lifo method and lifo styles leadership styles · lifo ® learning style concepts will show you how...

Copyright: Dr. Reiner Czichos,

LIFO® Method and LIFO® Styles

Leadership Styles

Dr. Reiner Czichos

copyright: Dr. Reiner Czichos 2

Some food for thought …

Have you ever wondered how you can take advantage of all the learning opportunities that you encounter in all aspects of your life? Do you wonder why it is so easy for you to learn in some situations and hard in others? Would you like to know why it so easy to teach and influence some people and so difficult with others?

There are some aspects of learning that appear to be predictable and universal, regard-less of innate talents. We have learned more about learning! This workbook and The LIFO® Learning Style Concepts will show you how your individual approach to learning can significantly affect what you learn and the learning of those you wish to influence. Once you and others are aware of these factors, changes can be made to help you learn more readily.

Let us first describe the generic LIFO® Styles before see them as Learning Styles. We start by zero.

Each of us develops his/her specific LIFO® Style

We are all “programmed”. We can recognize our programs ourselves and adjust to them. In the same way, we can recognize our conversation partners’ programs and ad-just our communication strategies accordingly.

“Programs”/Patterns I adopt “programs” from IT terminology to illustrate that our individual behavior is not random. There are people that pretend to know that our behavior is even genetically programmed. Even if that is not true we are programmed by the way our parents raise us and how school educates us. We are influenced by our peers and our socialization in different roles as our lives progress. Parents, relatives, siblings, friends, teachers, boss-es, partners… they all teach us what is right and what is wrong. We are “rewarded” for right behavior and “punished” for wrong behavior. In that way we learn and get used to individually specific behavior patterns.


This picture represents a rather negative image of “education.” We are restricted by education and the way we are raised. Imagine that the circle is you as a newborn baby. The arrows symbolize attempts at “programming” you. There are many, manifold ef-forts at programming you and, as a result, you become the polygon within the circle. Let´s have a closer look at patterning. See how parents can program our individual learning style …

Most children are curious. They look around them, explore little changes in their envi-ronment, they want to expand more of their experience. Some parents encourage it, make games for new experiences and stimulate it. Some parents are concerned about going into unknown territories, restrict curious efforts, even impart “terror stories” to restrict it.

Consider what happens when a child asks a question:

Supporting/Giving parent: “I’m glad you asked me. Let me tell you what I know and suggest some other places to find out more.”

Controlling/Taking parent: “You know where you can find answers. Go look them up.”

Controlling/Holding parent: “There are lots of things to consider. Let’s list them and then see how we can find answers.”

Aadapting/dealing parent: “Wow- you’ve been really thinking hard. That’s so good to see. Let’s imagine how we could find out.” … and makes up a kind of guessing game.

If such experiences are repeated often enough then certain kind of learning styles can be anticipated.

A too simplistic image of people?

We all have more or less solidified, discernible patterns of behavior. But: We could de-velop a much greater behavioral flexibility if we had been encouraged – or were encour-aged now – to do so. Only later in life, when we become aware of this possibility, do many of us start working on becoming the person that we are or wish to be. “Become who I am!” What beautiful paradox! Is it just a play on words? Or a claim that some-thing like a fixed, “actual” personality exists? It is not true that, as many people claim, people are completely different in their person-al lives than they are at work. If you believe that, you should not believe yourself. We are not completely flexible in our behavior. We all have discernible behavioral patterns. However, we probably show and/or activate different parts of our profile and behaviors, different elements from our repertoire of styles, when faced with different (social) situa-tions. We have learned that we have to display a certain kind of behavior at work, and that we are allowed to behave completely differently at home. But these different ways of behaving belong into your personal behavioral repertoire. We can illustrate them all in a LIFO® Style Profile. Even children of the same parents, who have grown up in the same family, under the same social circumstances, develop discernibly different but stable style-profiles. With many – most? — people we can observe that, as they get older, behavioral patterns be-come increasingly pronounced and solidify. And these patterns can be activated, once we have recognized them in ourselves or in a partner. In the NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) lingo: Certain behaviors, entire


behavioral programs, are anchored, and we can “launch” those anchors and trigger the behavior at the push of a button, so to speak. You could even be led to believe that it is possible to predict people’s behavior if they are confronted with certain situations and stimuli: Stimulus and reaction are usually closely tied together. Like the bull that reacts to the movement of the red cloth or the dog that reacts to the smell of food. Indeed: Do you not know exactly how to push some of your friends’ buttons? What to say and do to get a reaction out of them? And, honestly, do you not sometimes enjoy waving the red cloth in their faces? This is power over others, right? These automatic reactions function almost like the congenital triggering mechanisms that behavioral science describes. This might make you think of behavioral disorders like, for example, a homemaker who cleans obsessive-compulsively. Every time some-one has walked across a carpet, that carpet needs to be vacuumed immediately. But you could also consider the following example: How many millions of people sit down in front of their TVs at the same time every day to watch the news or a favorite program? I almost automatically think of an example from my own life: If someone wants something from me, wants to goad me into doing something, he or she only needs to appeal to my motives, “being popular” and “making everybody happy.” Then I often react almost im-mediately. I respond to their request without thinking. Only afterwards do I realize what has happened.

The Value Foundation

Values are the foundation of all our thinking and behavior. We grow up in a home that is characterized by values (“bad” values are also values). No matter in what kind of tradi-tional or modern form of family we grow up, we are shaped by it. In addition, peer groups “determine” what we consider important and what we are to think and do, and play an important role in shaping our values. I have already drawn on the analogy of the water lily in one of my previous books pub-lished in Germany, “Changemanagement.”

The parts of the plant that are anchored deeply in the soil of the pond represent the val-ues that are anchored deep inside of us. The lengths of the water lily’s twigs and the water level determine the radius in which the leaves can float. Consider the leaves as representing the behavior that we permit ourselves, behaviors we have learned. The twigs are the social norms that tell us what behavior is socially accepted and what is not. Those who trespass against norms are punished if they are caught, possibly even in court. Values and norms determine our behavior. The transaction analysis (TA) by Eric Berne also assumes that we are driven by deeply ingrained programs. It is as if our parents are constantly talking to us. I have collected some of these never-ending tapes we play in our heads and organized them according to the LIFO® Styles.


LIFO®-styles and the TA-tapes

Supporting/Giving away Be nice!

Be a good person! You have to help others!

You have to set high standards for yourself and others!

If something goes wrong it is your fault!

You have to sacrifice yourself for the cause and for other

people!

Adapting/Dealing away with

Make sure that everybody loves you!

Make everybody happy! Seek the spotlight!

Be charming! Life is supposed to be fun!

Why make final decisions and commit yourself!?

Conserving/Holding on Be 100% perfect!

You can’t make any mistakes! Even the smallest details are

important! Completely immerse yourself

in the subject! Organization is the most im-

portant thing in life! Life is serious!

Beware of people having fun !

Controlling/Taking over You always have to be first!

Success is the only thing that counts in life!

Keep your chin up! You can do it!

Only you can do it! If someone hits you, hit back im-

mediately!

An example to show how values can hinder or prevent learning: I introduced Mindmap-ping (See Tony Buzan, Use Your Head) at a seminar for the support staff of a small soft-ware company, and presented it as a notation technique which could be used in conver-sations with clients, as well as while talking on the phone. Some of the participants im-mediately responded to this and saw the advantages of using Mindmapping. They seemed to enjoy using the technique and being allowed to creatively take notes. It seemed as if a censorship barrier had been lifted. But one of the group members resist-ed vehemently. He argued it was impossible to use Mindmapping while talking to cli-ents, that it was “chaotic” and unorganized, and that no one would be able to read it. It did not help when I told him that I have been using Mindmapping for almost 20 years, and that thousands of people have been successful with it. He simply insisted that it did not work. I asked him how he had reached this conclusion and he replied: “Notes have to be cor-rect, organized and structured.” To me, this represented an obvious, firm values and belief system. Correct, organized and structured. You as a trainer/coach/teacher can-not simply dispense with values like that and replace them with others. They are too deeply ingrained, the result of decades of “programming.” This person felt that these values had served him well for decades, and that he had been very successful in using them. Can such deeply rooted beliefs be removed? I have been practicing and training NLP for about 20 years. Maybe I am just not good enough at it, but I have come to be-lieve that a value change cannot be “undertaken” within only a few minutes; it takes a very long time. There are other places more suited to discussing this than this book. Instead, here are, first of all, the four “programs” we borrow from transaction analysis. Transaction analy-


sis experts certainly would do a much better job at describing them; please refer to the literature on transaction analysis if you are interested in finding out more about it.

The Four LIFO®-styles

Of course it is not possible to pigeonhole anyone and reduce people to a single style. However, you should still familiarize yourself with the basic forms of the individual styles, so that you will better be able to recognize them in everyday life and to make sure to choose the appropriate way of communication with people using different styles than you.

A (very) brief summary of style characteristics

Supporting/Giving Values

Excellence Amiable

Value-oriented persons aim for “ex-cellence” and set high standards for

themselves and for others. They tend to help others.

When they make excessive use of the style, they let others exploit

them. They sacrifice their own goals and tasks in the name of a higher

cause or to help others.

Adapting/Dealing Harmony Initiative

Expressive

Harmony-oriented persons need

other people, want to have fun and arguments, and do not want to get bored. They like to be unconven-

tional and spontaneous, and rely on their ability to be charming. They like to bring people (and things)

together, no matter how different they are.

When they excessively use their

style, they seem to want to harmo-nize things, agree to even uncom-

fortable compromises, if that helps them remain friends with others.

Conserving/Holding Reason

Structure Analytical

Rationality-oriented persons are very organized. Numbers, data,

facts and a logical, detail-oriented approach to work are important to

them.

Excessive use: They become more insistent and it becomes even more

difficult to change their opinion. They are steadfast and persistent.

Controlling/Taking Action

Efficiency Driver

Activity-oriented persons aim for

efficacy. They want to achieve their goals in the fastest way possible.

When they use this style excessively, they impatiently take matters into their own hands; they feel it takes

others too long to understand what has to be done.


The Basic Values of the LIFO® Styles

value-oriented, idealistic trustworthy

reliable, loyal, attentive purpose and cause ready to perform

strives for excellence high standards for self and others

receptive self-doubts

modesty fairness

recognition by others credibility

control over values consults others

helpful

seeking harmony diplomatic

likes to communicate likes to talk easy-going

tolerant tactful

initiates contact mediator in conflict situations

seeks compromise and settlements turns conflicts into win-win situa-

tions empathy

wants to be everybody’s friend control through social influence

likes to experiment rationality-oriented

logical factual

thorough detail-oriented

practical minimizes risks, likes security

regulations clear conditions

analysis and structured proceeding convincing with data and facts

control over structure not letting emotions dominate

steadfast

activity-oriented control through strength

actions doing something

fast results

open to change promotes changes

ambitious gives instructions to others

impatience sense of urgency

competitive risk-taker

accepts challenges obstacles are a challenge


This is how the LIFO® styles process information … the way they think and learn

The graphs are meant to help you memorize the four styles visually. They are symbols for how differently the four styles process information and for their different approach-es to solving problems.

Supporting/Giving

If this is your style, you tackle issues by exploring the bigger picture and do not pursue your goals in a direct, structured manner. You take important secondary issues into consideration, too. You like to talk and to listen, and you like to take your time doing so. If someone tries to force you to finally make a decision, you wiggle your way out of it. On the other hand, you will not spend much time dealing with an issue that is not im-portant to you. Issues are important to you if they relate to human concerns or im-portant collective values. In this case, you tend to become fully involved. But, for you, the big picture always has to be consistent and right. You do not do anything on the spur of the moment. Details are unimportant.

Controlling/Taking If this is your Preferred Style you take the direct route to reaching your goals: “This is where I am. This is where I want to go. What is the fastest way to my goal?” You listen briefly, discover an interesting point and then, in a gut reaction, decide “yes” or “no.” You hate roundabout, digressing and detailed discussions. “Just do it!” “Talk is cheap. Doing is golden!” Better a wrong decision than no decision at all. On the other hand, your opinions and decisions can change within minutes when, and because, you notice that things are not going as well as you thought they would.

Supporting/Giving exploring listening taking time

Adapting/Dealing spontaneous outside the box new connections

Controlling/Taking the fastest way eye on the prize impatient

Conserving/Holding step by step collecting details and facts


Conserving/Holding You have a completely different way of processing information. You have and/or want exact structures and procedures. Information has to be broken down into details and worked through step by step. Anyone who is not as focused as you confuses you. “Don’t sweat the little things!” You follow your analytical, structured course until the very end, when you have thought through every single little detail, until everything is right. Peo-ple can interrupt you in the middle of a sentence, once they are done with their interjec-tion, you are able to resume your sentence exactly where you were forced to interrupt it. When you study an issue, you first determine how you will proceed, then work out an agenda. And you stick to it.

Adapting/Dealing Your way of processing information singles you out as “chaotic,” especially with people with a strong Conserving/Holding and/or Controlling/Taking Style. You like to jump from one interesting point to another. This is called “expressive sidetracks.” You also like to think outside of the confines of your subject, even risking that, in the end, you do not even know anymore what you were originally thinking/talking about. Most proba-bly, you will seldom limit yourself to a single issue but jump from one to another and work on several simultaneously.

How do they put together a puzzle?

Imagine this: Four people with the four different LIFO® Styles sit at a table together. Each has the task of putting together a puzzle. “Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf,” 1,500 pieces, and thus a rather big, complicated puzzle. How do the different styles proceed?

The Conserving/Holding Puzzler immediately concentrates and starts sorting pieces according to colors or patterns. Ideally, he would like to be allowed to sit at a different table, in a corner. Then he starts with the edges. He concentrates on every single tiny part of the image, first one corner, then the next one. He does everything systematically, step by step. And he will not stop until every piece is in place. While he is silently work-ing away …

…the Controlling/Taking Puzzler also starts with the puzzle because he wants to finish the task as soon and fast as possible. “Piece of cake. Won’t take long.” Then it does be-come complicated after all. He becomes nervous. After a short time he throws in the towel, commenting that doing puzzles is a waste of time. He looks for “victims” to dele-gate to: “You know how to do this. Can you finish it for me? I’ll be right back. I’m just going to the bathroom…” Most probably it is the guy with the Supporting/Giving style who does it for him.

