Personality types – adjusting your style…

Grant Leboff: Micheal, one of the things you talk about in the book is in a client situation or interview situation is playing to the particular personality type you’re with, because of course different answers resonate with different people in different ways. How do you start to cultivate answers for different personality types?

Michael Dodd: Well you always want to find out if you can what is the personality type you’re dealing with. Very simply, are they introvert or extrovert? Are they people orientated or task orientated? In business, the top of business you often get people who are task orientated extroverts. They could be Donald Trump, it could be Allen Sugar. In politics, it could be Margaret Thatcher. These people will typically want short sharp direct stuff because they’re kind of no nonsense people or that’s how they like to project themselves even if they occasionally talk nonsense themselves. They want stuff that’s direct and to the point.

If you take a task orientated introvert much more likely to be a numbers person, maybe a typical stereotypical accountant or engineer. They will want more detail than the other person. If you take Bill Gates for example, if you’re talking to him or if we go to politics perhaps Gordon Brown would be an example of someone there who has been in Britain – the Chancellor of the Exchequer – a numbers person who became Prime Minister.

They want more detail, they often want specific numbers and things like that. You need to be aware that they’ll want more detail than the more typical brash to the point business people. If you can craft answers that actually hit the right spots for that particular personality type, you are getting your message across so much more effectively.

Grant Leboff: Obviously there’s a customer that you know well, or something like that then you can work this out in advance. Are there any indicators if you don’t know someone? Maybe it’s a prospect who you’ve never met before. If it’s someone you don’t know are there any indicators that it’s easy to pick up on in those first sort of few minutes of meeting someone to start to understand what type of person they may be?

Michael Dodd: Yeah, you don’t really need to be too analytical about it. But it is typically you want to have a preliminary chat and in that you are thinking, yes this person likes detail. This person likes short sharp punchy to the point. That will guide you, the book does give certain classifications and draws on a couple of really good experts in the field of some classifying personalities. You don’t need to do a full Meyers Briggs analysis on them. But if you can very quickly pick up, this person likes detail, this person likes to the point solutions very quickly. Make sure that you’re framing your answers that actually hit the right spots for that particular individual.

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