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Behind the labels of personality types lie the secrets to more profitable leadership and teamwork.

Workplace leaders often assess team member personality types — amiable, expressive, analytic, driver — and then get busy and do little with it. As I work with them and their teams, I highlight the profitable secrets they can tap.

Personality type impacts understanding and outcomes of leaders and teams. It guides you on how best to engage employees. It can make or break employee ability to thrive in organizational change.


Secrets of Personality Types:

Employee Engagement

1. Amiable personality types come alive through personal connection. If you want to tap the profit they can bring to the business, build interpersonal bonds with them. A just the facts approach makes them feel lonely and demoralized. You do not have to be their best friend yet if you skip the bonding you skip the profit. In today’s world of remote technology, remember to connect with amiable types face to face or on the phone. Video conference with remote amiable type employees for a winning solution!




2. Expressive personality types shine in and through communication. Two-way communication, a critical skill of any good leader, brings these people to full contribution. If you are fast paced, results-oriented and minimize communication, these expressive types feel shunned. You are leaving the profit by the wayside.




3. Analytic personality types function in an ordered thought process. They have much to contribute if you always allow for some ordered discussion. If you are brainstorming, take a small pause to capture the analytic’s ideas. If you are a highly creative leader, summarize your thoughts in an ordered manner after your creativity. Skip the order and you leave analytic types frustrated and the value they provide, suppressed.




4. Driver personality types crave end results and achievement. Give them the big picture, highlight critical milestones and risk factors, and then let them deliver. If you micro-manage them or ask them to have lengthy discussions on non-critical factors, they feel trapped and repressed. Although many other types dislike micro-management, driver types resent it for you are keeping them from the brass ring! They may look for a new position that gives them a real shot.

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During Times of Great Organizational Change

1. Double driver leaders intent on pushing through massive change often overwhelm the other personality types because they focus only on the results. They issue announcements instead of holding all hands meetings. They tell themselves it’s all for organizational results. Yet the methods they use are self-serving and fulfill their driver personality type needs. Ironically, they are leaving the profit of personality types untapped and results suffer.




2. Likewise, amiable type leaders can get caught up in feelings and bonding sacrificing the organizational change goal. It doesn’t have to be that way. I have seen amiable leaders use their incredible bonding skills to rally support for the change and tap everyone’s talent to make it happen.




3. Analytic type leaders may falter in organizational change if they demand too much information before making decisions. In this case, analytics do well to trust the other personality types on the team and profit from their decision skills.




4. Expressive type leaders often shine in organizational change because they are natural communicators. They must remember to engage in two-way communcation. Profit from the analytic, amiable, and driver types’ ideas by remembering to let them express!

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To engage employees and lead them in tough times of change, tap the profit in their personality types.

If instead you revel in the comfort of your own personality type, you leave the profit for the (next) adaptable leader.


Related post: GPS Your Brain to Work With Any Personality Type

From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

©2011 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. If you want to re-post or republish this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers consulting, training, DVDs, and keynotes that turn interaction obstacles into business success especially in tough times of change. See this site for workshop outlines and customer results.

Teamwork within one team is quite achievable. Cross teamwork (between teams in an organization) remains the elusive brass ring of effectiveness.

Leaders who want to break through an organization’s performance barriers find the greatest — seemingly unsolvable — obstacles in cross teamwork. Much has been studied and tested yet the obstacles persist.

For this reason, it is worthwhile to look at the issues again.

The Greatest Unsolvable Obstacles to Cross Teamwork

Perhaps listing the seemingly unsolvable obstacles here will bring new focus and insight — especially for new leaders and managers in the thick of it.

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1. Shared Goals With Greatly Opposing Pathways. We can all nod our heads and say yes this happens. Experts will chime in with facilitation techniques and processes that can resolve the differences. Wonderful. Yet when this happens in between teams in great volume, it represents a loss of performance.




2. Individual Preservation. An obstacle that surprises many is a rogue individual acting purely from self-preservation.

   An illustration: In an episode of the old television show MASH, the unit calls for ambulances to take the post-op patients away to make room for the new wounded. A corporal at HQ refuses to send the ambulances because he was told to take care of those Army resources. A general finally says to him, I can see you care about the ambulances. Why don’t you drive them up here yourself to ensure their safety! The corporal then releases the ambulances. The general identified the cross teamwork barrier – self preservation — and turned it into a solution.