The Supporting/Giving Puzzler is an ideal “victim” who will even voluntarily offer to finish the puzzle for the Controlling/Taking Puzzler, even if that means he will not be able to finish his own puzzle or have to put it off until later. They are happy to be able to help. While working, they look over to the Conserving/Holding and Adapting/Dealing Puzzlers every now and then to see if they can help them, too.

In the meantime, the Adapting/Dealing Puzzler has enthusiastically started with the puzzle. “Finally something fun again!” Perhaps he has also suggested to the three others that they work on the puzzles together, since that would be even more fun. Since he is not successful in convincing the others, he starts making fun by himself. He discovers the pieces that make up Little Red Riding Hood’s red hood over here. Over there are the first parts of the head of a wolf. And, maybe, a few other pieces. They interrupt the others by exclaiming: “Oh, that’s Little Red Riding Hood and the big bad wolf!”


Of course, these stories are humorously exaggerated. Simply enjoy the different styles’ characteristics!

LIFO® Styles as birds They are kind of nice, but not really pretty, these LIFO® birds… A creative group of managers from Stratos Computers in Paris summarized the styles as follows in a group project.

The Supporting/Giving, value-oriented bird: Eyes, ears, mouth open, to meet others half-way, to welcome and listen to them. People are important. Approachable and affa-ble. But it is not only a listener – it likes stories, not dry facts –, but also a story-teller itself. They don´t have a friendly face all the time, they can be very serious and even be-come convinced fighters if their values are hurt.

The Controlling/Taking, activity-oriented bird is missing one of the most important body parts: The ears. The beak is wide open and tells the others what to do. It inter-rupts: “I know what you mean!” And then it decides and determines: Go! However, it often forges ahead and does not notice that the others are not keeping up.


The Conserving/Holding, rationality-oriented bird turns around a while to think. That is why we see it from behind. Its thought processes do not have to take long. Intelligent analysts can be significantly faster than dumb doers. That this bird has no ears is a mis-take the French creators made. It is actually very good at listening. Every detail is im-portant. Only if someone is talking its ears off does it have to think longer about what this person says. Unless it decides immediately to not listen, and puts on a “poker face”…

You cannot imagine the Adapting/Dealing, harmony-oriented bird alone by itself. Talk-ing, discussing, chatting. The important thing is that something happens. No matter what. By the way, look at the picture: This bird is also missing ears. Imagine a scene in an Italian piazza: Four Italians talk to each other. They all seem to be talking at the same time. But they all seem to understand each other, too. The important thing is that things are happening. Fun. And if this bird is not enjoying something fun, it will enjoy arguing.

Questions that you would like to have answered

The LIFO® birds also ask different questions when you want to convince them to learn something new.

If, for example, you have a Preferred Adapting/Dealing style and as backup Control-ling/Taking, questions like “why?” and “how?” and “what?”, “how?”, “when?”, “who ex-actly?” are rather disruptive when all you want is to get started. If your students are strongly Conserving/Holding and Supporting/Giving, they will have issues with your attitude and behaviour.

Value-oriented Why?

Purpose, Goals, Values

Cooperation-oriented With whom?

Who is involved? Who will approve of it?

Rationality-oriented How? Method, System

Why? Reason, Logic

Activity-oriented What has to be done?

When? How fast?


The LIFO® Styles and their horizons When you look at the following illustration, pay particular attention to the different time horizons and the different focuses. People with different time perspectives face a big challenge if they want to approach one another:

• Short or longer time horizon: hectic or reluctant?

• Matter-oriented or people-oriented: cold-hearted or a weakling?

• Realism or vision: no imagination or crazy?

• Organization or risk: pedantic or a player?

Certainly you will recognize yourself in these pictures. Right? How nice that people can be so different. How sad that we so easily tend to be intolerant and so carelessly assign negative terms to people with other styles of thought and communication.

But: When you point your finger at others, there are three fingers pointing back at you.

How Can You Recognize the Different LIFO® Styles?

How often have we heard: “I’ve only known so-and-so for a couple of days. How am I supposed to know what his LIFO® Strengths Profile is?” Wrong, and somehow cowardly! Bet that you already have an “image” of this person you have just met, even if you cannot and do not want to describe it.

“Knowing somebody” does not become more within the course of months or years, but

rather decreases. Why? “Spiels” develop between the acquaintances. You are familiar with this. For example, every time you meet your friend Jack, the same thing happens. You know each other, know how the other reacts, and know what you are allowed to do

Supporting/Giving

Vision Ideals

broad spectrum close to other people

Adapting/Dealing

Short time-horizon goal-oriented

risk I

Controlling/Taking

Short time horizon Realism

Professionalism focused close to the task

Conserving/Holding

long time-horizon task-oriented organization

the task

People Vision

Matter Realism

Organized/Security Long time horizon

Risk Short time horizon


and what you should not do when in each other’s company. As the months and years pass, it is still always the same. Your brain has an image of who Jack is, and that is the only image it still sees. And he does not show you anything new either. It could be that one of your new friends discovers a completely different side to Jack that you have long stopped seeing or never saw in the first place.

There are no second impressions

It has repeatedly been proven that after two minutes, at the latest, your brain has a rela-tively fixed image of a new acquaintance. This remains unconscious for most of us. We do not necessarily reflect on how we perceive the other and what we perceive of him/her. But this gives this pre-judgment all the more impact: Once we have this two-minute image in our brains, we stop perceiving anything that does not fit with this im-age. Perhaps we never even discover the rest, the details, and the many characteristics of a person. This is selective perception. Dare to meet someone new and to become aware of your image and “judgment” of this person. The LIFO® Styles, the descriptions and characteristics, help you with that. They give you a language through which to express your impressions. Trust your impressions and verbalize them, and make yourself aware of your impressions. If you do this, you will become a better judge of character. On the previous page we looked at some of the early distinguishing characteristics of the four styles. How can you recognize relatively quickly what style (or what styles) your new students use? For the sake of facility, imagine that you are visiting a new client in his/her office or that you are going to a job interview with a potential employer. What do you see?


Approaches me openly (smiling, eye contact, extended arm): “How are

you?” Long handshake. Carries around personal items (pho-

to of wife, husband, children). Long, social chit chat, including per-

sonal things. Speaks in tangents. Warm tone of voice.

Happy about small gifts. Makes clear that there is no rush.

Offers coffee, etc. Apologizes for his/her mistakes.

Rather unpunctual. Likes to discuss with others.

Is surprised but shows that he/she likes variety.

Spontaneous, laid back, laughs, jokes.

Office and desk seem chaotic. Rather unusual private and official

items are scattered together. Casual outfit and appearance.

Shows enthusiasm and sometimes also anger.

Allows other people and things to interrupt him/her.

Changes topics.

Is punctual, in time. Office and desk are neat and orga-

nized. Inconspicuous, tidy outfit.

Calendar, textbooks. Well prepared.

Seems impersonal, distanced. Rather little eye contact.

Possibly does not shake hands or does, but nonchalantly.

Lost in thought. Few big gestures, but more probably

none at all. Speaks slowly, exactly, in a detailed

manner, carefully and matter-of-factly.

Takes time to think, occasional si-lence.

Rather punctual, has little time. Stands upright.

Seems rather busy and hectic. Athletic outfit.

Busy with other things at the same time.

Office looks efficient and shows off his/her status.

His/her welcome to you: brief and concise, sounds like he/she is “bark-

ing orders.” Quickly gets to the point.

Exact questions. Asks about times/dates, prices.

Speaks in a precise way. Simplifies complicated procedures.

Dominates the conversation.

From theory to practice: Go ahead and consider some of your students, friends, col-leagues, bosses, etc. What styles do they use? What are their strengths?

You shall recognize them through excessive use

You can also recognize your students´ styles by the excessive use of their styles. In diffi-cult situations, it is usually easy to see who makes excessive use of what style strengths. Thus, on the one hand, this makes it possible for you to recognize the strong styles of others. On the other hand, others will recognize yours as well. Most of all, you should remember and train not to use your Preferred (and thus strong) Styles excessively.

And because it is so important, here is another, systematic summary:

Excessive use of Supporting/Giving, if you…

…justify demands too strongly.

…submit to your student’s ideas too much.


…use no pressure to get a decision.

…appeal to personal and moral ideas too much.

…emphasize quality and advantages too much.

Excessive use of Controlling/Taking, if you…

…explain too briefly.

…push the student too soon and too strongly.

…interrupt too often.

…reply to interjections too quickly.

…praise a concept´s qualities too often.

…emphasize the novelty of the product too much.

Excessive use of Conserving/Holding, if you…

…speak too little and seem uninvolved.

…limit yourself to one point of view.

…are too adamant.

…emphasize technical aspects too much.

…present too many documents.

…rely too much on your system of presenting the product.

Excessive use of Adapting/Dealing, if you…

…emphasize interpersonal and social aspects too much.

…do not concentrate enough.

…are not steadfast enough.

…abandon your advantages and demands too quickly.

…emphasize too often who you know.

…are exaggeratedly funny.

How can you recognize the styles when somebody suggests something to you? …

And what you should do to get a “Yes.”

Supporting/Giving

• These are people, who usually only have positive things to say about others. They want to be treated kindly themselves.

• They are good listeners. They are open, listen to other people’s points of view, and take them seriously.

• They spend a lot of time and energy dealing with their families, their teams, with other people. When anyone is trying to sell them on an idea, they will certainly ask how it will affect other people.

• The big picture is important to them. It has to be consistent and “right” for them.

• They aim for agreement and consensus and prefer giving in – even if only temporari-ly – to prevailing by being confrontational.

• They set rather high standards for themselves and others, and thus are also often disappointed by their own and others’ achievements.


• Value-oriented people spend much time thinking about the future. They worry. Consistency, continuity, long-term partnerships – these are things that they consider when someone suggests something to them. Ask them about their feelings: “How do you feel about this idea?”

• They like to prepare – for example for their meeting with you – when you announce that you would like to discuss an idea with them or make a suggestion. They imagine what you will come up with. Of course, until the meeting actually takes place, they do not know what you are thinking about and how you feel. Thus, do not take them aback. If you are too far off from what they imagined, and inconsiderately insist on your own point of view, they could feel agitated, give evasive answers, and counter your points with questions about morals.

• If they attack you, you should not under any circumstances retort, but, instead, im-mediately ask about their feelings: “I understand that this is a problem for you. It makes me feel uncomfortable. How do you feel about this?”

• When it comes to getting their assent, their decision, you need help, because it is very difficult to find out what their reservations are. They do not want to attack or insult you. They assume that you have thought through what you are proposing to them… and really are a nice person, after all. They would rather say “yes” for the moment, but do so hoping that they will be able to do something to recant after your discus-sion. Thus, it is important for you to analyze potential problems with a value-oriented person before reaching a final “yes” or “no.” Ask them about possible prob-lems, obstacles and concerns. These need to be discussed. Otherwise you will not get a 100% honest “yes.”

Controlling/Taking

• Activity-oriented people very obviously do not like any things that are not goal-oriented. They seem impatient and agitated. They like to interrupt, even if you are far from having finished your thought.

• They like to get to the point as fast as possible. They do not like beating around the bush. They do not like weaklings.

• Their conversational style is direct. They like to often use phrases like:

o “Getting to the point…”

o “It should be clear that…”

o “Anyone can see that…”

• They want to be understood. But they do not often want to understand others.

• They hate intellectual, overly enthusiastic, useless discussions that get bogged down by details. Their world is simple: black and white. “How could you not see that…!”

• They do not like ideas but want results. Once they have accepted something as fact, then this remains a fact, unless reality brutally teaches them otherwise.

• They have a rather short-term time horizon. Visions? No. They quickly want to see achievable results and benefits – now! No theoretical discussions, please.

• They stand out in meetings for being the first and loudest, for pressing for decisions and nervously glancing at their watches.

• They want to be asked about their opinions, and they will tell you, openly and frank-ly. They will do so without considering whether you might take criticism too seri-ously and feel bad about it. The good thing about this is that what you see is what you get.


• Activity-oriented people also want to be directly asked about their decisions. They want to decide themselves and do not want others to make decisions for them. They have a clear idea of what criteria are going to influence their decisions. And then you will get a clear “yes” or “no.”

Conserving/Holding

• Rationality-oriented people are thoughtful and strive for perfection.

• They are tidy and organized, both in their general appearance and at their place of work.

• They make decisions after long, analytical thought processes. They assume that there is a best solution for everything; you only have to look for it, consequently and analytically.

• When they have found the perfect solution, they defend it stubbornly and do not wa-ver.

• New ideas can scare (away) Conserving/Holding people. They need time to accept new things. They accept changes, and do so best, when they are fully conscious about how the implementation of these changes will be structured.

• Analysts shopping for ideas: They compare and contrast and base their decisions on detailed criteria.

• They need and want written documents, which, ideally, are easy to follow: organized, with exact index, comprehensive and detailed.

• They are not interested in what you think about them when they take this detailed approach. They simply continue to ask for more information.

• They are not impressed when someone puts on an act. Facts are much more im-portant to them than feelings. Of course, rationality-oriented people have feelings, too. However, they do not show them, and do not want to show them, because they inhibit logic. And you should not ask them about their feelings.

• They will not be pressured into making decisions. They have their own rhythm. They do not make any decisions until even the tiniest of details are worked out.

Adapting/Dealing

• Harmony-oriented people like to be philosophers. They like stimulating but casual discussions about life and the state of the world.

