live in the comfort of Norming, and are fearful of moving back into Storming, or forward into Performing. This will govern their behaviour towards each other, and especially their reaction to change.

6FAMOUS MODELS

Six Thinking Hats

Edward de Bono is probably one of the best known writers on human behaviour, particularly for his ideas on lateral thinking.  He's published several books, and still lectures and talks extensively on the whole subject of thinking and creativity.  The Six Thinking Hats were published in the early 1980's, and have become popular across a range of environments.  With more and more teamwork, empowerment and involvement going on, the concept arrived just at the right time.  It's certainly helpful for individuals to understand how the Six Hats can be applied, but they work best when they can be used as a common language in a team or group: that's why we've included them in the Teams & Groups section.

 THE SIX THINKING HATS

WHITE is neutral and objective, concerned with objective facts and figures

RED relates to anger and rage, so is concerned with emotions

BLACK is gloomy, and covers the negative - why things can't be done

YELLOW is sunny and positive, indicating hope and positive thinking

GREEN is abundant, fertile growth, indicating creativity and new ideas

BLUEis the sky above us, so is concerned with the control and organisation of the thinking process

You can refer to the Hats in two ways: to describe the thinking process that's required in a given situation, and to define how someone IS thinking without appearing critical.  So you might be struggling with an apparently insurmountable problem, and call on the team to put on their Yellow Hats to generate some positive approaches.  Or you can ask someone who's getting negative to take their Black Hat off for a moment - this is far more neutral than telling them to stop being so negative!

If you're searching for a way to boost your team's performance, take a look at the Six Hats.  Problem-solving will be improved, and the very fact that you all become conscious of how you're thinking will make you do it better.  What's more, the process of learning the Six Hats is fun in itself, so you can use it as a team-building event.

A couple of cautions:  the Six Hats won't produce better solutions alone - you still need the right skills and experience on hand to create and implement your ideas.  Secondly, be prepared to persist in the early days: once you've learned the techniques, they'll need to be nurtured until they become part of the everyday language of the team.

There is of course a book - "Six Thinking Hats" by Edward de Bono, surprisingly!  It's not the best way to learn the concept, but once you can speak "Hat", it's a very useful guidebook and aide memoire.

FAMOUS MODELS

Situational Leadership

This is a term that can be applied generically to a style of leadership, but that also refers to a recognised, and useful, leadership model.  In simple terms, a situational leader is one who can adopt different leadership styles depending on the situation.  Most of us do this anyway in our dealings with other people: we try not to get angry with a nervous colleague on their first day, we chase up tasks with some people more than others because we know they'll forget otherwise.

7But Ken Blanchard, the management guru best known for the "One Minute Manager" series, and Paul Hersey created a model for Situational Leadership in the late 1960's that allows you to analyse the needs of the situation you're dealing with, and then adopt the most appropriate leadership style.  It's proved popular with managers over the years because it passes the two basic tests of such models: it's simple to understand, and it works in most environments for most people.  The model doesn't just apply to people in leadership or management positions: we all lead others at work and at home.

 LEADERSHIP BEHAVIOUR

Blanchard and Hersey characterised leadership style in terms of the amount of direction and of support that the leader gives to his or her followers, and so created a simple grid:

← Directing Leaders define the roles and tasks of the 'follower', and supervise them closely.  Decisions are made by the leader and announced, so communication is largely one-way.

← Coaching Leaders still define roles and tasks, but seeks ideas and suggestions from the follower.  Decisions remain the leader's prerogative, but communication is much more two-way.

← Supporting Leaders pass day-to-day decisions, such as task allocation and processes, to the follower.  The leader facilitates and takes part in decisions, but control is with the follower.

← Delegating Leaders are still involved in decisions and problem-solving, but control is with the follower.  The follower decides when and how the leader will be involved.

Effective leaders are versatile in being able to move around the grid according to the situation, so there is no one right style.  However, we tend to have a preferred style, and in applying Situational Leadership you need to know which one that is for you.

DEVELOPMENT LEVEL

Clearly the right leadership style will depend very much on the person being led - the follower - and Blanchard and Hersey extended their model to include the Development Level of the follower.  They said that the leader's style should be driven by the Competence and Commitment of the follower, and came up with four levels:

D4High CompetenceHigh Commitment

Experienced at the job, and comfortable with their own ability to do it well.  May even be more skilled than the leader.