   Are any team members so risk averse that they are taking actions that actually prevent cross teamwork and organizational success? The first place to look for this is in areas where leaders have stressed security, monitoring, metrics, and strict processes. Has it gone too far?




3. Too Much Change and Chaos. When high volume organizational change creates a feeling of total chaos, the results on cross teamwork can be disastrous. Each team, struggling to grasp the new direction, closes in a virtual huddle to manage the chaos. Reaching out to other teams would feel like increased chaos.

   How steep is your change curve? It might look great in strategy sessions yet if it puts the teams into preservation mode, it creates a performance barrier instead of solving one.




4. Mistaken Empowerment. Many an organization has dipped in performance as a result of mistaken empowerment. When a leader taps someone who is not ready or capable of key responsibility, many teams shut down in response to the incompetence. If it’s within a team, the leader can more easily correct the mistake. Yet when this mistake affects other teams, it affects cross teamwork and organizational performance.




5. Politics and Hidden Agendas. After a leadership strategy session, does each leader send the same message to his or her team? If leaders, consiously or subconsiously filter the strategy through their political or private agendas, the message comes out differently to each team. The obstacles to cross teamwork are enormous in this case because they may be hidden. The teams nod in agreement over stated goals yet each team is acting on the message received from its leader.

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There are other obstacles to cross teamwork including different occupational perspectives, incompatible technology, time zones, cultural differences and so forth. However, concrete steps tend to remove these barriers.

The 5 greatest obstacles noted above take root and the effects spread like weeds strangling organizational performance. They seem unsolvable even though they aren’t. Awareness, vision, commitment, courage, and action can turn it around. Who will initiate it? That’s the question.


What say you? Would you add to this list of 5? Subtract? Or do you disagree?

From my experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

©2011 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. If you want to re-post or republish this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers consulting, training, DVDs, and keynotes that turn interaction obstacles into business success especially in tough times of change. See this site for workshop outlines and customer results.

A recent Twitter chat called leadfromwithin raised a question in my mind that affects every leader and manager especially in times of change. When you attempt to inspire teams with your passion, do you scar them or ignite their greatness? 

Passion that burns others undermines the goal.

Passion that ignites others fuels success.

 

10 Ways to Ignite Greatness Without Leaving Scars

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1. Keep Your Mind Open. When your mind is open to different ways of reaching the end goal, your passion ignites the team’s ideas and greatness. If you close your mind to ideas, it scars the team’s spirit and douses their passion.




2. Establish the limits of freedom. That might seem like an oxymoron yet it is true. If there are boundaries, state them and then let innovation, creativity, and great talent surface and develop. If you pretend there are no boundaries and inflict them later, it scars the team’s work rhythm and their trust. When boundaries legitimately change, communicate them clearly.




3. Become a geyser of goodwill. The more times you communicate the positives (when they are true), the more trust and goodwill you build with the team. This goodwil builds the team’s strength to then hear the negatives with objectivity. The sum ignites greatness.




4. Be honest not blunt. Honesty that doesn’t insult catapults all to greatness. Bluntness leaves emotional scars that toughen future interactions. Classic wisdom says: Attack the idea not the I. That’s a good start. I add, “Disagree without being disagreeable.”




5. Question before feedback. Your passion for the vision or goal, will scar others if you give negative feedback before understanding their actions. You also scar your credibility and their trust in you.




6. Refine your message to critical points. Passion has the power to confuse. It causes you to leave out critical information that can ignite the team’s greatness. Exercise: Write your message as a headline and then the bullet points to support it. It is annoying when you first start. Once you know how, your communication will ignite the team’s greatness.




7. Show You Are Listening. Ever work for leaders who are so passionate that they keep blazing new trails without showing you they heard your concerns? Don’t be a listening leader who appears deaf. Dialogues ignite actionable greatness.
   
   

8. See Talent in Mistakes. A team’s greatness is harnessed through individual contributions to the same goal. Differences in talent and perspective often produce outcomes that you might see as mistakes in light of the end goal. You can also see the talent that produces those unexpected outcomes to ignite future greatness.