• They are interested in a variety of different topics. Thus it is easy to tempt them with a multitude of issues. They love “expressive sidetracks,” i.e. they will also sidetrack you, so that, in the end, you will even have forgotten what idea it was that you want-ed to sell to them.

• These people will love your idea, even when they will ultimately not accept it. They love to play, to make compliments and cheer others on. This can be confusing: Are they genuinely enthusiastic? Do they want to? Or not?

• They do not only like to discuss, but also do so a lot, to get the best out of every situa-tion. Boredom is deadly. They would rather have a fight than get bored and love ar-guing just as much as laughing.

• They ask many interesting, curious questions, which makes them seem even more intelligent than maybe they are. Do not let that impress you. You have to be able to endure a lot, to have patience and be curious, if you want to convince an Adapt-ing/Dealing expressive person.


LIFO® Style Blends

You Do Not Fit into a Single Style Box Either

Of course, people are complex. The people that can be clearly described with a single style are probably very rare. Even then, there would still be differences:

• How strongly is this style developed?

• How much energy does this person invest into this style?

• How intelligent is this person? (Whether according to conventional IQ, the intelli-gence concept by Howard Gardner, the EQ by Goleman, or according to another quo-tient.)

• What education/training and what life experiences has this person acquired?

Energy, intelligence and education/training are not measured and illustrated by the LIFO® Survey.

It all looks so wonderfully simple when we see people grouped into four styles in the typical literature on types, and when we are given the corresponding strategies for suc-cess. It is easy because, as humans, we learn to use certain styles and/or strategies par-ticularly strongly and often in certain situations and when we assume certain roles.

What You See Is What You Get?

As a teacher or trainer you would be far off if you “treated” anyone the way you perceive him at first sight.

Reiner´s example: With yours truly, a trainer or teacher could, first of all, discover very quickly that I do not

want any details and only want to spend very little time listening concentrated. I look at

something new and make a spontaneous decision whether I like it or not, based on my gut

reaction to it… and then also somehow manage to deal with the consequences if my deci-

sion turns out to have been a mistake. Thus, am I a Controlling/Taking buyer? A “driver”?

What you cannot discover so easily is that I actually prepare myself for every meeting. Yes,

I do have dreams and ideas about what I am looking for and what I would like to learn.

Weeks earlier, I already see myself using new techniques. Only later, after a long phase of

indecision, do I really start learning. Dream first, learn later. And then everything has to

happen quickly. You cannot simply put me into a style box. With me, trainers face the chal-

lenge of acting fast, getting to the point quickly, but also of turning my dreams into a reali-

ty, and of praising me afterwards. Thus, I am not that obvious to others. I am sure neither

are you.

Our conversation partners have to look more closely. “What you see is what you get” does not apply in every case. It will be similar with everyone of you. You are not stuck with a single style.

We have strategies

We all have our learning and teaching strategies and use them. And we show different styles in different situations. So do your students. Trainers and teachers have to adjust to this, when they want to sell their ideas.

To cut a long story short:

• We have to look closely at our students.

• We should respond to them with the style they use in the situation.


• We should also recognize, however, that our students probably have prepared for the situation, using a different style for preparation than in the actual learning situa-tion.

• If we surprise them with a suggestion, they will still need time to think about it in their preparation style.

• And we have to recognize that our students need to rationally and emotionally se-cure their decisions to learn and use the new techniques in their life.

• And (which should come as no surprise by now): You thus actually need “recipes” for how to address and influence the four different styles, knowing that our communica-tion partners use different styles at different times in their strategies.

• If I want something from another person, I have to get on the same wavelength and follow the other person for some time. Only then can I hope for the other person to adjust to my own style, too. If you want, look up “rapport building” and “matching and pacing” in a NLP book.

Some Of Many Possible Style Blends

Below, we will describe some basic style blends for you. Of course there are many more style combinations. We have a look only at 6 style combinations with two strongly de-veloped styles each. Of course, there are also people with three almost equally strong styles, but they are rather rare. For now, let us limit ourselves to the “two-folds.”

There are several thousands style combinations, but we cannot illustrate this complexity within the framework of this book. To be exact, with these people, we would also have to distinguish which of the two styles is the Preferred and which is the Backup Style. Considering the true nature of our lives and communications, we would even have to describe each individual anew and differently.

Supporting/Giving Conserving/Holding

Adapting/Dealing Controlling/Taking


Controlling/Taking and Adapting/Dealing The picture itself resembles a loudspeaker, doesn´t it? They are extroverted people. They have a rather short time horizon. For them, things have to happen fast. They like variety.

You could also describe them as creatively active entrepreneurs. They are interested in changes and their tangible results. Their expressive nature probably means that they are good at theorizing and conceptualizing; but they will not indulge in lofty ideas, but rather quickly consider practical implementation. Often, two hearts beat in their chests: here imagination and fantasy, there the facts.

“Loudspeakers” are also rather loud: they speak loudly, their personal appearance is loud, they cut the line, are impossible not to hear and see. They enjoy it and are good at motivating others. You rarely get bored with them. It could also be the case, however, that they have not thought through certain things too well and have not adjusted them to the needs of other people and the team. They risk to be far ahead and not to notice that their following has not been able to keep up.

Conserving/Holding and Supporting/Giving People with this style profile have a rather long time horizon. Things do not have to go fast for them. They do not mind if things take longer. They want to plan and proceed in a structured manner. They have high performance standards, aim for perfection, and

Supporting/Giving Adapting/Dealing

Conserving/Holding Controlling/Taking

Supporting/Giving Controlling/Taking

Conserving/Holding Adapting/Dealing


work accordingly. They are not satisfied with things that are done fast and with superfi-cialities. They demand a lot of themselves and others.

They will very probably carry their problems around with them for a long time, will not let them out, and will increasingly let these problems eat them up from the inside. They also do not like to quickly and spontane-ously part with good, existing relationships. They will not be convinced if you tell them that everything will be allright or advise them to simply give something a try. They see themselves as guarantors of stability.

They are direct complements (or opposites?) to people with Controlling/ Taking over and Adapting/Dealing away with. They value security, with both facts and people. Constant changes in their environments stress them.

These people are rather low-key and quiet in their appearance. Reserved. They do not push themselves into the foreground. Maybe they hardly get noticed in a “loud” group. Teachers and trainers should recognize this challenge: You have to activate them to have them share their ideas with the team.

Conserving/Holding and Controlling/Taking People with this style blend stand with both feet firmly on the ground. Their center of gravity is toward the bottom. They are grounded in reality. As soon as they have safely laid their tracks and built a solid foundation – and have finalized the details of their journey and their timetable – they go full steam ahead. Unnecessary detours are out of the question and only an option when a massive obstacle is in their way. They simply roll right over less weighty obstacles. Controlled power characterizes them.

They are very task- and goal oriented. Facts and proof that something actually works are important to them, not cheap talk. They need a safe structure and rely on it to be able to go full steam ahead. They are masters of organization and control. They want to be in control of any task or situation they face and achieve predictable results. Among all the style combinations, this style combination is the one who appears the most “busi-ness.” They work hard and are performance-oriented. They are the first to complain about people who talk too much but do not produce results.

Their presentation is self-confident and energetic. They very probably get noticed most-ly through their serious facial expression and a certain lack of a sense of humor. They can make their standpoint clear and see their ideas through with an ice-cold look or a smile. Who dares to contradict them? They dislike small talk. They consider it a waste of time. Unclear situations, charm, humor, admiration, love relationships make them feel insecure. They are afraid they might lose control.

Support/Giving and Adapting/Dealing People with this style blend try to see the big picture and try to explore its meaning. They are less interested in achieving goals, but more in the process of communicating and cooperating as such. You have to get along well, to like and understand each other. What counts for them are good relationships and a positive atmosphere. Their big strength: They are very good at dealing with ambiguity and unclear situations. These only stimulate them to do what they love to do anyway: speculating and conceiving of concepts. They are not so much interested in numbers, data, facts and practical imple-mentation; these could destroy their beautiful dreams.

You can recognize them by their open-mindedness and acceptance. They talk to you in a rather relaxed manner, without pressure. They do not demand decisions. “I’m glad we got a chance to talk about this.” They take their time and give you the time that you need. Even when you force them to plan ahead, they will hardly stick to the plan. People


are more important to them. They want to be your friend. They are charming conversa-tionalists. Even if, in difficult moments, they tend to get depressed and ask themselves why nobody understands and loves them.

Supporting/Giving and Controlling/Taking

In leadership theory this style combination is called patriarchical leadership style. Peo-ple with this blend provide for all the members of his/her “family”. They like to tell eve-ryone what to do, give orders, and expect them to be followed. As the head of the team, he wants to know what is going on; he alone makes the decisions. And when he (or she) sees that a member of the family has stepped out of line, that person is in deep trouble and will at least be yelled at, if not worse.

At the same time, they are good listeners and doers/enforcers. If they think something is right, they will implement and push it through right away, without asking anyone for permission. After all, they are doing it because they consider it right and good for their people. They are usually right, or claim to be. They are also very active and involved and want to attain their ideals. They become active without consideration for their own needs and time issues. But also without consideration for those of other people. They are the people who take control and save the day. For them, respect is when you are loyal to them.

Conserving/Holding and Adapting Dealing People like this are interested in both structure and logic, as well as in the big picture and creative leaps. Most often, they feel torn and try to figure out what is going on in-side of them. Sometimes I also call this style profile “Zeus.” Zeus, the supreme god in Greek mythology, was famous for his surprising changes of heart and for the lightning that he unleashed on mortal humans. Unpredictable and erratic. In fact, can you imag-ine a person shooting from the hip and, at the same time, proceeds in a structured, sen-sible, detailed and fact-loving manner? Not me. This is a rather unstable behavior. When a person with this style profile becomes aware of his/her strengths and uses them intelligently, he/she can charm anyone during negotiations – assuming he/she knows what he/she is talking about. These people can be excellent negotiators. You probably often experience them as a bit scary and unpredictable. They themselves suffer from their moodiness, not only you.

All four styles … a perfect blend?

This style combination is certainly closest to the image of the pragmatic.

People with this profile like to be unassuming. They also hardly ever lose their compo-sure. They can activate and use every style reasonably strongly. “Low profile.” Why get upset when things can be fixed? “We can do this,” they assure you. Fights, excitement, frenzy, details, running around… they can do without all of this. “Let’s see how this works out then we can still see if…” If you are trying to attack them, you will find noth-ing to direct your attack at.

They are able to minimize themselves. But this is a trap, a danger for you as their con-versation partner. You might reach the conclusion that you can overlook them and leave them out. Wrong. At any time, a person like this can decide to become active after all and is easily able to activate a style that is favorable for the situation. If intelligence and energy are added into the mix, it can be an unpleasant surprise for you to discover that the tables have been turned. Remember: These people are equally adept at every style.


Situations and roles Sociology shows that people have multiple roles they are taking over in their private and business life. And quite often people have somehow different LIFO®-profiles in these different roles. That ist, by the way, the reason, why the LIFO®-method uses role-specific surveys, no tone-fit-all-survey.

The example below may be quite extrem: Somebody who has quite radical different pro-files in his/her different roles. We have seen these kind of results in the LIFO®-license-seminars.

It´s obvious, that people have not just “This Profile”, they are not just “This Type”. Eve-ryday life shows us that people have quite often different intentions, different behavior alternatives, and different impact on others in their different roles, depending on the expectations of their significant others, which they have learned and want to meet. Take for example the “technocratic manager” (Controlling/Taking and Conserving/Holding) who shows a quite different profile at home as father and husband, maybe even quite contrary (Supporting/Giving and Adapting/Dealing) to his profile in his manager role.

There are people who would say that someone, who shows a different profile e.g. as teacher/trainer and as private person, is not authentic. Strange definition of “authentic”, if that means that one should have one profile, once for all in every role and situation. On the other hand: There are many people who have a one and only profile in all their roles and situations. Are they labeled “authentic” or just “unflexible”?

Again another perspective: There are trainers, who are really great in seminar situa-tions; they do almost everything for their students. They are making efforts to be open, flexible, communicative, fully engaged for their students. They are activating their Adapting/Dealing- and their Supporting/giving styles. And … in the evening they have huge problems to find back to themselves, as some of them told me.

There is a richdom of behavior choices we could make, if we would be motivated and able to use behaviors we are using as trainer also in our role as private person and the other way round. Or see even one of the most striking examples: The shy stutterer who can sing on stage, without any stuttering. No stuttering in another role!

This issue is extremely important specifically for us teachers, trainers and coaches. We influence and form/educate other people. We are responsible at least for shaping our students learning profiles and strategies.

Here is an example of a person with quite different profiles in different roles: Private person, training manager, trainer, learner. See the descriptions of above mentioned style blends.


Parents

Friends Wife or

Husband

Comm-unity

Children

LIFO®-Profile as Private Person Expectations from …

Social values and norms Individual ideas on

how one should be as parent

Boss

Colleagues Custo-mers

Employee Employee

LIFO®-Profile as training manager

Expectations from …

Company´s guidlines

Individual ideas on how one should be

as manager


Students

Colleagues Boss

Field of expertise

……

LIFO®-Profile as trainer/teacher Expectations from …

Social values and norms

Individual ideas on how one should be as trainer/teacher

Teachers

Friends Models

Tech-nology

???

LIFO®-Profile as Learner Expectations from …

Social values and norms

Individual ideas on how one should be as

learner


Enrich your choice of behaviours … activate your LIFO®-styles

Dr. Reiner Czichos Robert Beckenbauer


Enrich your choice of behaviours … activate your LIFO®-styles

It should be evident by now that for you as a teacher or trainer it is important to have a broad range of behaviours, to use all four LIFO®-styles. This way you can really help all students to learn at their best.

You don´t have to change personality. But you have to add some of the below listed be-haviors to your repertoire. You then will be able to activate them when you need them in class for students with different learning styles.

Here is a huge choice of things you could do to trigger yourself into the four LIFO®-styles.