D3High Competence

Variable CommitmentExperienced and capable, but may lack the confidence to go it alone, or the motivation to do it well / quickly

D2Some CompetenceLow Commitment

May have some relevant skills, but won't be able to do the job without help.  The task or the situation may be new to them.

D1Low CompetenceLow Commitment

Generally lacking the specific skills required for the job in hand, and lacks any confidence and / or motivation to tackle it.

Development Levels are also situational.  I might be generally skilled, confident and motivated in my job, but would still drop into Level D1 when faced, say, with a task requiring skills I don't possess.  For example, lots of managers are D4 when dealing with the day-to-day running of their department, but move to D1 or D2 when dealing with a sensitive employee issue.

SITUATIONAL LEADERSHIP

8You can see where this is going.  Blanchard and Hersey said that the Leadership Style (S1 - S4) of the leader must correspond to the Development level (D1 - D4) of the follower - and it's the leader who adapts. 

For example, a new person joins your team and you're asked to help them through the first few days.  You sit them in front of a PC, show them a pile of invoices that need to be processed today, and push off to a meeting.  They're at level D1, and you've adopted S4.  Everyone loses because the new person feels helpless and demotivated, and you don't get the invoices processed.

On the other hand, you're handing over to an experienced colleague before you leave for a holiday.  You've listed all the tasks that need to be done, and a set of instructions on how to carry out each one.  They're at level D4, and you've adopted S1.  The work will probably get done, but not the way you expected, and your colleague despises you for treating him like an idiot.

But swap the situations and things get better.  Leave detailed instructions and a checklist for the new person, and they'll thank you for it.  Give your colleague a quick chat and a few notes before you go on holiday, and everything will be fine.

By adopting the right style to suit the follower's development level, work gets done, relationships are built up, and most importantly, the follower's development level will rise to D4, to everyone's benefit.

 To make Situational Leadership work, you need to go through a training programme, where you'll learn about how to operate effectively in all the Leadership Styles, and how to determine the Development Level of others.  And the Blanchard organisation would be happy to tell all about their training programmes worldwide.

You can also get the basics from Ken Blanchard's "Leadership and the One Minute Manager."

FAMOUS MODELS

Transactional Analysis

There was a time when every forward-thinking manager in a large company would be familiar with TA - Transactional Analysis - but trends have moved on, and it's rarely featured in development training these days.  It was restricted by its complexity, and the fact that it could be manipulated, but some current ideas on leadership and teamworking have their roots in TA, and the language of TA still persists - which is why we've included it here.

Transactional Analysis was developed by Eric Berne as an approach to psychoanalysis and therapy in the early 1950s, but was adopted by commercial organisations in the '60s as they tried to improve the ways that people in general interacted.  It defines some basic Ego States and Life Positions that individuals can adopt, and uses those to describe how Transactions then occur between two people.  The idea is that if you know your own state, and can determine the other person's state, you can use your behaviour to influence the interactions between the two of you.

 1.  EGO STATES

Berne defined three basic personalities or Ego States, each with characteristic attitudes, feelings, behaviours and language.  Two of the states subdivide into two further facets:

PARENTCritical Parent

makes rules and sets limitsdisciplines, judges and criticises

Nurturing Parentadvises and guidesprotects and nurtures

ADULT  

concerned with data and factsconsiders options and estimates probabilitiesmakes unemotional decisionsplans and makes things happen

CHILDFree (Natural) Child

fun-loving and energeticcreative and spontaneous

Adapted Childcompliant and politerebellious and manipulative

 2.  LIFE POSITIONS

9The other building block of TA is the view we have of ourselves in relation to other people around us.  There are four life positions, shown as a grid that became known as the "OK Corral".  The quotation in each box typifies the attitude of each Life Position:

I'M NOT OKYOU'RE OK

 "I wish I could do that as well as you do"

I'M OKYOU'RE OK

 "Hey, we're making good progress now"

I'M NOT OKYOU'RE NOT OK

 "Oh this is terrible - we'll never make it"

I'M OKYOU'RE NOT OK

 "You're not doing that right - let me show you"

People will move around the grid depending on the situation, but have a preferred position that they tend to revert to.  This is strongly influenced by experiences and decisions in early life. 

