Other awareness: Engage effectively with your team

- People don't come with a user manual but wouldn't it be great if they did? Well, once you know how you prefer to engage with others, you can then start to figure out the rest of your team and how to engage with them based on their style. This is what's called social perceptiveness, the capacity to recognize what others expect in social situations. So let's look at how to do this to build trust, foster rapport and create a positive culture. First, we have to identify our teammates engagement styles. It's not a precise science but people often reveal their preferred style through how they communicate and engage with us. Think of it as the four Fs. If someone is goal-oriented, you'll often hear them speaking about facts, focused on what's next in achieving goals. Those who are task driven often focus on form. They're interested in action plans. They use to-do lists and they might be the only punctual one to team meetings. Those who are vision-driven often talk about the future. They might talk about what's possible or enjoy creative brainstorming about future projects and those who are people oriented tend to connect with feeling. They might spend extra time sharing a customer story or checking in with you about how your sick grandmother is doing. Once you have an idea about the preferred style of your team members, engage in a way that's aligned with their preferences. For a goal-driven team member, avoid fluffy conversations. Share facts to substantiate ideas. Here is what we know or our objective is. When engaging with those who are task driven, share details and specifics. Give them the structure they crave. Here are the next steps, or here are our deadlines. Create an agenda and stick to it. For those who are vision driven, say things like, imagine if, here's how this fits in with the big picture. Give them the opportunity to engage in blue sky thinking to innovate and be creative. And for those who are people oriented, ask how does that feel to you? Have we considered everyone who's impacted? Check in with them. Give them the opportunity to openly share and to feel heard. Importantly, we need to make sure we're not categorizing or labeling people. We're simply using insights from research to help us better connect. Plus, we're helping to create environments where our team members feel heard, which builds trust and deepens relationships. Now, there will be times when you don't know the style of your team. Maybe you're invited to present a business update to the entire department. What do you do? Appeal to all styles. Share objectives, share next steps and deadlines. Share how it fits into the strategy and the big picture and share customer stories or employee verbatim feedback. This ensures that you're delivering a powerful message that's appealing to every possible style. If you can accurately perceive others' preferences, you'll be seen as more cooperative and people will want you on their teams. And if you can adjust your behavior and style to suit who you're speaking with, it will help you establish yourself as a top team player with influence. Go ahead and download the Exercise files to help you map out the styles to your team and learn some simple techniques to transform how you engage and connect. Next up, you'll learn how to preserve the one thing you never want to lose with your teammates.