Activate your less preferred LIFO®-styles

It is easily said and it sounds good. It makes sense. But it is also very difficult. And how does it work, once you have decided to do it? The ideal goal: The flexible train-er/teacher who can adjust to any student and/or group of students without having to fundamentally change him-/herself. You can do it, too, with training, patience and stam-ina. It is possible. At least to some degree.

People should learn from amoebae

Amoebae? These unicellular beings have somehow always existed on this planet as a species. The secret of their success? Their plasma is constantly looking for food. Their cell wall swims and searches in all directions. Once the amoeba has found food, its en-tire cell-body follows. It is plastic, changeable, not rigid.

Does our social life not also demand that we keep adapting, always? A participant in a sales seminar once said: “We have to be actors, like in a commercial!” You will be more successful in your communication with others if you adapt your style to their style. It is important to be on the same wavelength. If your partner is long-winded and takes his time, does not care much about facts but, instead, that everything is fine for other peo-ple, you will not get far if you put him under time pressure, inundate him with facts and disregard social factors.

You encounter many different people in your classes and seminars and in your everyday life. Everybody wants to be addressed differently. Most of them want to be addressed differently than you would like to be addressed yourself. You thus often have to be flex-ible and adapt. Successful communocators and successful teachers and trainers do this almost automatically. Most often they do not even know what they do so particularly well when communicating with others. They are interested in their students or custom-ers, interested in helping them to learn or in closing a deal, and adjust to those they communicate with. Flexible behavior is important and maybe even the ideal of good communications.

Sure, we are educated, raised and programmed. We learn early on how one has to be-have. We are influenced and formed by parents, relatives, teachers, clerics, friends, bosses, partners, clients. We are successful and are praised when we do this, and are “punished,” get stuck and fail when we do that. We are programmed by reinforcement.

There are myriad scientific examples of how reinforcement works in experiments and in practice. For example, one of the best-known behavioral scientists, Skinner, experi-mented with rats. Rats are very intelligent and learn through reward and punishment. They quickly find the correct way through the maze the scientist has put them in. Chim-panzees learn much more quickly how to pick cotton if they are rewarded, instead of punished.


Pawlow has shown with his experiments with dogs that even reflexes can be condi-tioned: Whenever a dog sees food, it starts salivating. Pawlow always rang a bell when he presented the dogs with food. After the n-th time of ringing the bell while presenting the food, the dog also started salivating if it only heard the bell, even when there was no food in the room.

The story of the “Pacer” – a “true story” – illustrates best that human beings, even psy-chology professors can be conditioned. The students in a class on “Behavioral Condi-tioning” put the theses their professor had presented to them into practice, within the classroom. Their professor was a “pacer.” He kept pacing while he lectured, constantly, from left to right and back to his podium. He kept turning to the students to ask them questions, to ask for their reactions. The students eventually conspired to only be inter-ested, participate in class, ask questions and answer his if he stood on the left side of the podium. If he stood on the right side they would look bored and as if they did not un-derstand, they would not answer his questions and would not ask any. It did not take long before they had conditioned him. They brought their professor to a standstill. He remained standing on the left side of the podium most of the time. Grounded through reward. As you see, programming still works with adults and even with professors who teach “behavior.” Take a closer look at your everyday life. Maybe you will discover doz-ens of similar stories.

People are flexible and they can change their behavior even in old age – even if it is said that we change less and less the older we get, and that our behavior becomes increasing-ly entrenched. This certainly applies to many people. Of course there are people who have stopped learning and changing when they were around 30 years old. People who basically (want to) sit out the rest of their lives. Often they are deeply shocked and com-pletely thrown off by dramatic changes like, for example, losing their jobs or partners. They have so molded their environment with people and tasks that there are no surpris-es. Their behavioral program has made them fairly accepted and thus, in a sense, suc-cessful.

For many, drastic changes are dramas that mean the beginning of a new life and of a new behavioral program. Now, at the latest, it shows whether people can be flexible or whether they are doomed by change.

It sounds so easy. Stay flexible, like an amoeba. This is hard work, demands close and open-minded observation, curiosity, conscious living, and a readiness to take risks. Is it not easier to always do the same things with the same people? Everybody needs to have a number of areas in his life where he does not have to change his habits. That gives the strength to be flexible in other areas of life.

You do not need to dramatically change your life and your behavioral profile. You should learn, however, how to activate your Neglected Styles when you need them. Eve-rybody who needs to communicate with others to achieve his/her goals – in other words: everybody! – should want this and should master this art .

Even chaotic people have at some point been organized

Let us assume your Preferred Style is a strong Controlling/Taking Style and your Backup Style is Adapting/Dealing. You are probably too fast, too hectic, too chaotic for many of your students, relative to their values and self-assessment. Let us further assume that you would like to adjust a little bit better to your students who have a rather strong Conserving/Holding and Supporting/Giving Style.


Take a minute to think about your life and look for situations where you listened pa-tiently and closely or looked at something in detail. I am sure you will find situations like that. Take a closer look at these memories. Who was involved? Who did you listen to so attentively? What was this person talking about? How attentively did you listen? What did you do and say? How did you feel about that? How did this person react to you? The more clearly you are able to remember this image, the more it will help you to adjust your behavior.

Those of you who know, and have experience using NLP could anchor all four LIFO®-styles and release these anchors whenever needed. Moments of excellence. If you want to learn more about “imagineering” and “anchoring,” please refer to an NLP-book.

One can doubt the value of “behavioral training.” Why for example introduce question-ing techniques in seminars and train them in roleplay? Everybody knows how to ask, don´t they? Maybe most people do not know technical terms like “precision question-ing” or “active listening.” But you will be amazed when you observe “chaotic” people during lunch break, at dinner or at the bar, when they are fully concentrated and inter-ested in an exciting discussing: They ask precise questions and listen actively. We all do that, when we are dealing with certain people, when we are interested in something. Do you remember times when you were head over heels in love? Did you not do everything to please your partner then? Did you not fully adjust to another person in these situa-tions?

Even chaotic people have structured situations. Even rationality-oriented people can let go and be chaotic. And so on. Only, we have to learn to activate these behaviors. To “ac-tivate” a behavior means that some parts of the required behavior is there already. It is certainly not very strongly developed, and perhaps has not been used for a long time, but it is there. Even Controlling/Taking, activity-oriented people, have patience, have Supporting/Giving parts. Even they can listen, be patient etc.. If they wanted, people with strong Controlling/Taking Style could learn to become good listeners. How? Look for a “model,” a role model. Look closely. Imitate their behavior. Clone yourself.

Behavioral trainers should have their students train the different styles in their behav-ioral training. And give plenty of feedback, correct them, have them use the behavior over and over, …

Reiner´s encouraging story I was on the way to a potential client (who then did not come through after all) with a col-

league, a trainer who works with my company. Subject: “Creactivity.” My hobby and spe-

cialty. For my colleague, one subject among many. We had both agreed that he would

conduct the conversation and that he would also especially present our team. Our meeting

was with the personnel development manager and her boss, the human resources manag-

er.

My colleague began, explained, pushed forward, asked questions. He is a model Control-

ling/Taking, activity-oriented person. He makes an impression. In the meantime, I held

back – as we had agreed before the meeting - and only answered when I was asked direct-

ly, or referred to my colleague. Even when I introduced myself, I did so briefly, while he

talked a lot about himself. This was all according to plan. I wanted him to be the account

manager for this client and I wanted him to work to get the contract.

The human resources manager, who was rather organized and thorough, slow and exact,

had to leave the meeting early, but still wanted to give us feedback. This does not happen

that often; I am always happy when I get feedback from clients. She told my colleague that

he was very good at structuring his presentation and that he was a good match for the


company. Turning towards me, she then said: “Dr. Czichos, you are very reticent and seem

to have major problems getting going. You need time to warm up.” My colleague and I

looked at each other, baffled. This could not possibly be Reiner, we probably both thought.

We informed her that we had agreed on what roles we would play during the conversation.

Okay. She then stayed a bit longer after all. It was my turn now: I explained the structure

of the seminar that we were proposing to do and, among other things, I also briefly ex-

plained the LIFO® method. When she actually did have to leave, she gave me the following

feedback: “You talk very fast, too fast. You give the subject some spark.” So, who am I?

Roles create behavior! And perception and evaluation should be separate, right? I was proud. I had managed to activate a Neglected Style and do so believably. Is this acting? Dishonest? Even unfair? I do not think so.

Training directions

Now we direct your attention to another issue. It takes a lot of energy to activate Ne-glected Styles. Reiner uses up more energy when he spends an hour just listening in a meeting than when he gives a 60-minute speech. However, this is well-invested energy. When you adjust your style to a partner you can achieve a lot more working together.

Here, finally, we give you lots of ideas on how to train and activate your neglected LIFO®-styles.

What should you do more/less if you want to activate your Neglected Support-ing/Giving Style? Activate your values!

- Think back to your past. - Meet friends, neighbors, relatives. - Do things that make you feel loved, welcomed, like someone special. - Try to recognize how you can help others. - Experience feelings: Be sad, happy, nostalgic. - Defend what you believe in. - Build new bridges and enter new relationships with people, groups and things

that are important to you. - Wear a symbol, adopt a slogan. - Take pictures, make a video and also save other records. - Sit down more often and sit in a consciously relaxed manner. - Practice open gestures. - Get used to using phrases like “maybe,” “that should be thoroughly discussed,”

“that really hurts me.” - Take a lot of time for your meetings. - Put a bunch of flowers or/and other personal things on your desk.

What should you do more/less if you want to activate your Neglected Control-

ling/Taking Style? Do something!

- Set yourself a deadline. - Reduce your costs. - Take shortcuts. - Simply get started and do not wait for what is going to happen. - Adopt other people’s ideas, methods or solutions. - Navigate directly into your fears. - Look out for random answers: - Throw darts, roll dice, open pages randomly. - Mix a few things.


- Let someone else select. - Employ someone else to do something. - Practice writing and speaking in short sentences. - Use a bold pen to write. - Stand upright. - Sit on the edge of your seat. - Interrupt others. - Forge ahead during meetings; look at the time. - Only schedule short appointments.

What should you do more/less if you want to activate your Neglected Conserv-ing/Holding Style? Check the facts!

- Determine what will result in continuity and consistency. - Research additional numbers, figures and facts at the library. - Ask experts. - Do not be emotional and concentrate on facts instead. - Organize information according to categories and look for parallels and connec-

tions. - Use statistical, mathematical and other models. - Look for facts to support your theories. - Talk through your strategies with others. - Conduct surveys. - Look at rules and regulations. - Devise detailed plans. - Insist on everything being correct, even small details. - Do as much as possible in writing. - Clear up and organize your desk. - Use a ruler to draw lines. - Consciously pause repeatedly when talking. - Look down, pensively, when listening. - Wait for 3 seconds before answering after another person has finished talking. - Limit the gestures you make.

What should you do more/less if you want to activate your Neglected Adapt-ing/Dealing Style?

Ask “what?”, “when?” - Go somewhere else. Do things differently. - Practice being laid-back and relaxed. - Take a nap. Daydream. - Brainstorm with others. - Make friends with people who are not part of your usual social circle. - Stick to your “crazy” ideas. - When faced with a problem, ask people who do not know anything about it, about

their opinions. - Use Mind Maps! - Look for tips and answers in unusual places. - Do something physical – go for a walk, ride a bike, swim, play sports. - Keep a record of your thoughts when dealing with a problem. - Think of a few achievements that you can brag about. - Read several books simultaneously and alternate between them. - Practice laughing.


- Dress conspicuously. Be idiosyncratic. - Allow yourself to be unpunctual and think of a good excuse for it.

Reiner´s story:

A fellow trainer of mine recently had a success to report. A train-the-trainer seminar. The

LIFO® Module in the morning of the second day. My colleague turned to me after lunch

break, before the others had come back into the room. She was radiating; her cheeks were

red and her eyes wide open. She was euphoric. She told me that her colleagues had often

called her a push-over. She always gave in too quickly and too easily to other people’s de-

mands. But during lunch break she had had a phone conversation with a client, and she

had told him, very clearly, that he would have to agree to her terms or the deal was off. She

said it had only been a short conversation, but the client had given in and agreed to all of

her demands. “I did it! I activated my Controlling/Taking Style!” Great! I strongly recom-

mend you emulate her!

The following pages with lots of practical ideas are taken from Peter Honey and Alan Mumford, „The Manual of Learning Styles“, 1986.

As activating styles is key to the success of teachers and trainers in matching the learn-ing styles of your students, we don´t shy from giving you ideas from other autors, who promote other concepts of learning styles … actually the styles descriptions are 90 to 100 % the same. Repetition is reeinforcement, specifically when the ideas are presented in a different form and when they give additional insights. So, see below … and make up your own individual list for activating neglected styles. Here comes a wealth of practical ideas.

Activities to Strengthen the Supporting/Giving Style

• Activate your values. o Fight for what you believe in. o Wear a bottom with a symbol, use a slogan.

• Become more people oriented. o Meet colleagues, friends, relatives. o Do things, which make you loved by others. o See how you can help others. o Find people who are important for you and meet them more often. o Take a lot of time for your meetings.

• Think about the past. o Take pictures, produce videos. Keep them and take a look at them again and

again.

• Redesign your office. o Put a bunch of flowers on your desk and other personal things. o Keep greeting cards and putt hem on the wall.

• Train your body language. o Practice open gestures. o Sit down very comfortable.

• Change your speech. o Talk a bit more slowly. o Use phrases like „perhaps“, „We should take more time to discuss this“, „I

deeply touched by …“, etc.

• Practice observing, especially at meetings where there are agenda items that do not directly involve you.

o Study people´s behavior:


o Keep records about … � Who does the most talking? � Who interrupts whom? � What triggers disagreement? � How often the chairperson summarises? � And so on.

o Also study non-verbal behavior: � When do people lean forward and lean back? � Count how many times people

• emphasise a point with a gesture.

• fold their arms.

• look at their watches.