"I'm OK, you're OK" people are in the 'get on with' position.  They're confident and happy about life and work, and interact by collaboration and mutual respect, even when they disagree.

I'm OK, you're not OK" people are in the 'get rid of' position.  They tend to get angry and hostile, and are smug and superior.  They belittle others, who they view as incompetent and untrustworthy, and are often competitive and power-hungry.

I'm not OK, you're OK" is the 'get away from' position.  These people feel sad, inadequate or even stupid in comparison to others.  They undervalue their skills and contribution and withdraw from problems.

I'm not OK, you're not OK" is the 'get nowhere' position.   These people feel confused or aimless.  They don't see the point of doing anything, and so usually don't bother.

3.  TRANSACTIONS

The central concept of TA is that Transactions between people can be characterised by the Ego State of the two participants.  What's more, the Ego State adopted by the person who starts the transaction will affect the way the other person responds.

For example, Mr A says "what time will they arrive?", and Mr B replies "at 2pm."  This is a simple Adult to Adult transaction.

However, if Mr A adopts a Child state: "I'm worried that they might not arrive on time,"  that will tend to produce a Nurturing Parent response from Mr B: "Don't worry, we'll still have plenty of time to talk to them."

This model shows how the Transaction 'balances' between the two people: if one drifts into Parent, that will encourage the other to move to Child, and vice versa.  The preferred state for most business transactions is Adult-Adult, but it's OK to move to another state as long as you're aware of it and are ready for the changed response from the other person.

Of course it doesn't always work that way, and an Adult state can sometimes be met with, say, a Parent response: "What time will they arrive?"  "How should I know, I didn't arrange it!"

 4.  STROKES

We all need and seek care, attention, love and recognition from others, and in TA, a stroke is defined as a unit of recognition.  With children, strokes are obviously sought and given: they show off their new toy, or misbehave to get

10attention, and know the adults will respond right on cue.  But grown-ups do the same: working hard, deliberately making mistakes, arriving late, or simply arriving home and sighing "what a day!"

Strokes can be positive or negative, and it's generally better to give a negative stroke than none at all (because that may be taken as negative anyway).  But in many business organisations, strokes are subject to a set of unwritten rules:

1. don't give positive strokes freely; 2. if you give positive strokes, make them conditional;

3. don't ask for positive strokes - certainly not directly;

4. most positive strokes are insincere ('plastic');

5. never give a physical stroke - by touching someone;

6. don't miss a chance to give a negative stroke.

The result is a cold, unfeeling environment where normal human emotions are generally suppressed.  Even in 'warm' organisations where it's OK to express feelings, strokes are still subject to certain norms - such as not giving them to people above you in the hierarchy.

In the absence of a free exchange of strokes, people manipulate others in order to get the strokes they crave, and start playing games.

 5.  GAMES

The complexity of the TA model leaves it open to manipulation, or "Games".  You adopt a Child state because you want someone's help, or a Parent state to make them do something for you.  But often the games end up damaging the relationship, and the type of game someone plays is influenced by his or her life state.

Examples of games players are:

The Persecutor: "if it weren't for you",  "see what you made me do",  "yes, but".

The Rescuer: "I'm only trying to help", "what would you do without me?"

The Victim: "this always happens to me", "poor old me", "go on, kick me".

 There are more themes to the TA model than we can show here, but every day you see complex transactions that fit the model.  Many effective leaders - and those who are seen as "good with people" - apply the TA principles, often without being aware of it.  Even though TA has fallen out of fashion, it's just as applicable today as it ever was.  If you're really interested in how people interact - and not just wanting to hone your interpersonal skills - then TA is worth exploring.

FAMOUS MODELS

Covey's Seven Habits

Stephen R Covey published his "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" in the late 1980's.  He discovered over years of reading and studying success that certain underlying themes seemed to recur.  These weren't superficial behavioural "how to's", but went deeper, relating more to one's ethics or way of life.  The result was his seven habits, equally applicable to your personal, social or business life.  Unlike many other approaches, the seven habits work best if they're adopted in their entirety.  You can't pick and choose which ones to apply, nor are they situational ("if this situation occurs, follow this formula.").