9. Recognize Initiative and Celebrate Learning. One uncomfortable truth about igniting greatness is that not all team members will want to be great or rise to greatness. Leaders and managers, with heart, mistakenly minimize greatness in the quest for team harmony. The good news is there’s a better way. If you recognize those who are showing more initiative and achieving greatness and also celebrate all that are learning, you preserve team harmony without sacrificing greatness.




10. What is #10? How do you make sure your passion ignites greatness without scarring others?

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From my experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

©2011 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. If you want to re-post or republish this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers consulting, training, DVDs, and keynotes on customer service, teamwork, and leading change. She turns interaction obstacles into business success in tough times of change. See this site for workshop outlines and customer results.

As The People-Skills Coach™, I have written before on steps from brutally blunt to helpfully honest. Yet for those who are inspired by logic to change behavior, it bears listing the smart logical reasons why bluntness bombs out.

5 Smart Logical Reasons Blunt Bombs Out

1. No Warm-Up. Picture your bluntness as very cold water. If we push someone into a cold swimming pool, they remember the shock. If we let them wade in, they adjust to the temperature and can function. Thus if we want people to function and use our message, we shouldn’t shock them with bluntness.




2. Punching Dulls the Brain. Punching bags are not known for their performance. They hang and swing. If we are being blunt to effect a change, those we verbally punch may swing away from us yet they are not likely to understand or change behavior.




3. Bluntness builds barriers. Communication is for connection. Bluntness can create a busy signal — a barrier — between communicator and listener. If someone isn’t listening, your message bombs out.




4. Bluntness undermines respect and credibility. The strength of the message is weakened by the rudeness of the approach. Who is going to respect and believe the message delivered by a blunt creton?




5. Bluntness breaks bonds. Unless we each live as hermits, we interact with people to survive and thrive. Many times the same people more than once. Bluntness may get our words out but bombs out by breaking the bonds with those around us. It may even create vengeful feelings and instigate a war (verbal or hidden).

Many people resort to bluntness, out of frustration, when diplomatic honesty hasn’t worked. Others simply lose patience with those of less intelligence.

Yet when we reach the end of the rope, why cut it with bluntness? Unless we need to use bluntness to save a life or prevent death, hold on to the rope!

Take a moment and tap intellect, logic, and smarts to find a way to communicate with honesty and respect.

From my experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™


Related Post: Leadership & Teamwork: Honesty May Hurt But Blunt Burns Forever

©2011 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. If you want to re-post or republish this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers consulting, training, DVDs, and keynotes on customer service, teamwork, and leading change. She turns interaction obstacles into business success in tough times of change. See this site for workshop outlines and customer results.

As The People-Skills Coach™ , I often teach others how to deal with people’s anger in the workplace. Does your boss yell sometimes? Has a team member suddenly become edgy with you? Has a customer surprised you with a yell?

If you prefer that everyone calmly communicate and never yell, you need this professional people-skill to find nirvana:

Hear the urgency before the yell.

Quite often when the boss, a teammate, or a customer yells, you have missed the urgency they were communicating before the yell.

Common leadership and teamwork beliefs encourage open honest communication without anger or yelling. Yet this requires something of both the speaker and the listener.

In the face of urgency and a listener who doesn’t hear it, it is likely someone will resort to a yell. I am not speaking about people who yell all the time. I am referring to people who suddenly yell after calmly communicating.


Do You Hear Urgency in Their Calm — Before the Yell?
If not, here are 5 ways to spot urgency and develop this professional listening skill.

1. Find urgency in the bigger picture. I was teaching a public class. The banquet room was to be setup by 7:30am so I could prepare before greeting the students. I walked in to see a room configured incorrectly and no flip charts. I calmly spoke with the hotel rep about the timeframe and ten minutes later — no change. I then said, “Fix this now!”. He quipped, “that’s good, you woke me up” and quickly fixed the problem. To him, my initial calm voice meant it wasn’t urgent. Had he looked at the bigger picture of my needing to get ready before people arrived, he would have heard the urgency in the calm.




