[Class Title]
1. Identify to the best of your ability, the social style of the other person in relationship, providing concrete examples of his/her behavior that support your conclusions about his/her personal style.
One of my remarkable personal experiences with social styles was when I was working as a sales assistant in a retail store. I believe my partner, whose name is Paul, possess an analytical social style. There’s only two of us in our department and so it is impossible not to notice the social styles of one another. My partner, Paul, for instance, is quite reserved. He does not talk much and I reckon he is one of those individuals having the analytic social type or personality. Because of his reserved personality, I find it hard to decipher Paul’s emotions. I could not tell, for instance, if he is angry or happy or satisfied. Paul, for example, would only answer customer’s questions directly, but he does not engage in proactive selling. Another example why I think Paul is analytical is because he enjoys making reports and is very particular with details. However, Paul is slow in making decisions. Like for example when a customer return an item because of some deffects, Paul does not do it right away. He always asks a lot of questions before replacing an item back.
(Word Count: 189)
2. Explain how your social style and and your verstility – or lack thereof – contributed to making this a sub-optimal relationship, providing concrete examples that support your conclusions.
Unlike Paul, I see myself more as the expressive type. One of the concrete examples as to why I believe I have an expressive social style is because I enjoy talking to customers and is full of energy. I also like to express my opinion and enjoy new ideas. Even if I’m not at work, I love to try new things and go out on new adventures. Most people see me as confident and self assured. Most likely, they perceive me as such because I can be forceful at times, especially when I am trying to express myself or when I am trying to achieve something. Although Paul and I did not really reach a point wherein we quarrel, working together was a struggle for both of us. And since every month we are expected to reach our sales target, our conflicting differences hinder us from reaching this goal. As an expressive and assertive person, I find Paul’s reserved personality as quite disturbing and, most often, irritating. In my opinion, his inability to express himself hinders our effectiveness as a team. Another thing that I disapprove most about him is his propensity to follow directives by the book. He often does not share my new ideas on sales strategies and is slow in making decisions.
(Word Count: 215)
3. Identify tactics you could have used to manage your social style and the social style of your of counterpart more productively.
I observed that Paul is more comfortable working all by himself and I cannot force him on my ways. And since I am the one who is more self-assured, I believe I should be the one who needs to adjust to Paul’s social style. There were several things that I did in order to adjust to Paul’s social style. For example, since Paul is good with details, I let him do the paper works while I focus more on entertaining customers. I also deduced that Paul’s conservative personality is due to the fact that Paul is afraid to commit mistakes. And so as not to place more pressure on him, I often make the decision making, but I see to it that I always ask his opinion. I found that by controlling my assertiveness, Paul and I can work together at a common pace. After several months of working together, I noticed that we can patch our differences by complementing the weaknesses of each other. Paul, for instance, balances my impulsiveness by his cautious attitude while I make up for his introvert attitude with my cheerful and energetic composure.
(Word Count: 189)
(Total Word Count: 593)