THE SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE

11PRIVATE VICTORYThe first three habits relate to our own internal or personal philosophy

Be Proactive Be aware of yourself, your strengths, weaknesses, blind spots, motivations - and be proactive in finding out as much as you can about yourself.  Then be proactive in applying that knowledge to your relations with others.

Begin with the End in mind

In summary, create and live by a personal mission statement.  This may lead onto more specific goals and objectives, but the idea is that you try to live as the sort of person you'd like to be remembered for when you've passed on. 

Put First Things First

Define what it is that really matters in your life, then spend your time on those important things.  Rather than spreading our time thinly across too many activities, concentrate on doing a few things well.

PUBLIC VICTORYThe next three habits relate to our interaction with our environment

Think Win/Win Not an original phrase, but in all your dealings with others, aim for each little negotiation to provide success (a win) for both sides.

Seek First to Understand, then be

Understood

Put another way, "God gave us two ears and one mouth, and they should be used in that proportion."  In your communications, be sure you know the other person's point of view before you start expounding your own ideas.

Synergize Look for ways to take your ideas and other people's ideas and build on them together, on the basis that the outcome will be something greater than the sum of the inputs.

AND FINALLY, RENEWAL

The seventh habit that makes all the other six last is Sharpening the Saw.  This powerful idea can really only be described by Covey's word-picture:

Suppose you were to come upon someone in the woods working feverishly to saw down a tree."What are you doing?" you ask."Can't you see?" comes the impatient reply. "I'm sawing down this tree.""You look exhausted!" you exclaim. "How long have you been at it?""Over five hours," he returns, "and I'm beat! This is hard work.""Well why don't you take a break for a few minutes and sharpen that saw?" you inquire.  "I'm sure it would go a lot faster.""I don't have time to sharpen the saw," the man says emphatically. "I'm too busy sawing!"

Sharpening the saw is about renewing yourself - physically, mentally, spiritually and emotionally.

The Seven Habits are difficult to describe adequately in such a small space as this.  Suffice to say that thousands of managers have found them a powerful philosophy, and when you boil them down, there's a lot of common sense in what Covey says.

 

In 1990, Covey published his concept of "Principle-Centered Leadership".  This built on his idea that success comes to people who have a strong sense of purpose and principles for how they live their lives.  If you think about effective leaders you've known or worked for, you'll find there was something they stood for or were known for - and which was probably respected as something 'good'.  Covey describes how leaders who have a clear idea of what they stand for and what they want to achieve will be more effective in maintaining and developing organisations and the people who work in them.  He also shows how this approach can make our personal relationships more effective, and the chapter entitled  "Eight ways to enrich marriage and family relationships" may be an application too far for more cynical European readers.

The third Covey Classic is "First Things First", published in 1994.  This approach builds on the principles of his first two books and applies them to managing time.  But this is no straightforward 'Time Management' course: Covey asserts that to be effective, we need to have a clear understanding of what we should be doing, and only then can we plan our business or personal time.  Again he tends to drift into motherhood and apple pie, but the First Things First approach has worked for a wide range of managers.  The discipline of taking stock of what's really important in your

12life allows you to be more assertive in managing your time, and the balance between your work and personal/social time.

FranklinCovey Europe will of course be happy to offer training courses built on Stephen Covey's core 'products'

FAMOUS MODELS

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Ah, Maslow!   Probably one of the most-frequently quoted psychologists, yet how many of us can recall the detail of his famous hierarchy?

Abraham Maslow was an American behavioural psychologist who worked both in academia and industry.  He published a number of Human Relations books until the early '70's, but it was his first book, "Motivation and Personality", published in 1943, that set out his idea of the hierarchy of human needs.