2. Find urgency in the need to be acknowledged. Urgency is not always a deadline for action. Often people’s urgency resides in their need to be heard. Paraphrase (not parrot) what they have said. Tell them that you hear what they are saying. This simple technique prevents the yell.




3. Hear urgency in repetition. When they calmly say the same thing twice, hear their urgency and acknowledge it — before the yell.




4. Urgency lives in their lack of knowledge. Your expertise blinds you to their urgency. As they speak and your knowledge is calmly telling you “no problem”, speak up. Communicate solutions. Else get ready for a yell.




5. Hear urgency in the painful past or impending future. Many times people’s urgency comes from previous negative experiences that caused them pain or something they are anticipating. Ask great questions while people are calm to uncover their concerns — before the yell.

Bonus Tip: The more you know about people, the easier it is to prevent the yell. You learn their pet peeves, their personality types, their fears and goals, their frustrations, and how best to respond before the yell.

If you believe that people-skills and relationships are fluff, don’t expect to reach the nirvana of calm communication. It comes from knowing people!

What makes you want to yell?

What have surprising yells taught you that you can share with all of us here at Smart SenseAbilities™?

From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™™


Related Post: Why Executives Get Impatient With You

©2011 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. If you want to re-post or republish the content of this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers consulting, training, DVDs, and keynotes that turn interaction obstacles into business success especially in tough times of change. See this site for workshops outlines and customer results.

Today everyone is asking business leaders to engage employees. Fuel the passion! Business innovation requires it and long term success hinges on it. I agree that this is half the formula.

It takes two traits to be successful — passion and discipline.

Why has discipline fallen out of favor? Perhaps we are mistaking it for rigidity, dogmatism, and resistance to change. It is none of these things. It does not limit or constrain. It develops and guides.

It’s time for all leaders to fuel the passion discipline duo.

The Passion Discipline Duo

1. Passion starts the journey and discipline guides around the curves.
2. Passion generates new ideas and discipline vets the possibility against tangible reality.
3. Passion creates bonds with teammates and customers and discipline delivers the strength to bond even in tough times.
4. Passion breaks through resistance and overcomes obstacles. Discipline sustains when passion wanes.

The Passion Discipline Duo is in Jeopardy When Leaders

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Are strong in passion or in discipline and don’t honor the other — in others.

Use stressful times or times of decline as a reason to harp only on discipline.

Demand evidence too early in a new venture or ignore evidence to avoid admitting mistakes.

Allow any team member without the passion discipline duo to bully or sway the team to one trait.

Give in to the fear of either trait.

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High achievers of all types — from athletes to entrepreneurs and corporate leaders — fuel the passion discipline duo in themselves and their teams.

What actions do they take?
- Define passion and discipline with their teams

- Brainstorm and use a system to follow-through

- Give passion and discipline equal weight; celebrate both

- Keep the vision/goal always in sight of both

- Honor diverse team members and mentor their duo development


What would you add to this discussion about passion and discipline? What gets in the way of the duo? What fuels it?


From my experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach

©2011 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. If you want to re-post or republish this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

Related Post: The Weakness of Extreme Strength

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With inspiration to action, Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, turns obstacles to change into your professional success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote features, footage to view, and customer testimonials.

Leaders, who lead change well during tough times, filter out needless noise. Their experience is the filter. It enables leadership without the bullshit.

New leaders, many in middle management, face an ironic challenge. They are building experience — the filter — while trying to filter!

I feel for new leaders and consult on the great challenges they face to give their experience a boost. They deserve a just-in-time filter for needless noise when leading change.

So here it is — a guide to leadership without the bullshit. Help new leaders. Add your experience in the comments section below to strengthen this filter even further.

Image by: Leo Reynolds


10 Point Leadership Experience Booster

Leading change in tough times …

1. The status quo doesn’t really exist. Things are always changing. Don’t debate if change should occur. It is occurring. Communicate, listen, and engage the team to create success together.




2. Convert why questions to what questions to filter the noise. Questions that start with the word what generate tangible dialogue and understanding.
   Rephrase why is this happening to …

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   What conditions have changed and are feeding the need for more change?
   What are we facing in the future and how do we prepare?
   What roads can we take to get there?




