By Gavan Podbury
Our parents were motivated to help us when they advised this ‘golden rule’: “You will get on better with others if you treat them the same as you want to be treated.”
The fact is, it doesn’t work most of the time. That is because it assumes people are more or less the same when the reality – as we all know yet constantly ignore – is people are just so different.
Managers who believe the glorious myth contained within this golden rule mostly only have themselves to blame when it does not work when dealing with difficult people in the workplace.
A key to handling difficult workplace behaviours is to identify what motivates individuals, and this is easily done if you know something about how to get a quick fix on someone’s temperament.
Temperament is the ‘magic ingredient’ of understanding why people are likely to say and do certain things, including what is likely to get people upset or angry. If you know something about a person’s temperament, it is so much easier to resolve problems, to motivate them. It is also been proven to be extremely powerful in helping teams achieve excellence because the individual team members have a genuine understanding of those with whom they are working.
Underscoring all this is having the insight to throw out the golden rule and replace it with the ‘platinum rule’: this means we start giving instructions and responding to people according to their temperament. Try this approach and watch how fast things can turn around. Read More>>
Read the full report: Unearthing the magic ingredient [PDF]
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