• chew their pencils.

• And so on.

• Keep a diary and each evening write an account of what happened during the day. o Reflect on the day´s events and see if you can reach any conclusion from them. o Record your conclusions in the diary.

• Practice reviewing after a meeting or event of some kind. o Go back over the sequence of events identifying what went well and what

could have gone better. o If possible tape record some conversations and play back the tape at least

twice, reviewing what happened in great detail. o List lessons learned from this activity.

• Practice drawing up lists for and against a particular course of action. o Take a contentious issue and produce balanced arguments from both points

of view. o Whenever you are with people who want to rusch into action, caution them to

consider alternatives and to anticipate the consequences.

Activities to Strengthen the Controlling&Taking style

• Collect practical ways of doing things. o These techniques can be about anything potentially useful to you. o Analytical:

� Critical path analysis � Cost benefit analysis

o Interpersonal: � Transactional Analysis � Presentation techniques

o Others � Time saving: � Statistical techniques � Techniques to improve your memory � Techniques to cope with stress

• In meetings of any kind concentrate on producing action plans. o Never leave a meeting without a list of actions. o The action plans should be specific and have a deadline.

• Make opportunities to experiment with your new found techniques. o Try them out in practice. o Inform others involved that you are conducting an experiment.


o Avoid situations where a lot is at stake and where the risks of failure areunac-ceptably high.

• Study techniques that other people use and then model yourself on them. o Pick up techniques from your colleagues, your students, visiting salesmen,

politicians, etc.

• Let experts observe you and give you feedback. o Invite someone who is skilled in running meetings to sit in and watch you

sharing. o Get an accomplished presenter to give feedback on your presentation tech-

niques.

Activities to Strengthen the Conserving/Holding Style

• Check facts. o Ask experts. o Go to the library and look for additional facts and figures.

• Read something „heavy“ and thought provoking for at least 30 minutes each day. o Try philosophy, especially linguistic analysis, logic or the theory of relativity. o If this seems a tall order, try tackling a text book on management. o Whatever you elect to read, afterwards try to summarise what you have read

in your own words.

• Practice spotting inconsistencies/weaknesses in other people´s arguments. o Go through reports highlighting inconsistencies. o Analyse organisation charts to discover overlaps and conflicts. o Take two newspapers of different persuasions and regularly do a comparative

analysis of the differences in their points of view.

• Take a complex situation and analyse it to pinpoint why it developed the way it did, what could have been done differently and at what stage.

o The situation could be historical or something drawn from current affairs, or something you have been involved personally.

o You could, for example, do a detailed analysis of how you spend your time, or of all people you interact with and with what frequency in the course of your work.

• Collect other people´s theories, hypotheses and explanations about events;They might be about environmental issues, theology, the natriral sciences, human behav-ior-anaything providing it is a topic with many different, and preferrably contradic-tory, theories. Try to understand the underlying assumptions each theory is based upon and see if you can group similar theories together.

• Practice structuring situations so that they are orderly and more certain to proceed in the way you predict.

o You might, for example, plan a conference where delegates are going to work in different groupings.

o Structure the timetable, the tasks, the plenary session. o Or try structuring a meeting by having a clear purpose, an agenda and a

planned beginning, middle and end. o Invent procdures to cope with problems such as too many people speaking at

once or failures to reach a consensus.

• Practice asking probing questions – the sort of questions that get to the bottom of things.

o Refuse to be fobbed off with platidtudes or vague answers. o Particularly ask questions designed to find out precisely why something has

occured:


� „Why is absenteeism increasing?“ � „Why do more women than men smoke?“ � „Why is heart disease higher in the U.K. than in Japan?“

Activities to Strengthen the Adapting/Dealing Style

• Do something new, i.e. something that you have never done before, at least once a week.

o Hitch a lift to work. o Go jogging at lunch-time. o Wear something outrageous to work one day. o Read an unfamiliar newspaper with views that are diametrically opposed to

yours. o Change the layout of furniture in your office, etc.

• Practice initiating conversations (especially small talk) with strangers. o Select people at random from your internal telephone directory and go and

talk to them. o At large gatherings, conferences or parties, force yourself to initiate and sus-

tain conversations with everyone present. o In your spare time go door to door canvassing for cause of your choice.

• Deliberately fragment your day by chopping and changing activities each half hour. o Make the switch as diverse as possible.

� For example, if you have had half an hour of cerebral activity, switch to doing something utterly routine and mechanical.

� If you have been sitting down, stand up. � If you have been talking, keep quite, and so on.

• Force yourself into the limelight. o Volunteer whenever possible to chair meetings or give presentations. o When you attend a meeting set yourself the challenge of making a substantial

contribution within 10 minutes of the start of the meeting. o Get on a soapbox and make a speech at Speakers´ Corner.

• Practice thinking aloud and on your feet. o Set a problem and bounce ideas off a colleague (see if you can generate 50

ideas in 10 minutes). o Get some colleagues/friends to join in a game where you give each other top-

ics and have to give impromptu speech lasting at least 5 minutes.


Your Management Style

Dr. Reiner Czichos

Robert Beckenbauer


… and Your Management Style?

Why a chapter about management styles in a book on self-management? After all, I am urging employees, consultants and freelancers to not wait to be managed by someone else and “manage yourself!”

I assume that many among you are executives in a company hierarchy. Executives in particular are only very rarely managed by others or not at all. The higher up you are in a hierarchy, the more you will have to ask yourself: “Who manages and coaches me?” The bosses’ bosses do not have time for this and usually do not feel like making the extra effort. In fact, they might not know how to do it (anymore).

If you are “only” an employee, consultant or freelancer, it could very possibly make sense for you to look at your bosses, and evaluate them, by considering management styles. Emancipated employees should be able and willing to give feedback to their bosses (I hate the word “superior”). I am willing to bet that most bosses will be able to handle it and actually need and welcome feedback from you. Who else is going to give them feedback? Many managers simply need a lot more help from “below.” It is they who need more leadership. This is the true meaning of “Managing Managers.” And if the bosses cannot deal with it, they do not deserve you as their employees.

You Are a Manager… Even When You Are Not

In addition, in “modern” companies, everybody has to/should/is allowed to assume leadership positions, at least every now and then; e.g. in internal and/or client projects. De facto, you surely will be “managing” already: your boss(es), your colleagues, your suppliers, your co-workers and your clients.

One of many possible stories on the topic… At a kick-off workshop, the bosses and em-ployees of a start-up company recognized that they were all managers and that, there-fore, they also all needed management training. How so? Everybody, even the recep-tionist, was in charge of at least one project. Most of the employees were responsible not only for in-house projects, but also projects that involved clients. The bosses saw themselves more as visionaries, enablers, coaches and “politicians” who keep the ven-ture capitalists, analysts, etc., happy and keep them away from the company to allow the employees to work without disruptions.

Management? What level do you mean?

Another thought: In most books, it is not clear what management level the authors are discussing and what (other) management level they assume their readers to be. What “levels” can we distinguish?

- top managers (board of directors, CEOs) - middle managers (department heads) - first line managers - group leaders without disciplinary authority - project managers - mangers of sub-projects - account managers - every employee with relationships with clients and/or suppliers

Managers on the different levels deal with different management roles and situations, and face different challenges with regard to “leadership” and “self-management.” Some quite different qualities are needed for each of the levels. I have often heard and seen that


- the best employee does not necessarily become the best executive. - the best department head does not necessarily become the best middle manager. - the best department head or middle manager does not necessarily become the

best board director or CEO.

The large majority of employees are managed by team leaders and department heads. In my opinion, these are the people who play the most essential leadership roles. They have direct contact with employees. It is here that personnel development and coach-ing take place, or it least it should be. Not at higher levels. I always find it almost funny when a board director or middle manager says that he/she had 2,300 or 350 or … em-ployees. They do not. They have executives who manage these employees for them. And the department heads and team leaders almost always have their own professional tasks or projects, besides their management roles, that do not allow them time to “lead.” This is convenient for many, because they believe they are their own “best” employees anyway.

Middle managers tend to have coordination and communication roles. I sometimes ask myself why we still need so many middle managers. Information technology facilitates information management. If you impose a big employees per manager ratio on the low-er-level managers (unlike 20 years ago, having more than 10 direct subordinates is no longer unusual), middle managers might certainly have an even bigger ratio. I consider middle managers “managers” in a narrower sense: planning, giving out assignments, controlling, etc. These days, they are described as a “paralyzing body” by both top managers and lower-level managers because they are too often perceived to be inhibi-tors rather than enablers and accelerators of change.

Board directors and CEOs should focus on goals and strategies, but often bypass mid-dle managers, and even lower-level managers, to directly access employees or projects and thereby break the hierarchy (hierarchy = God-given order). Thank God. I do not think much of rigidly isolating management roles from another. For me, “leadership” means giving orientation. It might be that many try to be “leaders.” It is sad to see then that so many managers have nobody they can freely and openly talk to anymore. Many even feel that they are consciously or unconsciously “lied” to, that “sanitized” in-formation is passed on to them. Such is the powerlessness of those in power. “What exactly is happening down there?”

All other employees may have to take on leadership positions at different times and to different degrees in flexible, structurally complex companies. Project managers or ac-count managers, for example, have to be much better “leaders” than managers higher up in the company hierarchy, as they do not have disciplinary authority and therefore can-not use “power” when discussing employees’ performance and salaries. They really only can manage others through communication and cooperation, by influencing them, in-stead of giving orders. They have to be better. More precisely, they have the biggest need for training in “leading and motivating.”

In addition, many professionals nowadays do not even want to be promoted to being high-level executives anymore. They might get a bit more money. But they would also have to deal with administration and a whole lot of other troubles. Being professionals allows them much more room for self-realization and also creates much better opportu-nities for influencing people and circumstances and to actually “lead.”


Management Is Not 1:1, But a Multidimensional Relationship

I often come away from conversations with trainer colleagues and seminar participants with the impression that “management” is still, or once again, understood in the same way that it was in the 1950s and 60s: a manager manages c. six to eight employees (the golden rule of maximum management ratio). This understanding of management calls for direct and unambiguous assignments and thinking along the lines of, “I manage indi-vidual employees who all have a distinctly different tasks to do.” In short, leadership as a 1:1 relationship between a superior and an employee.

This form of leadership has all but stopped existing in our complex world, even if many managers and employees still hold on to the old concepts and do not recognize the changed reality.

I fondly remember my time as European Organization and People Development Manag-er with a big computer company. I had four bosses in two years. All at the same time, not consecutively. You cannot call this a matrix anymore. This is more of a “multrix”. My bosses were

- the European Educational Services Manager, - the European Personnel Manager, - the European Software Services Manager, - and the European International Engineering Manager

I had many opportunities to do what I thought was right without checking with them first. I was able to consider all four of them my clients and to treat them accordingly. Thus, you could say I was basically self-employed already back then. My co-workers in Geneva and in the European Country Headquarters also had at least two bosses – myself and a Functional Country Manager as host manager. They also had many freedoms. And I had to spend a lot of time traveling and organizing meetings to keep my team together and to coordinate with the host managers on location.

While the environment I worked in almost 20 years ago might have been complex, com-panies are even more complex today; even if many bosses still, or once again, have a simplistic view of management. “My employees, your employees.” I do not really see any clear and stable 1:1 management relationships anywhere anymore. Relationships can change considerably with every new project and situation. And I believe that em-ployees (should) have the right to also seek “leadership,” e.g. coaching or sponsorship, from other executives at their company. Management beyond departments and bound-aries!

It gets even more complicated. I remember a project with a big insurance company. The project manager for the whole team was from IBM. The following managers of different aspects of the project, who all had their own teams, were part of the project team:

- An IT manager from the insurance company’s independent system house; - an IT manager from the main IT department of the company; - the account manager from the company which sold the insurance software to the

insurance company; - three managers from the three areas that were affected by the project (user pro-

ject managers); - an HR representative as a link to human resources - and myself as project coach.


Of course, each of these project managers, including the project manager from IBM, re-mained under the authority of some middle manager. But the man from IBM called the shots for the project team. Management?

I know many of you will not believe this, but the biggest management ratio I have seen so far was one manager for 130 direct subordinates. 130! The employees organized themselves around issues and projects under the “leadership” of the more experienced employees.

Now, was this a sufficient explanation for why I included a chapter on “leadership” and “LIFO® Leadership Styles” in a book on self-management? In any case, it should be pret-ty clear that management is far more than what it is traditionally considered to be.

Management Contract: Managing and Being Managed in the Multrix

Following are a tool and some advice for you. Managing and being managed in a multrix. If you have several bosses you should either be especially skilled at playing them off against each other, so that you have all the freedoms that you want and need. Or you should ensure that the bosses agree on how they manage you. Here is an example. On the left side are the three superiors of a project team member. Some of the management functions are listed at the top.

1 = is responsible for and also does it 2 = participates, works with those responsible 3 = is being informed or informs

Hiring Goal set-ting

Appraisal Salary decision

Deve-loping

Admin-istration

Department Head

Team Leader

Project Manager

Forget It: There Is No Ideal Management Style!

It is surprising how often it has already been proven that there is no ideal management style and how often so-called experts ignore these scientific studies and consistently try to disprove them with homemade ideologies. You might ask yourself if these “experts” should be allowed to ignore proven, empirical research(!) I am afraid there are also too many trainers who conduct executive training but have no idea about management the-ory and the results of empirical research.

I am convinced – not only theoretically and empirically, but also from my daily experi-ence consulting and working with executives – that there is no such thing as an ideal executive style which is “right” for every company, in every company culture, always and in all situations and for every team.

LIFO® Styles and Basic Management Values

What management style do you use and how is it influenced by your dominant LIFO® Styles? Have you ever thought about it or ask for feedback from colleagues, partners or employees?


The issue of “management” makes it clearest that LIFO® follows in the tradition of man-agement research and theory. The model by Blake and Mouton, as well as the model by Reddin, are virtually identical with the LIFO® model.