 THE HIERARCHY OF NEEDS

Maslow argued that the factors that drive or motivate people to act lie on an ascending scale.  Once a group or order of needs is satisfied, the individual will not be motivated by more of the same, but will seek to satisfy higher order needs.  What's more, a higher order need will not be a motivator if lower order needs remain unmet.  Maslow defined five orders of needs, listed in ascending importance:

Physiological The basic survival requirements of warmth, shelter and food

Security Protection from danger of threat

Social Relations with others, expressed as friendship comradeship or love

Self-Respect Sense of personal worth, respect and autonomy

Self-Actualisation Sense of achieving your full potential

Thus, for example, we won't be concerned about working relationships or professional achievement if we are truly concerned for our own security.  By the same token, a manager won't motivate someone by talking about personal ambition and achievement if that person feels he's about to lose his job.

Of course, Maslow's ideas were applied to the complete range of human experience, whereas for most us, Physiological and Security needs are usually met to a large extent.  But recent history has shown that when individuals are homeless, hungry and under threat, all social systems and self-respect break down.

Despite this, Maslow's hierarchy still applies to modern commercial life, and managers would do well to think in these terms when trying to motivate staff. 

There have been a number of variations on Mazlow over the years.  Some split Physiological needs down into Energy (food, warmth) and Protection (shelter).  Others have added Power - the need for influence over the actions of others, either person-to-person, or group-to-group.

FAMOUS MODELS

Motivation Theories

Over the years many psychologists have attempted to define and categorise what motivates people.  This became particularly important after the Second World War as the Western nations attempted to rebuild their drained industrial economies, and during the '50s and '60s much was researched and written about Human Relations.  It was recognised that people who worked in organisations were more than just numbers and, if properly managed, could not only produce more, but also contribute more.

This is not the place to cover the work of every motivational theorist: we've simply chosen a couple that have entered the mainstream management vocabulary:

← Theory X / Theory Y ← Herzberg's Motivation - Hygiene Theory

13In addition, Abraham Maslow has his own page here.

 THEORY X / THEORY Y

Douglas McGregor published "The Human Side of Enterprise" in 1960, in which he suggested that traditional management methods (which he called Theory X) might not be the only way to get people motivated.  Instead, you could take a different approach (based on Theory Y) and achieve the same if not more.

Theory X is the traditional view of direction and control, based on these assumptions:

1. The average person inherently dislikes work and will avoid it if at all possible. 2. As a result, most people have to be coerced, controlled and threatened if they are to put in enough effort to

achieve the organisation's goals.

3. In fact the average person prefers to be directed, avoids responsibility, isn't ambitious and simply seeks security.

Theory Y, based on the integration of individual and organisational goals, assumes:

1. The physical and mental effort of work is as natural as play or rest, so the average person doesn't inherently dislike work.

2. We are capable of self-direction and self-control, so those factors don't necessarily have to come from elsewhere.

3. Our commitment to an objective is a function of the rewards for its achievement.

4. The average person learns not only to accept but to seek responsibility.

5. Most people have a capacity for imagination, ingenuity and creativity.

6. The intellectual potential of most people is under-used in modern industrial life.

Theory Y is not a soft option.  In fact it can take as much management effort as Theory X, but the effects of a Theory Y approach will last longer.  The Theory X manager is a dying breed (although it has to be said he's not yet extinct), and Theory Y lies behind most modern approaches to motivation.  Nowadays the terminology is used as a polite way of referring to the old command-and-control approach to management: the trouble is the diehard Theory X manager won't pick up the subtle criticism!

HERZBERG'S MOTIVATION - HYGIENE THEORY

Frederick Herzberg studied and practised clinical psychology in Pittsburgh, where he researched the work-related motivations of thousands of employees.  His findings were published in "The Motivation to Work" in 1959.  He concluded that there were two types of motivation:

Hygiene Factors that can demotivate if they are not present - such as supervision, interpersonal relations, physical working conditions, and salary.  Hygiene Factors affect the level of dissatisfaction, but are rarely quoted as creators of job satisfaction.

Motivation Factors that will motivate if they are present - such as achievement, advancement, recognition and responsibility.  Dissatisfaction isn't normally blamed on Motivation Factors, but they are cited as the cause of job satisfaction.

