2011 October

How To Communicate With A Leader With A Different Personality

I had a great conversation with a pastor in California about how to deal with a lead pastor whose personality style isn’t the same as yours.

It’s a great question, and truthfully, one most of us deal with. You’re not likely to work for someone with the same personality style you have. While a lot of leaders hire people like them, there’s still enough of a separation that each person’s style is different. Therefore, you need to discover the best way to work with one another. If both are well versed in personality styles and lean in each other’s direction, it’s not as hard. But when they’re not, try this:

• Get to know you – You have to first get to know you! If you don’t understand yourself, you can’t really understand why you act, react and process the way you do. And the key to giving information is understanding how you receive information. Once you know this, you can adjust your style to better communicate with others — not changing who you are, just adjusting how you communicate.

• Get to know your leader – A conversation takes two people…for most of us at least. So you need to understand the personality of the person you’re communicating with. How do they give and receive information? At what speed do they process? Do they have tendency to gather all the available information, or do they leave out the details?

• Get to writing – As you learn the strengths and weaknesses of the person you are communicating with, you can identify the areas that will either help or hurt you. In other words, if you are a high C personality, you need details, and that makes working with a high I personality difficult. They will bring excitement, enthusiasm and motivation, but it’s also possible they will leave out some details that you consider vital. So make a list of the things you need from this person every time you communicate with them. Then check the list off as you go.

• Get to resolve – Be sure to replay the conversation in your mind and ask yourself if you received all the information necessary for you to be successful. If not, address those points quickly.

As you do this you will set yourself up for success. But you should also work to convince your leader of the need to know their own personality style. Once they understand themselves, they can do a lot of the necessary work.

Question: How have you made adjustments to get what you need from present or past leaders?

Related articles

• The Missing Link To Your Communication (ChrisLoCurto.com)

Grand Stand Coaches

Let me clarify that I am a 49er faithful. But I live in Tennessee, so I go watch the Titan’s as well. So the Titan’s vs. Texans was not exactly a….good game. In fact, the Texans spanked the Titan’s 41 – 7. It was less than pleasing to watch.

But how can you expect to win a game when all of the coaches are in the stands? I mean, I’m sure the guys yelling out all the things that the Titan’s should do, or what they were doing wrong, were on staff…right? How else could they be so educated on the game? Ok, you know this is pure sarcasm.

The truth is, the dorks behind us must be brand new to the sport of being a fan. They cheer when the team is doing well, and immediately go to booing if a play gets busted. String a set of bad plays together, look out! The super fan is now turning on the team he’s such a great fan of. It’s amazing the depth of their loyalty.

My buddy Ron Cook and I were cracking up because one guy literally called play after play and missed every one! It went something like this – guaranteed, they’re gonna run it right up the middle, guaranteed! Nope, it was a pass play. Guaranteed, screen pass! Nope, stretch play. Ronnie would look at me and count of the missed calls from our grand stand coach…0-1…0-4…0-8. 11 calls later he hadn’t called a correct play yet.

Then some guy stood up and yelled with all of his might, DON’T TACKLE, TRY STRIPPING THE BALL!!! At this point, Ronnie takes out his cell phone as if he’s calling Munchak himself and says, Yeah, try stripping. Yep, forget tackling, go straight to stripping. Uh huh, it should work. While we were disappointed in how the Titan’s played, we were laughing our tails off at the collective genius of the play callers in the stands.

The bad thing is, it reminded me of how many people have a tendency to do that in their day-to-day as well. All around we have people who have never experienced the game, yelling from the stands how people should play. Or what calls they should make. In fact, many times it happens from team members around you or on your team.

Yelling with all your might from the stands, down to the field through 70,000 other voices, that the team should stop tackling and start stripping the ball, shows your absolutely ignorance about football. On top of that, it shows that you have no good ideas, or constructive help in the current situation. Same goes when people sit in the stands and say what this leader, or that team member should do.

If you’re so concerned with that person, get out of your seat, walk down to the field, and use your vast experience with the current situation to help out. Otherwise, how ’bout you sit there and just cheer on the team so they hopefully get some encouragement from you. I’m just sayin’.

Question: How have you seen team members tear down instead of help build?