- The Supporting/Giving Style is the employee-oriented style. - The Controlling/Taking Style is the goal-oriented style. - The Conserving/Holding Style is the procedure-oriented style. - The Adapting/Dealing Style is the integration-oriented style.

However, there are differences in the philosophies and messages of the different man-agement models.

- Blake and Mouton, as well as the Grid Model, advocate an ideal executive style: the cooperative executive style.

- Reddin and Blanchard, on the other hand, represent situationally appropriate leadership.

- With the Maturity Model, Hersey and Blanchard have introduced a model for sit-uationally appropriate leadership, in which the employee’s degree of maturity is the only situational variable.

I fully support the concept of situationally adjusted leadership in the tradition of Reddin. Depending on the situation (maturity of the employees, nature of the tasks, time at dis-posal, expectations of the employees, superiors, colleagues, clients…), a different man-agement style needs to be used. This management theory thus demands style flexibility and flexible activation of styles.

1. Supporting/Giving motivation joining in processing of information comprehensive, conceptually making decisions getting everybody involved power and influence values, group, rewards primary function creating social ties tendency to certain behaviours being affected continuing to develop structure efficiency criteria personnel development quality

2. Controlling/Taking motivation achieving something processing of information concentrated, focused making decisions from a gut feeling power and influence legitimacy, clear goals primary function setting out a direction tendency to certain behaviours taking the initiative giving structure efficiency criteria productivity accomplishing tasks


3. Conserving/Holding motivation ensuring processing of information thinking, analyzing making decisions calculating logically power and influence expert, control over information primary function coordination, planning tendency to certain behaviours giving information maintaining structure developing structure efficiency criteria stability consolidation of the organization

4. Adapting/Dealing

motivation equalizing processing of information informing oneself, keeping one’s ears open making decisions at face value power and influence relationships, assigning of resources primary function stepping outside the conventional tendency to certain behaviours preaching harmony adapting structure efficiency criteria balancing procuring resources

Selection Criteria for the Situationally Appropriate Management Style

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you!”

That is a good proverb. In the context of communications and management, however, it is misleading. For example, if you, as the boss, are strongly Controlling/Taking, but your employees (and possibly also the other situational factors) expect employee-oriented management and therefore the Supporting/Giving LIFO® Style from you, then you also should adapt to your employees or partners and the situation as a whole. You should not communicate with them in the way you would want others to manage you and communicate with you, but in the way that, in this example, people with a Support-ing/Giving Style communicate. When you want something from somebody else, when, for example, you want them to take over a task or buy a product, you should adjust to them, the employee or client. Thus, in this case, we should rewrite the proverb as “Do unto others as you would not have them do unto you.”

In short, you have to evaluate the situation and the expectations that result from it, and then activate the appropriate LIFO® Styles. More easily said than done.

Here is a guide to what situations call for what management style. Easy to understand, right? Much harder to do. But it is worth the effort.

1. Supporting/Giving avoiding conflicts protection of employees educating people to be responsible for themselves identification involvement winning trust


2. Controlling/Taking time pressure responsibility interest in special solution superior much better informed than employee structured, simple problem

3. Conserving/Holding routine adhering to procedures, processes, rules, … simplicity of the task employees in full control of their tasks employees are experts

4. Adapting/Dealing superior and employee have same professional knowledge employees have detailed professional knowledge decisions with high risk identification involvement unstructured, complex problem conflict-laden problem

Efficiency: The Third Dimension of the Management Style Model

Perception is subjective and can have a rather cruel effect on you. Somehow executives, salespeople and everybody who “leads” and influences others, have to be actors. That may sound as if we are all part of a big soap opera. But we are not. I am talking about the fact that you should “create” a common wavelength. Creating a common wave-length, rapport-building. This is a technique that good, successful communicators auto-matically use, usually without realizing it.

In any case, the efficiency of your behaviour is important. It is always the other, your partner, who decides whether your management, sales pitch, etc. is efficient. Your chal-lenge is to activate styles and train styles and behaviour. If you do not accept this chal-lenge, you might be able to successfully communicate with a fourth of all people at most, namely those whose behaviour is similar to yours. And even that is not a sure thing. Thus, if your communications with others fail, please do not blame it on the other per-son’s failure to respond to you. Instead, ask yourself why you did not adequately re-spond to their behaviour, why and how you did not adjust to them. If you want some-thing from someone else…


Situation Analysis and Situation Management

Your management situation essentially results from the factors listed below and you should examine them closely. It is good idea to visualize your thoughts. It is even better if you ask a colleague, a friend or consultant, to ask you questions and to discuss with you. Be sure, however, to try to see the whole picture before you believe you have to change anything and seize upon the very first idea that crosses your mind.

Situational factors:

organizational culture: people you work with, sub-groups, information paths, ties to other groups, etc.

group’s task: as a whole and of the individual employees, goals, expecta-tions of the internal and external clients

your task: as an executive as an expert what the task requires you to do employees: their strengths/weaknesses their behavioural/LIFO® profiles what they expect from you superiors: their strengths/weaknesses their behavioural/LIFO® profiles what they expect from you

pleaser compro-

miser

avoider dictator

People Integration

Process Goal

coach integrator

bureaucrat driver

low

effectivity

high


And this is how you should proceed:

1. Describe your own behavioural/LIFO® style. Do not forget your strengths and weaknesses.

2. Describe your management situation, using the situational factors listed above. 3. Examine which of the task’s, employees’ and superiors’ demands/expectations

you fulfil and which you do not. Is you management style appropriate for the sit-uation?

4. List possible problems (consider this a sort of brainstorming). 5. List possible ideas for changes: SOS = Situation, Others, Self. 6. Decide on three issues that you want to resolve. Not more. Do not try to move

mountains. 7. Define your behavioural and organizational change programs. You need a plan of

action.

Compare LIFO® with Other Management Style Models

The management style model by Blake and Mouton, as well as Reddin

These are the style descriptions in classic management style models.

In the GRID Model, survey results are expressed as 1/9, 9/1, 1/1 or 9/9. People are re-duced to a number. There is even an exact coordinate in a quadrant. And the 9/9 style was advocated as the ideal management style. You already know my opinion about this.

Reddin and many others have already empirically proven that there is no ideal man-agement style. They promote situationally appropriate leadership instead.

To show their compatibility with the LIFO® Model, I need to give you a little translation help. That the following styles correspond is clear:

employee-oriented Supporting/Giving goal-oriented Controlling/Taking integration-oriented Adapting/Dealing

The correspondence between procedure-oriented and Conserving/Holding, however, might still be unclear to you. Think of it in this way: People with a Conserving/Holding style like to precisely define procedures and rules that they can hold on to. If and as long as they stick to these rules, executives like that neither need to deal with the employees much, nor do they constantly have to push toward the goal. Thus, it is an excellent man-agement style for routine situations and repetitive tasks. Or for managing experts. Ex-perts have basically internalized their common procedures. Experts among themselves know how to proceed. You do not have to stand behind them and give instructions. In this sense, the analytical management style can be considered identical with the “laisser faire” style.

Hersey and Blanchard have developed a very limited model of situationally adjusted leadership. The only variable is the maturity of the employee. I have added some of my own terms to their model.


The maturity level increases from right to left. The curve shows the chronological suc-cession of the maturity levels. From “apprentice” and “journeyman” to “master” and finally “expert.” Hersey and Blanchard argue that employees have to be managed and coached according to their maturity level. From “tell” and “talk” to “tutor” and “trust.” You are free to replace them with the LIFO® Styles; they are essentially the same.

“The New Manager”

The New Economy Needs Turbo Managers… But with Traditional Leadership Qualities

Bang! As we have all long suspected, the internet revolution has created a demand for new leadership qualities. James Citrin (Author 'You Need a Leader, Now What?“), in: The Trap of the Charismatic Leader (see: Huffington Post, October 27, 2011) believes that there are leadership qualities that always remain valid, and that, nowadays, you have to complement them with a few additional qualities.

Leadership qualities that are always valid: - integrity - a good business strategy - team spirit - being able to inspire others - setting a good example

Granted, this is not very specific for a determined, ideal management style. Apart from “a good business strategy,” the criteria are moral norms. In one way or another, they have always been valid and maybe sometimes have just been referred to differently.

New, additional leadership qualities: - pace - quickly filling market niches - quickly reacting to changes on the market - staying open to options - creating an atmosphere that promotes experiments and tolerates failures - obsessed with acquiring and retaining clients - working more; 60 hours a week or more - intelligence - provocative nature - wanting to be part of this new world

Master Fellow

Expert Trainee

Support Tutor

Train Task

Deligate Trust

Guide Tell


Signing a new client has become significantly more expensive. At the same time, clients more often change suppliers.

The consequence is that companies with Adapting/Dealing and Controlling/Taking company cultures will have obvious advantages. Does this also mean that managers have to be able to, and have to want to, use these styles more strongly? Or at least be able to recognize that they have to use employees and partners who are good at these styles?

The answer is a resounding “yes.”

When you see some of the new economy’s companies profiled on TV, read about them in the paper or if you know them first-hand, you will see that the styles on the right-hand side of the LIFO® grid completely dominate. Hesitating, being considerate and compre-hensively analyzing have become liabilities.

Liabilities?

I think these styles will be rediscovered. Already now, the virtues of “conservative” business strategies are experiencing something of a renaissance. Start-up euphoria is one thing, making a company profitable, making it grow and continuing to have ideas for new products and how to get clients is a very different matter. What ultimately counts is the bottom line at the end of the year. Does that not actually call for the Conserv-ing/Holding management style?

Many companies are also rediscovering that they can retain employees or win them back through employee-oriented management. Training, continuing education, coach-ing, “the family”… Retention programs. This means that the Supporting/Giving style is also needed; for personnel development and coaching. Many people have once again discovered that salaries, stock options and incentives are only temporarily effective and in the long run might even turn out to be detrimental.

I hope for the turbo managers of the new economy that they do not only start compa-nies, but that they are also able to make them blossom and grow. My experience sug-gests, however, that the people who feel on top of the world today soon will not be in charge anymore. With a few successful exceptions. Sure, some will leave sinking ships on time, will sell themselves and their shares and be very rich. The companies that they started, however, will no longer exist. So what! Many others will be burned out by the time they turn 35 or 40 and will look for something else to do. Still others – following the Peter´s principle – will simply hit a wall and be brutally transferred elsewhere.

We have seen it all before. The older ones among you will still remember the times when Digital Equipment, Hewlett Packard, Sun and Apple, to name only a few of my fa-vourites, started out. There were plenty of turbo managers… who have gotten old.

Tragic? While you are reading this, a number of new companies are already dying. No credibility, out of money. Only the “healthy” ones who are not blinded by fleeting oppor-tunities and get-rich-fast mentalities, those who still have critical analysts, will ultimate-ly survive.


LIFO® and the six management styles by Goleman

Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee, Primal Leadership, HBS Press, 2004

Authoritarian - Modus operandi of the executives: demand that their orders be followed –

immediately. - Brief characterization of the style: “Do as I say!” - Underlying abilities regarding emotional intelligence:

o drive o energy o self-control

- This style works best o in a crisis, to precipitate the turnaround. o when dealing with problems with difficult employees.

- Overall effect on atmosphere: negative.

Authoritative - Modus operandi of the executives: urge people to turn a vision into reality. - Brief characterization of the style: “Accompany me on my journey.” - Underlying abilities regarding emotional intelligence:

o self-confidence o empathy o catalyst for change

- This style works best o if the change requires a new vision. o if a clear direction is needed.

- Overall effect on atmosphere: most clearly positive of all styles.

Affiliative - Modus operandi of the executives: create harmony and emotional ties. - Brief characterization of the style: “My first and foremost concern is for the peo-

ple.” - Underlying abilities regarding emotional intelligence:

o empathy o ability to create relationships o and communication

- This style works best o in overcoming differences within a team. o in motivating people in challenging situations.

- Overall effect on atmosphere: positive.

Democratic

- Modus operandi of the executives: achieve through consensus and participation. - Brief characterization of the style: “What do you think about this?” - Underlying abilities regarding emotional intelligence:

o cooperation o team leadership o communication

- This style works best o in getting people involved or creating consensus. o in eliciting valuable contributions from employees.



Performance-focused - Modus operandi of the executives: set higher performance standards. - Brief characterization of the style: “Do it like me, right now!” - Underlying abilities regarding emotional intelligence:

o conscientiousness o success-driven o energy

- This style works best o if a highly motivated and hard-working team has to produce quick results.

- Overall effect on atmosphere: negative.

Coaching - Modus operandi of the executives: prepare employees for the future. - Brief characterization of the style: “Try it again!” - Underlying abilities regarding emotional intelligence:

o supporting others o empathy o self-reflection

- This style works best o in helping an employee improve his/her performance. o in developing long-term strengths.


How should professional employees in network organizations be managed?

Highly qualified employees are rare on the job market, in spite of relatively high unem-ployment everywhere. Looking for, hiring and training such employees often equals an investment of $50,000 or more. This is one of the reasons why, in American publica-tions, these employees have already been described as “Gold Collar Workers” (as op-posed to blue and white collar). The rules for how to deal with employees in network organizations are similar to the motivation profile of gold-collar employees:

- An employee can have several “superiors” at the same time, depending on how many different projects he/she is involved in.

- The decentralized, independent teams have to be aware that a team’s member-ship can change due to changes in the team’s task/function.

- Decisions have to be made with the consensus of all those who are involved and affected, so that people can identify with the decisions and can implement them independently.

- Because of the high investment in the qualifications of the employees, manage-ment have to make sure the employees will want to stay for the long run. This al-so means that the organization guarantees the employees long-term employment – which can consist of a succession of several different jobs with the company.

- Employees are treated like people and individuals, not just a faceless workforce. They need personal attention, praise and criticism; they need contact with others in groups; they need opportunities to express themselves.