3. Acknowledge the struggle don’t encourage it. Acknowledging the struggle that people have with change is helpful if you also ask them how they will get through it. Else they think it is your job to eliminate their struggle and you enable their resistance.




4. Encourage success by moving forward. Don’t confuse endless talk about the struggle with being an empathetic leader. If you want to be a caring leader make the unknown, known, by moving everyone forward sooner than later.




5. Negativity and positivity are both contagious. It’s pretty clear which one will create success. Admittedly people don’t have to be singing and smiling all the time. If they are very engaged in the change and venting some along the way, it’s natural.
   Yet constant complaining will retard progress and ignoring it is a classic mistake. The power of negativity is there even if you deny it. Call it out and note the impact of it. Identify what is needed instead.




6. Morale matters. Celebrate talents applied to the common purpose. You will see untapped potential materialize into unexpected wins. Even if your boss is a results-only person, always remember that morale impacts results. It is needed. It’s not a waste of time.




7. Perfectionism kills momentum. If you or team members suffer from the blight of perfectionism, override it with the motto make it work. It is rare that you will have all the information, optimal conditions, maximum resources, or complete understanding. When team members raise these points as reasons not to proceed, involve them in risk assessment and problem solving.




8. Personality type differences change from obstacles to advantages with simple training. To ensure that your diverse team members mesh even in tough times, hold a personality assessment workshop before the stress hits. Focus on how to adapt to behaviors and avoid using the results as labels. Make it fun and it boosts morale.




9. Hedging on difficult or necessary conversations confuses people; it doesn’t console them. Give employees the gift of being clear. Honest focused dialogue shows respect for them as adults and builds respect for you as a leader.




10. Redirect extremes into critical thinking focused on results. Tough times provoke stress and emotion that yield rigid outlooks and absolute opinions. Facilitate discussions that reawaken a realistic mindset and empower a can-do approach.

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What have you learned from needless bs at work that leaders can use to filter out future noise?

What will you add to this experience booster? What is your #11?

Thanks in advance for adding your insight here.


From my experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

©2011-2012 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. If you want to re-post or republish the content of this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers consulting, training, DVDs, and people-skills keynotes on leading change, teamwork, employee engagement, and customer service experience. She turns interaction obstacles into business success especially in tough times of change. See this site for workshops outlines and customer results.

Fill the gaps of change and diversity with business wins!

People don’t categorically dread conversations the way they dread meetings. But why? People discuss various topics at a desk, in the hallway, over lunch and feel just fine. Have the same discussions in a meeting and watch frustration rise.

So the score is conversations 10, meetings 0. Is it because conversations don’t have the expectation of agreement, decision, and progress that meetings do? Or because conversations tend to be shorter bursts of time with the option to end them at will?

Run your next meeting as bursts of conversations and conquer meeting frustration. Here’s a 3 step approach that includes some lighthearted fun.

Great Conversations Conquer Meeting Frustration

First focus on great conversations then on agreement and decisions. Mire the two together and the frustration will return.

1. For each agenda item, ask all to write a conversation topic on a card at face-to-face meetings or into an e-box at virtual meetings. Benefit: Interest, buy-in, and a chance to be heard.




2. Like speed dating, have short bursts of conversation on each topic. Facts, opinion, and respectful debate are all allowed. After the short bursts, you call for either next steps or a true decision. Do not simply continue conversation — the frustration will return.
   (Note: Use a mix of written and verbal communication to accommodate introverts and extroverts!)




3. For some lighthearted fun, pick a theme that fits your industry, organization, or team. For example, in the healthcare industry you could have the conversation cards look like a patient’s chart and discuss your meeting topics as if you were presenting a patient’s case.
   Related Resource: Business Meeting Theme Ideas at MeetingGeniusBlog.Com.

When you capture and use the positive aspects of conversation, your well planned meeting will be effective, memorable, and most importantly — not frustrating.

Yours in service,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach

©2011 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. If you want to re-post or republish, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.


Additional Resource: 25 Rules for the Perfect Brainstorm on Innovation Management blog.

What successes have you had at reducing meeting frustration? Will you share your ideas with all of us in the comment section below?