What To Do With Weak Leaders

Here’s a question from the EntreLeadership Podcast:

I work for a company that has very poor leadership. What should I do in a situation where I want to be led by strong leaders? I have a lot of ideas how to run the company better, but there is no “team” atmosphere, and the boss’ head is basically buried in the sand.—B.M.

The first thing that jumps out at me is personality styles. Most likely, the leader is a high S on the DISC profile, which means he has a very amiable personality. He’s very slow to act and slow to make decisions. He hates conflict and is concerned about messing people up by making the wrong call. With that in mind, it sounds like you are a high I, probably with a decent amount of D in you. You’re an influencing personality that needs to constantly be challenged.

If this is correct, it makes sense why you’re frustrated. A leader becoming stronger only happens through maturity, and any personality style can get there. Just because someone can bark out orders doesn’t mean they are strong. It just means they’re a dictator. If your main goal is to be led by a strong leader, you may be out of luck at this company. Until he is taught to be a strong leader, he’s not going to be one.

However, if you want to get your ideas across and make some changes in the company, that’s a different story. The key, as John Maxwell would say, is influence. In order to get your ideas to your leaders and to have them act on them, you must influence them. If they see you as the constant complainer or the person who appears to be insubordinate, they won’t listen.

However, if you spend your time serving them and showing them that you know what you’re talking about, they will start to listen. They have to feel as though you have their best interests at heart, as well as the company’s. Show them:

• How you take on responsibility with a “buck stops here” attitude.
• How you are able to tackle any task they give you with energy and enthusiasm.
• How you always make sure you keep them completely in the know with what’s going on.
• How you create a team atmosphere yourself.
• How you work with others and help them to be successful.

As you do these things, your leadership will notice. As you show them how much of a servant you are for them, the team and the company, they will begin to listen to what you have to say.

Question: How have you convinced weaker leaders to implement your ideas?

Feel free to share this with your friends and family.

Related articles

• How To Influence Your Leadership (ChrisLoCurto.com)

Setting Up Commission Structures

There are many ways to pay your team members. The most common are:

• Hourly
• Salary
• Salary plus commission
• Draw against commission
• 100% commission

In my mind, the first two leave no room for motivation. There’s no incentive, other than getting fired, to sell like crazy. Many entrepreneurs have asked me why their team members aren’t motivated to sell. When I dug into it, I would find that they are paying them a $45,000 salary. Uhhhh, I know plenty of non-motivated people who would put their feet up on a desk for 45K.

There has to be something that causes them to have to sell, and that’s usually paying just enough to put food on their table. It should be something that keeps them thinking more effort equals more money. Less effort equals food stamps. If you have to pay a salary, keep it low, so they make their living on the sales instead of the salary.

My favorite is the draw against commission. This means that you are paying them a small base, which they pay back through sales. For example: If you pay a 24K base, which is 2K a month, and you pay 10% of gross sales, they have to sell 20K of product each month just to break even. So basically if they don’t sell anything, they only cost you the base that you’re willing to pay as a draw and a bit of overhead, like phones and space.

You have to be careful and make sure they will be able to sell through that draw. If not, they will become desperate. And nothing is worse in sales than a desperate sales person. They can’t sell their way out of a paper bag. If it will take some time to fill the pipeline, then you might cover their base for a while until they are able to cover it on their own. In other words, pay them a salary for a few months instead of a draw.

There is one potential problem with this type of commission structure: if they begin to owe you. If they go month after month not covering the draw, then technically they now owe the company. This is not a good place for anyone. Again, insert desperation. I have made the mistake of changing a team’s comp plan with a draw, only to have everyone on the team owing me money.

Needless to say, sales got worse as the unpaid draw got bigger. When I realized it, I pulled them in one by one and let them know that I screwed up, and I was going to eat the amount owed to me and fix the comp plan. Each salesperson actually cried when I did that. And then, guess what happened? Sales! Yep. They each went out without the feeling of impending doom and sold like crazy.

Whatever plan you choose, it’s important to make sure you’re not violating the law of common sense. If it isn’t a win-win for both parties, don’t do it.

Question: What comp plans for sales people have you seen work or not work?