Month: July 2016

Do you know what personality type you fall into?  Have you ever tried to classify who you are, what motivates you or aggravates you, what job might suit you best?

For a manager, it’s a good thing to know about yourself, but even more important is having that information about your staff.  In fact, it’s vital to running a successful company.

Ensuring you have the right personalities in your business is as important as having the right skills and experience – and has to be a consideration at recruitment stage.

It’s no good having a business full of creative, idea-generators if there’s no-one with a logical and practical personality to think about the workability of their grand ideas.

And you can’t cram a team full of studious introverts who are great at getting the work done but won’t say boo to a goose, because who’s going to go out and network and sell your product or service?

To have a profitable and successful business, you have to get the mix just right.

Placing the right people in the right position can make or break a company, whether it’s a receptionist with a sunny disposition who is unflappable and able to multi-task or a gregarious salesperson with an uncanny knack of reading people and situations.

Finding someone with the right personality traits has to be high on the list when searching for fresh talent.

Some managers are brilliant at personality profiling, simply from having a conversation with someone.  If you find that more difficult, you might want to consider psychometric testing as part of your interview process.

It can help determine whether a person is suited to their role, who they would work best with, how you can motivate them to achieve their potential and how you can develop them within the company.

If you haven’t recruited with personality in mind, it could be the reason you’re experiencing staff tensions, which can lead to operational dysfunction.

The good news is, it’s never too late! Personality profiling can be a really useful team building exercise.  Take an afternoon out and get your workforce taking the Briggs Myers test, or DISC profiling.

Learning more about what makes each other tick could help resolve existing issues, and prevent future friction.

You might find it even leads to a staff re-shuffle, matching the right people with the right tasks and teams according to their personality could have a huge, positive impact on your productivity.

If you would like further advice and guidance on recruitment issues, or successfully managing a team, call ETC and book a free business review.

Managing staff is definitely not a one size fits all.  Knowing how to manage different personalities is a skill managers need to grasp if their business is to really flourish.

You may have pulled together an amazing team, recruiting individuals that suit their specific role to a tee, but unless you know how to draw the best out of each one of them, and get the different personalities working together, it can still be a recipe for disaster.

What motivates one person may have another running for the hills, and asking two clashing personalities to work together can disrupt your whole operation!

This is why it’s so important to understand what makes your staff tick, and work that to your advantage so the mix of personalities benefit, not bankrupt the company.

Take the two opposing ends of the scale, extroverts and introverts, for example.

An extrovert might be comfortable expressing their views and offering suggestions in an open forum or meeting, but an introvert certainly wouldn’t.  So, if this is the only means staff have to put forward opinions and ideas, you could be missing out on some really important input from the less outspoken members of the team.

An extrovert would probably thrive on being centre of attention if acknowledged publically for some great work, but this could negatively impact an introvert’s confidence and productivity.  They may give a little less, for fear of being embarrassed again with a public commendation.

Can you see how, on a daily basis, the way you interact with and manage staff can have a huge impact on morale and productivity?

It’s a tricky area.  People are complex beings.  Even their different moods can alter how they might react to a situation from day to day.

Whether you use formal profiling, or just pay close attention to your team members as you work together, to successfully manage you need to be aware of personalities and know how to act and react appropriately with them.

If you fail to correctly tailor your management practices with individual personalities in mind, you may find yourself struggling with a high staff turnover, or a disgruntled and under-performing team.

ETC’s business growth and mentoring programmes include expert advice and training on all aspects of leadership and management. For further advice and guidance on getting the most out of your workforce, call Doug on 01384 355444 and book a free business review.