So, once you've satisfied the Hygiene factors, providing more of them won't generate much more motivation, but lack of the Motivation Factors won't of themselves demotivate.  There are clear relationships to Maslow here, but Herzberg's ideas really shaped modern thinking about reward and recognition in major companies

FAMOUS MODELS

Assertiveness At Work

There are several models that describe assertiveness and how to develop it, but the probably the best thinking comes from Ken and Kate Back, who've specialised in this area of human behaviour for over 20 years.  In their book

14"Assertiveness at Work - a practical guide to handling awkward situations", they describe what assertiveness is, and how to develop it.  Their concepts are simple and make sense, and have helped many people to become more effective in their dealings with others.

 DEFINING ASSERTIVENESSAssertiveness lies in the middle of a continuum of behaviour towards others, that the Backs defined in terms of how we recognise the rights of the two parties involved.

Aggressive You exert your right to have ideas and opinions at the expense of the other person's rights.  In fact you behave as if the other person's rights don't matter.

Assertive You exert your rights freely and clearly, but at the same recognise the other person's rights to be heard, to have pride in what they do, etc.

Non-Assertive You take too much account of the other person's rights, to the extent that you forego some or all of your rights to express ideas or influence events.

To illustrate the three types of behaviour, they quote a simple example of a manager spotting some minor errors in the written work of a subordinate.  The manager goes to the individual and says:

Aggressive "I don't know how you've got the nerve to give me this sort of stuff for signing.  It's full of mistakes."

Assertive "Jane, I'd like you to re-do this document as there are several mistakes in it."

Non-Assertive "I know it's, er .... probably my fault in .... not writing very clearly, but is there, um .... any chance at all you could find a spare minute to um .... just change one of two small things on this letter for me?"Or you find an excuse not to take the document back at all.

Clearly the desired behaviour is to be assertive, and the book goes on to describe in detail how you can develop assertiveness in a range of situations.  To frame that development, they put forward the idea of Inner Dialogues: those conversations we have with ourselves before we interact with someone else.  Sometimes these Inner Dialogues are subconscious, but if you become more aware of them, you can manage them and become more effective in your dealings with others.  

To go back to the example above, the inner dialogues might be:

Aggressive "If people produce rubbish, I have every right to tell them so""She obviously doesn't care.  That's typical of young people today.""This reflects badly on me, and I won't stand for it."

Assertive "This may be uncomfortable for us both, but we can handle it.""She has the right to make mistakes, but the responsibility to correct them.""I want her to know the effect her errors have on other people."

Non-Assertive "I don't want to make a scene or upset our working relationship.""I'm sure these are unintentional errors - I'll let it go this time.""I know she's very busy, so I expect that's why these mistakes happened."

By having your Inner Dialogue before you deal with the other person, you can adjust your behaviour to be Assertive.  You achieve this by turning your Faulty Inner Dialogue (aggressive or non-assertive) into a Sound Inner Dialogue (assertive).  There's something for all of us in this model - it isn't just for tyrannical bosses or shrinking wall-flowers!  Effective assertive behaviour is an important building block for creating a empowered, involving, learning organisation culture.  You would do well to develop your assertiveness before embarking on grander culture changes.

Many training organisations incorporate this thinking into their training courses on Assertiveness or Personal Effectiveness, but if you want to understand Assertiveness properly, Ken and Kate Back's original book is a great place to start.

FAMOUS MODELS

Johari Window

15Joe Luft and Harry Ingham were researching human personality at the University of California in the 1950's when they devised their Johari Window.  Using a form of word derivation normally reserved for suburban house names, they based the title on their two first names.  Rather than measuring personality, the Window offers a way of looking at how personality is expressed. 

THE JOHARI WINDOW

Luft and Ingham observed that there are aspects of our personality that we're open about, and other elements that we keep to ourselves.  At the same time, there are things that others see in us that we're not aware of.  As a result, you can draw up a four-box grid, which includes a fourth group of traits that are unknown to anyone:

1. The public area contains things that are openly known and talked about - and which may be seen as strengths or weaknesses.  This is the self that we choose to share with others

2. The hidden area contains things that others observe that we don't know about.  Again, they could be positive or negative behaviours, and will affect the way that others act towards us.

3. The unknown area contains things that nobody knows about us - including ourselves.  This may be because we've never exposed those areas of our personality, or because they're buried deep in the subconscious.

