Business Chemistry – What’s Your Work Style?

Business Chemistry – What’s Your Work Style?

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Business Chemistry^® – The hidden magic in forming business relationships
Think about a time where you were paired with another leader or team member and working together just naturally clicked… ideas naturally flowed and communication was easy. Now think about a time where a team was created and the team just couldn’t seem to align or make decisions that where honored by all team members or the team got stuck in the weeds of the details around the decisions they were making.

Believe it or not both scenarios have something very powerful in common: Business Chemistry. Business Chemistry is a powerful concept that represents that magical something between two or more working professionals. It’s what makes people click or clash. In the first scenario, you had complementary work styles. In the second scenario the team had work styles that prevented alignment and rapid decision making. Both scenarios relied heavily on communication to move forward… one was successful and the other was a difficult go and fumbled often.

An Analytics driven tool to help form more powerful teams
Deloitte Greenhouse^TM has intensely explored this area – 10 years to be exact. They wanted to develop a more scientific view on the art of relationships and what makes people and teams click or clash. It is not a personality assessment but more of an analytics-driven tool that helps you understand your work style, your co-workers work style, and build healthier teams which have healthier outcomes.

Business Chemistry Work Styles
The business chemistry work styles were created to help people remember and also observe a bit more easier… there are plenty of personality assessments but most people do not remember what the outcome of the assessment was and how to apply it.

Pioneers value possibilities and they spark energy and imagination. They’re outgoing, spontaneous, and adaptable. They’re creative thinkers who believe big risks can bring great things.

Guardians value stability and they bring order and rigor. They’re practical, detail-oriented, and reserved. They’re deliverate decision-makers apt to stick with the status quo.

Drivers value challenge and they generate momentum. They’re technical, quantitative, and logical. They’re direct in their approach to people and problems.

Integrators value connection and they draw teams together. They’re empathetic, diplomatic, and relationship oriented. They’re attuned to nuance, seeing shades of grey rather than black and white.

Each work style is your personality manifesting in a business setting. It’s how you process information, make decisions, connect with people and a multitude of other facets that reflect your unique perspective. Most people have a little of each work style – with two of the four work styles being more dominant. Sometimes you are a blend of two work styles – I am a Pioneer Driver (PD). I drive Guardians nutty when the Pioneer comes out and I drive Integrators nutty when the Driver in me comes out. Knowing this helps me adjust my working style to my co-workers so that we can achieve a more powerful working relationship. It helps me become a more powerful coach and leader.

People often see these differences in work styles as noise to be tolerated rather than clues to be understood, appreciated and leveraged. Team members need to learn how to have empathy for someone who has a different work style – look at things from a different perspective and begin to build powerful working relationships. Leaders can create more powerful teams by ensuring they have a balanced team instead of a team of one dominant work style.

In the name of empathy-building, Deloitte Greenhouse^TM has managed create a free 20Q hunch tool to help people quickly identify someone’s work style – they call these hunches – and understand how it’s different from or similar to their own, and then to act on that knowledge by flexing their own style relative to the other person.

In other words, they will treat others as the way their co-worker (or leader) wants to be treated. That’s the power – adjust your work style/ the way you communicate to the other person’s work style/ way they communicate. You’ll form stronger bonds and stronger teams.

As for the teams that I coach, I usually share this early on in the forming stage of a team. It just simply helps open the door to conversations and also bring empathy amongst the team members and their leaders up to a higher level.

Want to explore more around this topic – hop over to Deloitte – Business Chemistry^®: 4 Work Styles. There is a free 20Q hunch tool as well as great examples and videos about this this topic.

Do you recognize yourself or your colleagues in any of these work style descriptions?

Never stop exploring this world called “Agile”!