Every individual on your work team has a different personality. Each different personality type will have a different way of reacting to a situation. While it may be difficult to predict just how each individual you work with will behave on a regular basis you can learn about the four main behavioural categories.

There are four categories, and four only, that each person’s behaviour will fall into at any given point in time. A person determines how he will act in only one of 4 ways, and rarely even knows the choice is occuring – it’s subconscious. The four categories are as follows:

• Automatic
• Back-up
• Creative
• New Capabilities

Automatic behavious are habits people have created throughout their lifetimes. They’re comfortable with them and rarely stray from their usual attitudes and actions.

Everyone, on the other hand, has a back-up plan – a repertoire of behaviours we turn to when our normal behaviours aren’t compatible with a given situation. For example, the class clown will automatically adapt his behaviour in a serious business meeting or while attending a funeral.

The creative personality isn’t as creative as you might think. It’s a person’s ability to adapt the behaviours he has already established, combining them in a different way for a unique result or pattern of actions.

Finally, everyone has the ability to learn new behaviours, whether in a formal setting or subconsciously from being around others.

Now that you know a little bit about the four categories of behaviour, and how one chooses his actions, can you look at each of your employees and pinpont which category each currently falls into? Are there things you should do to modify their current behaviours? And should you even bother?

Thanks again,
Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Training

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