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, delivers workshops, keynotes, and consultations that turn interaction obstacles into interpersonal success. Leaders have been booking Kate for 21 years to fill the gaps of diversity with teamwork for business wins. See this site for customer results and book Kate now.

Are there people at work or in your personal life that goad and annoy you? They provoke you whether they intend to or not.

You can neutralize the personal invader, the busybody, the micro-manager, the patronizer, the idea embezzler, and those who presume.

Add these 6 great ways to your people skills (soft skills) toolkit and neutralize the effect they have on you.

Used consistently instead of emotional responses, neutral responses become your virtual do not disturb signs that don’t insult or block future communication.

6 Great Ways

1. To very personal questions:
   Silence and look of surprise.




2. To the busybody:
   “Aren’t you full of questions!”




3. To the micro-manager:
   “I’m capable.”




4. To presumptuous remarks or quips:
   “There’s an odd remark.”




5. To patronizers:
   “You must have little ones at home. I can tell.”




6. To those who state your ideas as theirs:
   “I hear an echo.” or “I am glad you agree with me.”

Neutral responses keep your cool while giving others time to realize what they have said or done to you.

To get comfortable using neutral responses, consider that:

1. Detouring to their emotional agenda is not valuable to you, your life, or your work.
2. It’s not rude to hold your own.
3. Inner peace is a gift you give yourself.

Neutral responses show inner strength and inner strength is its own billboard.

From my experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach


What responses have worked well for you in emotional moments? I hope you will share your story and voice in the comments section below.

©2011 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. If you want to re-post or republish, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, delivers workshops, keynotes, and consultations that turn interaction obstacles into interpersonal success. Leaders have been booking Kate for 21 years to turn people-skills extremes into business success. See this site for customer results and book Kate now.

Interacting with others can be carefree or treacherous depending on the situation. Using your best people-skills steers you through the tough moments. But what if you make a mistake?

It may comfort you to know that your people-skills mistakes won’t define you if …

You avoid:

1. Denying in the face of blatant evidence.  “I didn’t make a mistake.  It’s normal for people to get angry or walk away after I speak to them.” – What a fool!
2. Explaining why you acted that way.  “Here’s why I treated you badly.” - Nincompoop!
3. Repeating the same mistake.  Moments define you if you don’t learn and change. – Dummy!
4. Treating people the way you don’t want to be treated. “That’s the way people treat me and misery loves company.” – Sadist!
5. Giving lame apologies that minimize your mistakes.  Children hide. Adults own the impact of their behavior. -”Childish or Mature”: Which label do you want?
   Related post:The Words That Destroy Apologies

Great people skills are not magic or voodoo. They are outward examples of consideration for others. You use them in person, on the phone, and online.

They are the opposite of EGO = Excluding Greatness Of Heart ~Melody Lea Lamb. They build trust, collaboration, and limitless potential.

Don’t let your people-skills mistakes limit you.

From my experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach


I am planning a free people-skills webinar. Would you like to attend, submit a story, participate or help promote? Email: info@katenasser.com

©2011 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. If you want to re-post or republish, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach,, delivers workshops, keynotes, and consultations that turn interaction obstacles into interpersonal success. Leaders have been booking Kate for 21 years to turn people-skills extremes into business success. See this site for customer results and book Kate now.

The impression you make on others impacts the outcome.  The impression others make on you impacts what you will achieve together.  This is the world of people-skills.  What impression do you make? Is it the one you want?

A recent first time face-to-face meeting with a contact left me surprisingly annoyed.  He was a visual communicator. He drew everything he said.  His focus was on the drawing.  He drew at me instead of communicating with me.

The impression he made was isolated and professorial.  Yet, we met to network and explore business possibilities.  The outcome? Very little since he stayed in his own world of visuals.

There is nothing inherently wrong with using visuals.  They clarify when words can’t.   They expand understanding beyond the details.

Yet if you surrender your impression (especially your first impression) to any one aspect of your natural style, the end result may not be what you want or need.

Extremes separate you from the rest.

They can get you noticed or isolated.

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This is the world of people-skills.
What’s your impression?

When you are online, do your short messages come across as marching orders or effectively concise human connections ? When you are on the phone, does your personality come through? Do you know what impression you make?