4. The private area contains aspects of our self that we know about and keep hidden from others.

with thanks to John Morris

The application of the Johari Window comes in opening up the public area, so making the other three areas as small as possible.  This is done by regular and honest exchange of feedback, and a willingness to disclose personal feelings.  People around you will understand what "makes you tick", and what you find easy or difficult to do, and can provide appropriate support.  And of course you can then do the same for them.

Self-assessment questionnaires can be used to indicate the size of your public window, but any measure is purely subjective.

FAMOUS MODELS

Myers Briggs Type Indicators (MBTI)

16One of the tests of a good model for human behaviour is that when you apply it, your reaction is "tell me something I don't already know."  Of course, the clever bit is being able to describe and classify behaviours so that they cover all people, and that you can use them to predict behaviour accurately.  And most people who've completed a Myers Briggs profile will tell you it got them about right, and that an understanding of the Type Indicators has helped them in dealing with other people.

The MBTI were created by two non-psychologists with a lifelong interest in human personality.  In the early 20th Century, Katherine Myers developed a classification of personality based on her own observations, and only later discovered that it aligned with the more scientific theories of Carl Jung.  Katherine's daughter, Isabel Myers, picked up her mother's ideas and tried to turn them into practical use.  She created the Type Indicators and spent most of the 50's and 60's validating them, but it wasn't until 1975 that they became an established tool in occupational psychology.

 THE MYERS BRIGGS TYPE INDICATORS

The MBTI classify the ways in which we view the world around us, deal with it and react to it.  Like all such profiles, they're not infallible or all-encompassing, and it's possible to behave "against Type."  But by and large your MBTI profile is a good predictor of how you'll think and behave in most situations and with most people.  What's more, if you and your colleagues are aware of  your MBTI profiles, this can help you operate more effectively together.

The MBTI comprise four separate pairs of preferences: there are no positive or negative scales, and no "ideal" profile: you are what you are.  You create your profile by completing a simple questionnaire, and there several versions of varying complexity and value available.

Extraversion E I IntroversionSensing S N IntuitionThinking T F FeelingJudging J P Perceiving

E/I Preference: interest in the world around you

The Extravert (E) is more interested in outer world of people and things, whilst the Introvert (I) is more concerned with the inner world of concepts and ideas.

S/N Preference: how you gather information about the world

The Sensing (S) person takes in the actuality or facts about their surroundings (using their five senses), whilst the Intuitive (N) will prefer looking at connections between what's happening and possibilities that might follow. 

T/P Preference: how you evaluate that information

The Thinker (T) prefers to adopt logical processes to arrive at an impersonal finding, and the Feeling (F) person evaluates by personal, subjective means.

J/P Preference: your attitude to the world

The Judging (J) person prefers an ordered life, with decisions made and conclusions drawn, whilst the Perceiving (P) person takes life as it comes, open to new ideas, not ready to decide.

 The profile gives you two overall pieces of information: your four-letter type (INTJ, ESTP, etc), and the strength of your preference on each of the four 'scales'.  Clearly there are 16 possible types, and most profiling systems offer a pen-portrait of each one.

You should use this information in two ways.  Firstly, it gives a structure for you to reflect on your preferred ways to deal with the world around you.  Clearly there are good and bad features of each preference, and it's helpful to know what your strengths or weaknesses are likely to be.  But secondly, the data can help you understand how you deal with other people, probably with a different profile.  There may be times when you'll be comfortable with someone with the same preferences as you, but sometimes opposites attract and can relate well to each other.  There are also pointers to your preferred learning style, motivation factors, and to a lesser extent, preferred occupation.

 In general, it's more useful to do the profiling as part of a group - either a work team or on some form of training course.  That way you get to compare profiles, and understand how you can (or can't) interact easily with others.

17This is not the place to give a full description of all 16 types.  Our purpose is simply to provide an aide-memoire for people who've done the profile, and give a flavour of how it works if it's new to you.  The MBTI look at how we deal with the world around us: if you want to know about the underlying personality that's driving the MBTI profile, you need to use a profiling tool such as Cattell 16PF or one of its variants.

