Which Comes First: Let's Do It, Or Let's Think It Through?

from the desk of Ron Sukenick

I've been a personal and business coach for almost three decades, teaching and preaching the power of networking all of that time. But it was the Ultimate Discovery System that helped me uncover secrets that pulled together everything I'd observed from all those years watching and working with people. If you think about it, anything that helps you discover more about your own personality style and about the personality styles of other people, is likely to help you talk to them in a productive and satisfying way. (You know how, when you visit an optometrist and you're looking into the machine that tests different lenses? Suddenly, when the right lens appears - Wow! Everything that's been blurry is now, in one instant, made clear. That's how it felt for me to be given a key to understanding other people's behavior and, even more important, my own.)

To give you an idea of how learning about the Four Main Personality Types can take all your relationships to the next level, imagine there's an important and exciting project going on. There are four people discussing the project and how it should be approached.

The D type is saying "Get it done!" and "Let's Make It Happen!"

The I type is saying "This is so exciting! Think about all the recognition we'll get!"

The S type is neutral, wanting to avoid conflict, ready to support the others, and hoping all the team members will get along with each other.

The C type is saying "What's our plan? Let's be sure to do this right and not rush into things."

Do you recognize yourself in any of these "thumbnail" descriptions of the team members? Can you see how valuable it would be, if you were the one trying to sell everyone else on moving forward with this project, for you to be sensitive to each person's way of approaching the idea? All of us do our very best work when we are made to feel comfortable and valued. Learning this new "language" of the personality types can help develop the relationships that make things happen for everybody.

Which comes first? They all can! Once you move beyond networking to really connecting and creating relationships, why you can do it AND think it through!