- Promotions to positions higher up in the company hierarchy have to be slow since the know-how of the skilled professionals is needed. “Promotions” or, ra-ther, transfers to other positions on the same hierarchical level, or even to lower levels, are more likely. Hierarchies cannot be allowed to play a significant role anymore.

- Professional career paths are only vaguely specialized to preserve, share and promote the broadness of the professional spectrum and the know-how.


- The creation of parallel career paths can be a solution to the problem this entails. People do not have to become managers to have a “career.” They can climb pro-fessional career ladders that parallel traditional management careers. This helps ensure that motivated, highly-qualified professionals do not turn into de-motivated, bad managers.

- Managers assume the roles of personnel and organizational developers, trainers and coaches.

- The employees are encouraged to do business in smaller and entrepreneurially independent units where everybody has a say. That makes it possible to provide intensive continuing education for every single individual.

- Independent units have to be promoted and equipped in such a way that they can flexibly and quickly adapt to clients’ needs.

- Wherever possible, information technology has to be used to ensure fast ex-change of information.

- Modern technologies, professional thinking, and verbal and practical tools sup-port efficiency and efficacy.

- Tasks cannot be regulated through bureaucratic job descriptions, but, as prede-termined roles, have to be flexibly shapeable according to the mission and quan-titative as well as qualitative goals.

- The employees have to be able to flexibly switch between tasks. - Bureaucracy needs to be kept to a minimum and its main function has to be to

support people – instead of primarily controlling them. - The central services have to be organized in such a way that the decentralized,

independent units can utilize them to perform desired tasks.

…and what management style is required?

- Informality and equality become the highest values from which all others are de-rived.

- Communication can occur in all directions; upward, sideways, downward. Man-agers therefore no longer control and distribute information. They are only one of many knots in the network.

- The structure is interdisciplinary and focuses on cooperation. The managers therefore have to be able and willing to cooperate on an interdisciplinary level – just like the employees. (Managers are employees, too!)

- Effective managers are respected team leaders. As team leaders, they also have to be able to allow the team to work independently, or to hand over leadership to another team members if this person is better qualified for the task.

- Managers become carers and trainers for employees, and not necessarily only for their “own” employees.

- Less “only-managers” are needed on the lower levels, but more employees are needed who are able to take on executive functions at certain times and for cer-tain tasks, while fulfilling their professional duties (Working Supervisor).

- Therefore the training and continuing education of professional employees (also in leading teams and individuals, in communication, and, most of all, in self-management) will become more important than the rather elitist traditional management training.

By now, dear readers, you might be spoiled for choice. You have to decide for yourself which management philosophy is right for you. You know my opinion. However, inde-pendently from your decision, LIFO® at least helps you see what management styles exist and why and how you can use and activate them.


LIFO®-based Coaching-Communication

Dr. Reiner Czichos

Robert Beckenbauer


What are the communication strategies for coaching sessions with coachees using dif-ferent LIFO®-styles? In coaching you want to establish a trust relationship and you want your coachee to agree to ideas, to say “Yes”. So what is important talking to your people?

This chapter might look a bit extraordinary to you. We invite you to read these pages with two different glasses:

� Of course the subject is important. � But also have a look how we wrote and designed the text. We tried to put it

in the corresponding LIFO®-writing style.

If your coachee uses the Supporting/Giving away-style (value-oriented amiable idealist), the following techniques could help you to win his/her trust:

Take a lot of time, more than usual. If you have the possibility, meet with him/her at a café or bistro rather than in his or your office. Preferably make it for lunch or dinner. These people prefer a more personal atmosphere. On no account go like a bull at a gate, rather make small talk. “ How do you do? And the family? And …? And…?” And tell something private of yourself (telling not reporting!). That should take for a longer time. Talking builds up confidence, intensifies the relationship. People with the Support-ing/Giving-style are looking for a trustworthy partner. They don’t want to know all the details. They don’t like it if you demonstrate your knowledge; worse if you would be cheating. They want to be sure that they can rely on you.

They want to understand the WHY, the meaning behind the new thing. It must be worthwhile investing in. Tell them examples how other people managed things. Your coachee might like to talk to somebody being in a similar situation like he himself. He likes to have references and most probably he will call or even meet the person you named him.

Listen actively, nod, and say “hmm, hmmm” to keep him talking. Signalise sympathy and patience.

Very often these people are nodding to what you say. They watch you and nod perma-nently. But that does not necessarily mean they agree to what you are telling them, they are just friendly, listening carefully to you. Don’t push them to say “YES”. If your coachee says “Yes”, better ask him if there is still something he wants to talk about. Let him dis-cuss the issue with a person he trusts. There is a bit of a danger that such a person says “Yes” and is waiting for a moment he can back out or that he needs not to keep his “Yes”. People using this style could be in a dilemma then. This is what you should spare them.

If your coachee uses the Controlling/Taking over-style (pragmatic, action oriented

driver) …

The most effective techniques are the following:

� Where? o In your office.

� Make it brief and firm o If possible: do not sit, stand when talking! o “Hello” is accepted, but not all that small talk-crap! o Come to the point, almost immediately.

� He wants to know the 3 to 5 most important points o He will test you and ask 2 difficult questions. o No fear: if you answer quick and brief you nearly have won.


� It may happen that he says: o “Okay, that’s enough! You decide. I will do. When and with which action

shall I start?” � He will act and go for the result. � He motivates himself by action and success.

o Your biggest fault is if you would say: “I have to explain to you the follow-ing.”

o Get his “Yes” and go! o Save your and your coachee’s time

If your coachee uses the Conserving/Holding on-style (reason oriented analytical) …

The following techniques will help you:

1. The most favourable room for the discussion: 1. A neutral meeting room where nobody can disturb you.

2. Have a checklist on which you wrote the items, which have to be discussed and explained:

1. Use it. 2. Show your coachee the structure you’ll go through and strictly stick to it. 3. It is advisable to send him the list in advance so he can prepare himself thor-

oughly.

3. When discussing:

1. Do not work sloppy. 2. Discuss point after point. 3. You’ll get precise questions. 4. Precise answers are expected; no sales show or hot air. 5. He prefers charts with figures. 6. He does not like graphics. 7. Don’t tell him the benefits, but give him clear proof and exact calculations.

4. The best way is working with your laptop.

1. Or at least write readable. 2. And then print out everything you wrote in the laptop or copy the handwrit-

ten material and hand it out to him … this is when you nearly have won him.

5. If he is still asking questions, 1. Be patient. 2. He does not want to nerve you: he seeks for assurance. 3. Look at it like that: Precise questions are a sign that he wants to know more

details to be sure to be able to say “Yes”.

6. Pause in between when you are talking

1. and give him time to read the details and work them through.

7. At the end of the discussion 1. write down an detailed action and time plan. 2. And stick to it. 3. You can give him additional reading material. 4. He will read it all.

8. Actually he is a good coachee. 1. Here you can show your detailed expert knowledge.


2. But if your preferred coaching-style is the Controlling/Taking-style or the Adapting/Dealing-style this coachee could become a big challenge for you concerning your time budget and your patience.

In case your coachee uses the Adapting/Dealing away-style

(harmony-oriented expressive) …

the following techniques will help you to win:

Now it will be a colourful and confused and complicated but in any case entertaining discussion. It may happen that at the end of the discussion you’ll forget to ask his deci-sion. Because it was so interesting to talk to this chaotic and creactive person about eve-rything under the sun and to jump from one subject to the other. Maybe in the course of discussion you create a completely new concept. And this person will accept enthusias-tically the invitation to the restaurant “to the fast spoon”. He or his friends might have been there already, or wanted to go there. It could be that you’ll win a new friend. At least for the next weeks or days until his enthusiasm will diminish and he finds another person with whom he’ll have even more fun.

If this is the way with people using the Adapting/Dealing-style, which strategy should you use to come to a decision? Leap with him, be crazy with him. But get him back to the subject again and again by backtracking: “Great this idea!” Then you have to talk him from the mosquito to the elephant, because he is also an expert for elephants. “May I ask you again? This means that it is important for you that…? Is it so? Is it OK for you? A moment please, I have to write it down!…. Super!”

You can or rather you should use exaggerations when you talk to these kind of people. He loves the show. But let him be the star. He wants to be brilliant. He needs and looks for the applause. Forget about some traditional trainer knowledge: You have to inter-rupt him because otherwise you don’t have the chance to say anything. It’s allowed to draw with fat pens pictures and graphs. When you take notes it can look chaotic. These people are highly visual and most of them highly motoric as well. They cannot sit still for a minute. But if you can entertain, hours seem to be minutes. If you bore him, within five minutes he’ll find an excuse why he forgot that he has another appointment now. Or he makes jokes and tries to invite every Tom, Dick and Harry to join the discussion in order to flee the boredom. It’s normal that you make a phone call or answer your phone when talking with him. He will do the same.

And how can you bring him to a conclusion? No chance. Or you take it by surprise, with a handshake and showing your sympathy. Do you believe his saying “Yes”? Don’t believe in his promise, i.e. slip of the tongue, yet. You only can rely on his promise when a lot of people know about it so he cannot reverse his decision because he would disgrace him-self and wouldn’t be liked anymore. Keep in contact with him also after the discussion: a mail, a phone call, visit him by pure chance, again some more documents of course with pictures and graphs. Let him tell about it to other people in meetings. He wants to be noticed by others.

To sum it up:

So you see, that there are “four games in town”, also for coaching. Enjoy finding out the “game” of your coachees and use their LIFO®-style to convince them to make changes. Do not think that people will join your own individual style-game. You should not do onto them what you want others to do on you. Play their game and you will achieve more easily the coaching-goals.


LIFO®-Method

Change-Management

Dr. Reiner Czichos Robert Beckenbauer


Change – my favourite subject. My favourite subject because it requires you to know, and to be able to use, a wide range of concepts, processes and tools. My favourite sub-ject also because change situations allow you to see human reactions especially clearly and allow you to “study” them. Those of you who read German can find a huge toolbox of change-tools in my book “Change Management.” Within the framework of this book, however, I will focus entirely on human behaviour during change.

Why Change Should Become Your Favourite Subject, Too

Let me tell you a few random stories. In April 2000, one of my colleagues did some extra work and voluntarily called c. 30 clients “on hiatus” and companies where we had al-most gotten jobs, but then unfortunately did not, and who were thus “possible clients.” We had lost touch with these companies for more than two years. A scary picture emerged. Eight of these companies no longer existed under the names we knew. They had been bought up or merged with others. At 12 other companies the people we had once met and talked to, were no longer known. Change had struck here, too.

What do you think? How long will the company where you currently still are (hopefully) securely employed continue to exist in its current form? Or exist at all?

Account managers (in selling to company customers) have the rare pleasure of making a completely new experience. They often can no longer find the people they used to talk to at client companies in previous years. New people everywhere.

By the way, the average life-span of companies is 25 years. I read that in an interview; I think it was an interview with Peter Drucker.

An even worse question for you: How long will it take until your current qualifications are not sufficient anymore? When will you have to go back to school?

Do you still need more to convince you that you have to deal with change and work on the way you behave when changes occur? This is at the core of your personal self-management. If you do not manage to swim or ride on the waves of change, if you are not able to constantly sell yourself, over and over again, you will not survive. Remember that. Change triggers stress when it is unexpected and not of your own volition. So, how do you react to change? Look in the LIFO® Mirror!

How the Different LIFO® Styles React to Change

Supporting/Giving

Your likely initial reaction

- A rather hesitant reaction. - You have to recognize the point or purpose and benefit of the change first. - If someone you trust advocates something new, you jump on the bandwagon.

Your strengths in adapting to what is new - Your ability to cooperate. - Your loyalty. - You look at long-range implementation, provided that what is new corresponds

with your demands/goals.

The criteria that are decisive for you in accepting change - Where is the origin of the changes? - You want the changes to correspond with your values. - You want the changes to correspond with your high standards.


If things get difficult for you during the change process - You try hard but then give up.

Your reactions during the transition phase - You are on a roller coaster; you alternately hope and worry.

What can help you deal with change - If you are involved in planning, with the group. - If you can contribute to defining the goals. - If you are allowed to talk about your feelings.

Arguments that people can use to convince you - “This is a perfect match for our ideals and values!” - “This won’t hurt anybody.” - “This perfectly builds on our ideas of what and how we really want to be.” - “This helps us better deal with our clients, employees, etc.”

How, in your opinion, changes should be implemented - Changes build very strongly on the ideas of the most important and influential

people, as well as on the opinions of those affected.

Strategies people should use to convince you

- serious - considerate toward others - integrity - altruistic - proud of good performance - appeal to principles

Controlling/Taking

Your likely initial reaction - You will probably seize the new opportunity at first. - However, if you are going to participate, or even take the lead, you need to see

the benefits. - If you do not see how it serves your interests, you fight against it.

Your strengths in adapting to what is new

- You take the initiative. - You energetically take on the work. - You are willing to experiment.

The criteria that are decisive for you in accepting change - You want to have a choice and be allowed to make decisions. - You want your personal results count. - Time and pace are critical. You want everything to happen fast. - And you want to remain in control.

If things get difficult for you during the change process

- You keep working, but lose interest relatively quickly if nothing significant is be-ing done.

Your reactions during the transition phase - You either act fast or not at all.

What can help you deal with change - A dynamic presentation. - Completely clear and visible actions.


- Pre-determined milestones. - Responsibilities have to be clear and you want to assume responsibility.

Arguments that people can use to convince you - “This way we will quickly get good results.” - “This gives us a new foundation for more…” - “We can implement these plans immediately and quickly.”

How, in your opinion, changes should be implemented - Efficiently and effectively using others’ ideas. - You have to be directly involved, not only affected.

Strategies people should use to convince you - fast - easy to understand - advantages - competition - striving for results - controllable

Conserving/Holding

Your likely initial reaction - You tend to approach change rather cautiously, thoughtfully and skeptically. - You need to see the purpose and reasoning.

Your strengths in adapting to what is new - Your ability to analyze. - Your calmness and emotional distance should be valued. - You approach new situations objectively, without emotion.