You can read more about the origin of the types in Isabel Myers book, "Gifts Differing", but it won't help you determine your own profile.  For that you need to use one of the several profiling tools available through licensed users of the MBTI process.  For more information on the the 16 personality types and what they mean for you, look at "I'm Not Crazy, I'm Just Not You."  This book has been popular with people who've been profiled, found that the information is helpful, and want to become more adept at understanding themselves and others in terms of MBTI.

FAMOUS MODELS

Cattell 16PF Profile

The Cattell 16PF (16 Personality Factor) model is probably the most-widely used system for categorising and defining personality.  Other similar systems exist and may be preferred by certain organisations and professionals, but it's the 16PF in its various forms that is universally understood.

Unlike other common personal profiling tools such as Myers Briggs or Belbin, the 16PF defines our basic, underlying personality, without regard to how we apply it or the environment in which we apply it.  A simple analogy would be to think of the human being as a personal computer.  Personality profiles such as 16PF measure the basic features of the PC such as the size of the hard disk, RAM, processing speed and so on.  They're relatively unchanging features of the PC that strongly influence its performance, but which we don't normally see.  Intelligence Quotient (IQ) is a indication of the breadth and complexity of the software loaded on the PC, which it uses to process ideas and information.  But the way in which the PC performs is mainly influenced by its environment - as represented by the user who gives it information and asks it to perform tasks.

So our underlying personality is there all the time, but the way we see it is affected by our intelligence, and by our upbringing and education, which may have taught us either to emphasise or suppress aspects of our personality.  However, if you can understand what your personality is, you can then make better use of the strengths it gives you, and make allowances for the resultant weaknesses.  Because personality is relatively unchanging through adult life, this understanding will be of long-term value to you.

THE 16 PERSONALITY FACTORS

Each factor can be measured on a scale, determined by completing a questionnaire, and the word pairs below indicate the extremes of each scale.  The letter codes were ascribed to each scale as a shorthand notation.

FactorDescriptors

A Warmth Reserved Outgoing

B Reasoning Less Intelligent More Intelligent

C Emotional Stability Affected by feelings Emotionally stable

EDominance

Humble Assertive

FLiveliness

Sober Happy-go-lucky

GRule Consciousness

Expedient Conscientious

HSocial Boldness

Shy Venturesome

ISensitivity

Tough-minded Tender-minded

LVigilance

Trusting Suspicious

MAbstractedness

Practical Imaginative

18

NPrivateness

Straightforward Shrewd

OApprehension

Self-Assured Apprehensive

Q1Openness to Change

Conservative Experimenting

Q2Self-Reliance

Group-dependent Self-sufficient

Q3Perfectionism

Self-conflict Self-control

Q4Tension

Relaxed Tense

Using all 16 Factors, and a more comprehensive set of descriptions than we've given here, you can create a pretty accurate picture of someone's personality.  Combinations of factors also give a more detailed picture, and with the help of a competent adviser, you can begin to recognise the "real you" that lies beneath the outward self created by your upbringing and environment.

However, absorbing the data from all 16 factors can get complicated, and in recent years a variation of 16PF called 16PF5 has become more commonplace.

 THE 16PF5 MODEL

16PF5 takes the 16 Factors of 16PF and groups them together into 5 overall themes (hence the name).  Clearly there is some overlap between the 16 Factors, but narrowing them down to 5 Factors give a much sharper picture of the underlying personality.  If you want to know what's behind any one of the 5 Factors you can "zoom in" on the relevant 16 Factors to see what the drivers are.  Some of the 16 appear in more than one of the 5 themes, by the way.

The Five Factors are:

FactorDescriptors

EXTRAVERSION Introverted, socially inhibited Extroverted, socially participative

ANXIETY Low anxiety, unperturbed Easily worried and generally tense

WILL Open minded, receptive to ideas Resolute and determined

INDEPENDENCE Accommodating and selfless Independent and persuasive

SELF CONTROL Free-thinking and impulsive Structured and inhibited

Using a personality profile is a tricky process.  You can buy basic self-assessment questionnaires, but they only give a flavour of the information you can get from a properly-conducted assessment with a competent professional adviser.  But used in this way, the 16PF and its variants give a powerful interpretation of your personality which you can use to great personal benefit.  It doesn't matter at all what your profile is: the real benefit comes from understanding what it means for your personal and professional life, and play to your strengths.