Driver personality types achieve results yet can turn people off because they sound like they are issuing orders.

Amiable personality types build connections yet can leave people confused about the message.

Expressives leave no doubt about the message but can strain people’s patience by talking too much.

Analytics draw people in with logic but can lose them by leaving the main point until the end.

Moderating extremes to better connect with others is the world of people-skills. What’s your impression? It’s yours to develop.

Want to learn more about how to adapt? Watch GPS Your People-Skills to Work with Any Personality Type (short video).

From my experience to your success,

Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach

©2011 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. If you want to re-post or republish, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, delivers workshops, keynotes, and consultations that turn interaction obstacles into interpersonal success. Leaders have been booking Kate for 21 years to turn people-skills extremes into business success. See this site for customer results and book Kate now.

Corporate and business labels come in all forms — job titles, organizational units, processes, functions, acronyms, and so forth. Labels clarify, organize, and communicate. Labels can also limit development, possibilities, and empowerment. The leadership challenge is leading beyond the labels.

Labels can speed communication and understanding. Can you imagine the frustration of having to repeatedly describe in detail something that could be said with one label that everyone quickly grasps? Ironically, that same label can shut down listening, questioning, discussing, and innovating — if you let it.

Leading Beyond the Labels

1. Ask yourself: Are you and/or your teams using labels to limit or to explore? Listen carefully for instances of building boundaries out of labels. Spotting this trend early and correcting can reduce engrained change resistance.
2. Check for “should” and “only” in your mind and in your words. One of the easiest ways to spot labeling to limit is to ask yourselves are you thinking/saying limiting thoughts as you use a label. This team member is only a _________ (job title/label). This step should be done by _________ (department/label).
3. What’s the risk of not limiting vs. limiting? Leadership requires assessing risks. If the risks of not limiting are great, you will likely go with labeling to limit to minimize risk. Else, avoid it.
4. Labeling people, even positively, builds more limits than talents. Counteract this effect with cross-teamwork, developmental assignments, and team building activities that explore beyond the labels.

Labels are alluring to many. They make things clear, tangible, — and comfortable. Hence the true danger. Don’t accept this comfort. Question it. Challenge it. Counteract it. Succeed by leading beyond the labels.


What would you add to this list to limit the limiting effects of labels? I welcome your thoughts in the comments field below. Add your voice!

From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

©2011 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. For permission to re-post or republish the content of this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, turns interaction obstacles into business success. Now in 23rd year of business, Kate delivers coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on leading change, customer service, customer experience, and teamwork. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.

Great speakers and writers know the power of words. The right words can excite, engage, and entertain. They can paint images, spur debate, and chart new directions.

The right words, however, cannot get beyond a listening boundary we create ourselves. In my teaching, consulting, and blogging, I have seen one pesky listening boundary recur across diverse audiences.

Previous experience traps words in one context & blocks listening.

What Words Trigger a Listening Boundary?
We may never know exactly which words will trap us in a listening boundary. We ready ourselves to swim beyond a boundary by knowing when words trap our listening.

1. When we already have strong feeling, emotion, or opinion. In my customer service workshops, the word paraphrase often stops people from listening to what I mean by that word. They picture the horrible experience of agents reading from a script parroting each thing they say. This of course is not paraphrasing. Yet their previous experience temporarily blocks listening.




2. When we have had intense or rigid occupational training. There are some professions where certification or licensing drill people into fixed ways of thinking. Good for performance in that profession; bad for listening and interacting beyond that boundary.




3. When we crave control. Cravings take over mind and body and block listening. Oddly enough, craving control destroys any chance of having control. Without input, our current knowledge becomes outdated or invalid. Listening is the path to continued understanding and success.




4. When we are impatient for results and closure. Time pressures, personality type, fear of failure breed impatience and create a listening boundary.

Listening Beyond the Boundary
Question, digest, and absorb.

1. Replace fear of looking ignorant with strength from active listening.

2. Postpone persuading until you know the field of sway.

3. Consider the context of the communicator before hawking your context.

4. Leave room for various meanings. Language is not a science.

Shall we start a list of common words that trap us in a listening boundary? Or will you share below some other conditions that spawn listening boundaries? I welcome your contributions to this post in the comments section below.

©2011 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. For permission to re-post or republish, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, has amassed 21 years of stellar results with corporate customers turning interpersonal obstacles into business success. Her energy is legendary, her insight objective, and her results tangible. See this site for info about her keynotes, workshops, and dvds.

Most leaders address tangible gaps that block success – gaps in resources, raw materials, knowledge, distribution mechanisms and the like.  Many have also learned to address generational and cultural gaps to ensure global success.

Great leaders mind the energy gap as well. They enable and empower team members to bridge the energy gap and plug into success.

The energy gap between team members can build walls, interrupt the flow of teamwork, and detour the team from its mission.  Great leaders see this as a true and tangible barrier.

They mind this interpersonal energy gap and teach team members how to convert it to a powerful connection.

Interpersonal Energy Gap

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Example #1
Team members who work harder or less hard than other team members yet all produce substantially the same results

The barrier to success: Teamwork and morale can falter if team members mistake energy levels for results. They begin to label the harder workers as inefficient and those that work less hard as lazy.

Great leaders focus on results.  They teach team members to work together to analyze inefficiencies, improve processes, and share talents for maximum success.  They spot team members who are capable of greater responsibility and guide them to collaborate and do more.

Distributed (virtual) teams embrace this end result focus early on because they are working from different locations and sometimes different time zones. The distance compels them to address issues of responsiveness, timeliness, and efficiency to deliver on the mission.

Great leaders remind shared workplace teams to address these issues instead of labeling the behaviors and detouring success.

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Example #2
High energy emotional temperaments interacting with more even paced dispositions

The barrier to success: Communication can falter when team members infer intention, intelligence, and/or ability just from the others’ temperament.

Great leaders see energy and emotion differences as natural. A team is a microcosm of the human population. They teach team members to assess contributions with tangible evidence not by inferences about others’ disposition. Great leaders respect the differences and find the fit.

Team building exercises can transform a team to work well with different personality styles. In these exercises, they learn to interpret emotion levels appropriately, understand the value of each temperament, and use the differences to fill their own talent gaps.

Here is a short video to illustrate: GPS Your Team to Work With Different Personality Types.

How well do your teams address these energy gaps? Do they know how to mind the gap and turn it into a powerful connection? Ask them … and let me know!

Yours in service,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach

©2011 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. For permission to re-post or republish, please email info@katenasser.com.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, is well respected for her results in turning interpersonal obstacles into interaction success in leadership, teamwork, and customer service. See this site for keynote topics, workshop outlines, and customer feedback.

As a corporate leader or a team member, you are hired for your strengths. There are even established respected programs like Marcus Buckingham’s Now Discover Your Strengths to help you identify and hone them and those of your team.

Yet for true corporate and business success, discover and develop the strength of balance.

The strengths that are your extremes deliver current success. They become a great risk in times of change when those strengths no longer serve the business.  Ever wonder why businesses that initiate major change also initiate or experience turnover?  The leaders and their teams cannot adapt.  They did not develop counter strengths.  They do not have the strength that comes from balance.

The strength of balance gives you long term success with lower risk.  It is not however without cost.   You must spend time and effort to learn counter strengths while working on and enjoying current success.

Very successful people always do this to prepare for the future.


Now Develop Their Strength of Balance!

If you are great technically, discover and develop your people skills.

If you are generally an interactive listener, learn how to listen to introverts.

If you are quiet, practice expressing.

If you are a team member, discover your leadership skills.

If you are a tough practical leader, learn how to inspire.  If you are a soft-hearted leader, learn how to assert.

If you are a big picture person, develop some attention to details.

If you are a speaker, learn how to write.

If you are a creative thinker, develop critical thinking.


If you work with those your own age, learn about other generations.

If you are mono-cultural, discover other worlds.

If you are very stressed out, change something to reduce the tension.  You need the energy to prepare for the future!


What do you think? Can you and your team members always stretch and grow to stay vital in the face of any change? Or is it a waste of time? Some claim it is the same as trying to turn an eagle into a dove. What say you?

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach works extensively with technical organizations on thriving in change, masterful teamwork, and memorable customer service. See this site for more information.