The criteria, that are decisive for you in accepting change - Change has to be proven to be sensible, has to have a solid foundation. - It has to be inevitable.

If things get difficult for you during the change process - You most probably stop everything you are doing to analyze the problems and

carefully consider (new) alternatives. - You slow down the change process.

Your reactions during the transition phase - Slowing down.

What can help you deal with change - You need hard facts from studies. - You take the time to do some comprehensive, long-range planning. - The proceedings have to be rational and logical.

Arguments that people can use to convince you - “This exactly complies with the existing procedures and rules.” - “This can be implemented successfully. It has a clearly calculated benefit.” - “This builds on the status quo.”

How, in your opinion, changes should be implemented - There needs to be a precisely worked out plan for implementation. - It needs to be formally sound.


Strategies people should use to convince you - unemotional - rationally understandable - consistency - documented - well organized - numbers

Adapting/Dealing

Your likely initial reaction - You welcome change enthusiastically and with open arms. - You see all the advantages first. - You enthusiastically get to work in any case.

Your strengths in adapting to what is new

- Your optimism. - Your ability to understand people will be valued. - Your ability to motivate people is needed.

The criteria, that are decisive for you in accepting change - Who came up with the ideas? - What (good) reputation do these initiators have? - Who else is participating?

If things get difficult for you during the change process - You become a bit pensive, even if you keep smiling. - You need people who encourage you to keep going. - You look for someone to help you.

Your reactions during the transition phase - You look at who is participating and how. - You make sure you have others’ agreement.

What can help you deal with change - If the doers and participants treat you openly and warmly. - People who give you courage and support.

Arguments that people can use to convince you - “The really important people like the ideas.” - “This is a great way to present ourselves to the public.” - “It makes us more important and visible.” - “We are becoming a more important company.”

How, in your opinion, changes should be implemented - You want to make sure that ideally everybody accepts the changes. - People have to be consistently asked for their input.

Strategies people should use to convince you

- friendly - with much humour and laughing - prestige - in a team - meeting new people - fun


How to Motivate Co-Workers with Different LIFO® Styles to Participate in “Your” Project

Naturally, you will not want to keep your insights on how you function in change situa-tions only to yourself. You also want to (and should) know how to use these insights when you find yourself being a change leader. I believe that, regardless of your Pre-ferred LIFO® Style, you should be actively promoting changes. Initiate changes yourself, before someone else does it for you, or even against you. Following are four basic strat-egies to convince others.

Values-oriented people who like to support others and would even sacrifice them-selves for you

- Appeal to their idealism. - Appeal to their need to do good work. - Ask for help, for their support. - Mention problems and goals that are worth fighting for. - Show them that it is important for you that they are doing well. - Emphasize that the project will help them develop.

“Phillip, I really need your help with this project. It is really important for our company

and, to be honest, it is also tremendously important for our department. This project

will allow us to show everybody that we are doing an excellent job. And it will also be a

great experience for you to be fully involved in this project.”

After they have agreed to support your project,

- discuss and define the goals with them to show your personal involvement and interest in their performance.

- make sure that you are available for them at any time, to answer their questions and to help.

- show them that you trust them. - acknowledge their support and their achievements.

Activity-oriented people, who like to dominate and make decisions themselves, and who, when they become impatient, take matters into their own hands

- Appeal to their need for competition. - Give them a lot of responsibility and all the resources they need to achieve the

goals. - Give them the opportunity to show what they are capable of. - Do not constantly look over their shoulder and let them work alone.

“Jane, this new project really is a challenge for us. And all other departments are liter-

ally waiting for us to fail. I want you to be in charge and I want you to show everybody

that we can do this. This is completely and solely your job. I will give you all the people

you need to do this. But I expect that you take full control of this matter and make

things happen. If anyone can do this, it’s you.”

Of course, you should get all these statements, goals and promises across to them clearly and in an easily understandable way, so that the framework is clear and Jane knows ex-actly what you expect from her. You should also make her aware, however, that you are open to her ideas and that you welcome her initiative in changing things. And, as a coach, you should be her sparring partner. Let her try out her ideas in discussions with you. Sparring partners are active and not only receive blows, but also attack and fight back.


Rationality-oriented people who, first of all, want to preserve the status quo and, when put under pressure, hold on to it even more strongly and refuse to let you convince them otherwise

- Target their preference for working methodically. - They are no gamblers and are loath to take risks. Thus, present your goals, pro-

jects, ideas as risk-free. - Show them where and how they can use their analytical abilities and their logical,

factual way of proceeding. - Point out parallels between the new project and previous ones to make them feel

comfortable with it. Make them feel that they basically already know everything about the project from their previous experience.

“Laura, it’s time again for a new project, like the one we did last year. I want you to

look into it and get the information we need to complete this project as efficiently and

precisely as possible. You know we have done this several times before and you know

how it works. You know what we need.”

You should be objective, fair and consistent, especially when you are dealing with per-formance evaluations and coaching. They do not like ambiguousness, inconsistencies and abrupt changes. Thus, outline all details clearly and systematically. And systemati-cally and regularly review the progress of the project.

Cooperation-oriented people who are good at making things work out, and who, when under pressure, can be talked to because they want to re-establish harmony

- Work with the project’s social elements. - The project will be an excellent opportunity for them to work with others while

being in the spotlight and being seen and admired by everybody. - They highly value their social skills and are proud of their ability to flexibly adapt

to situations and people.

“Reiner, we got a new project that I need you for. Our bosses up there consider it ex-

tremely important. And everyone involved will profit from it if we pull it off. The only

thing is, all the other departments are also very much interested in working on it. We

absolutely have to integrate their ideas in our final plan. They don’t want to simply ac-

cept our plan. We have to be flexible.”

Give them a lot of information. Give them frequent feedback on their work and also about what you and others are doing. Always remain friendly, informal and relaxed. And make sure they get to take the spotlight and play an important, high profile role in the project.

What to Do When “Your” Partners Make Excessive Use of Their Strengths

Even if you know your co-workers well and correctly predict their behaviour in change situations, it is all too easy for people to feel pressurized and make excessive use of their strengths. Change can cause distress not only when it happens unexpectedly and you reject it, but also in situations where you actually welcome it. In unfavourable situa-tions, however, you are likely to exaggerate your strengths and that will tend to work to your disadvantage. You should therefore know what happens when you make excessive use of your strengths and thereby allow your strengths to become weaknesses.


Supporting/Giving These people are very worried about others. They want their colleagues to do well and do not want anybody to be treated badly. If, as almost inevitably, a conflict is brewing, if they see how people suffer, if these people come to them to be consoled, if they see that the “good cause” might not be a good cause after all, then they begin to doubt the pur-pose of the changes. They become apprehensive. They see that others need help and they offer help, let themselves be used and might not even realize when they are taken advantage of. They sacrifice themselves for others and forget that they have their own tasks to fulfill. They thereby end up being more and more under pressure and cannot keep up anymore. That, in turn, makes them feel guilty. They cannot live up to their own values, ideas and standards anymore. But they still will not actively approach oth-ers to ask for help. They repress their disappointment. Sleepless nights, depression, stomachaches… It is a vicious circle. They will continue to try their best but are unlikely to succeed. At some point they will simply give up.

What could/should you do? - Approach them, reassure them, tell them that you understand how difficult it is,

how much effort it takes, but that it is important for the sake of … that they do not give up.

- Thank them for their sacrifices. - Tell them that you understand them. - Do not reprimand them under any circumstances for the delays they might have

caused. - Support their good intentions. - Let them talk and ask them questions. Give them plenty of time to talk. - Be patient and clarify things when they complain and talk about their concerns. - Ask them how you can help them and others. - Offer your help and encourage them to keep going. - Develop a support plan for them. - Actively support them. Take over some of their workload. - Help them redefine their priorities.

Your Supporting/Giving co-workers definitely want to continue to be seen as people who

- feel responsible and who can be trusted. - are accepted for who they are and are understood and valued.

They want to continue to see and feel that ideals still matter and that it is worth advocat-ing them. Show them your own Supporting/Giving qualities and you will make/keep a friend.

Controlling/Taking Controlling/Taking people immediately seize the opportunity if they see that the chang-es benefit their own interests and that they can profit from them right away. They love goals; especially goals that promise immediate results and goals that they are likely to achieve. They are anxious to immediately take the initiative. If they do not feel that they benefit from the changes, or if they are not allowed to make their own decisions and as-sume a leadership role, they will use their go-getter potential against you.

Deciding and acting immediately, taking the lead and hitting the ground running are all style exaggerations. Their “driver” momentum almost always makes them react imme-diately, but usually they fall short of the goal or channel their energies into the wrong direction. Ten more minutes of listening, discussion, analysis and reflection could avoid


many unnecessary actions and undesired results. In any case, however, many more and better goals could be achieved. When drivers really get going, they do not care if any-body goes along with them. Full steam ahead and no turning back… It easily happens that drivers do not realize that others have not been able to keep up and that they have lost them along the way. But that spurns them on even more: “I’ll show them!” The frenzy increases. They start many projects but complete hardly any. They become rest-less and anxious while their perspective keeps narrowing. I wonder where people like that get all their energy. Heart attacks are just waiting to happen. “Nothing is worse than a dumb driver…”

What could/should you do? - You have to quickly react to their demands. - You have to ease their burden and make time for them to come up for breath and

think. - Give them answers and solutions, no new questions and problems. - Be firm in your position and self-assured. But also deal with your go-getter co-

worker respectfully. - Meet with them and tell them that you will spend exactly 30 minutes to find a so-

lution for the problem. Stick to the time. Wrap up this meeting with decisions and actions.

- Acknowledge their drive, their goal-orientation and thirst for success, their good will and good intentions, and their achievements.

- If they bombard you with counter-arguments, give them short, non-evasive an-swers. Ask them for their suggestions. Integrate their suggestions into the deci-sions you make together.

- Offer them new perspectives and new ways of approaching challenges and prob-lems.

- Be strong, but do not put them under pressure. - Ask how they see the problem. Ask about their ideas for solving the problem. - Make your decision criteria clear. - Give them clear alternatives and then let them decide for themselves. - Let them delegate clearly defined tasks to others they consider capable of dealing

with them. - Do not make any additional demands of them until the pressure on them has sub-

sided.

Your go-getter co-workers need to continue to feel that they - have power, are capable and competent. - can overcome the obstacles themselves, on their own. - continue to be able to successfully deal with challenges.

They want to continue to face challenges and be successful. Keep them “running.” But more like in an interval workout. Short warm up. A 100 meter sprint, then a 50 meter walk. A 200 meter sprint and another 50 meter walk. A 400 meter sprint, a 50 meter walk. And then from the top. A 100 meter sprint. The walks are not actually pauses but time to breathe and gather new strength, to think… and for brief consultations. You get the idea.


Conserving/Holding They are your cautious colleagues who stay in the background and do not reply immedi-ately, who think and consider. For them, reasons, backgrounds, details, numbers, data and facts are important. They take time to analyze and think.

When Conserving/Holding analysts make excessive use of their style, their strengths, it will look somewhat like this: As soon as difficulties appear, they will want to stop and thoroughly analyze what happened and why. You will probably see one or both of the following behaviours:

- They ask precise, detailed questions, get bogged down in details, want to know everything exactly, and do not let go.

- They ask for time to think and study, so that they can thoroughly consider the matter. As long as they are not absolutely clear about what is going on, you will not be able to get them to proceed with the project. When they are done with their timeout, however, they will have a perfect concept and polished opinion.

Working with people like that can feel incredibly slow. They will probably also chal-lenge you to be more precise and patient. The more you push, the more stubborn they will be. Or they will stop talking to you, will not have time for you anymore and are no-where to be found.

What could/should you do? - Prepare thoroughly and comprehensively for your conversation with your ana-

lyst colleague. - Draw up detailed written materials. - Give them the opportunity to study your papers before the meeting. - Create a well-structured agenda for your meeting, noting how much time you will

spend on each issue. - Minimize tensions and threats. - Control your emotions; remain completely factual. - While being well-prepared and controlled, you should still be relaxed. A little bit

of humour, laughing… - Ask for the exact reasons for the difficulties. - Ask them for their insights and their criteria for analysis, evaluation and deci-

sion-making. - Submit your documents to them and give them time to read and think. Ask pre-

cise questions. Give precise answers. - Take exact notes. - Stay both humorous and factual. - If you feel you are not getting anywhere, take an emergency break to process

things and think. This can take a few hours or even a few days. No time pressure. - Draw up an exact plan with them for how you are going to proceed. It should be a

written plan and it should be detailed. If necessary, meet with them again to talk about the plan in detail.

Your Conserving/Holding colleagues want to know - that you and your colleagues will continue to see them as rational and objective

experts. - that they are capable of eliminating risks or at least minimizing them as much as

possible. - that all problems can be solved sensibly.


Adapting/Dealing From the perspective of the other three styles, Adapting/Dealing people exaggerate an-yway. If you enthusiastically present to them a new idea of which you are convinced, and ask these cooperation-oriented people for their ideas, if you provoke them rather than bore them, the flame will immediately be ignited. “Yes, exactly! I can imagine that…” They immediately pick up on your ideas, build on them and become excited. They might be so excited, in fact, that they fail to see the disadvantages of the changes. They only see positives. Confusing. Unstoppable. When they see conflicts, they are able to make parallels that you would never have thought possible. Why fight? You can al-ways talk and there will always be a solution. You might never make any progress, as there is always something else. There are always more people who could be involved. It becomes an incredible effort. And when Adapting/Dealing people are allowed to dream, they can end up thinking that their dreams are already a reality. But they can lose inter-est in the changes just as quickly.

If they are not enjoying themselves, do not find a forum to showcase themselves, if you are too boring for them and if they are afraid of getting a bad deal, you could end up with a creatively cunning attacker. You might have to endure not only worries and anger, but fury and volatile emotions. They might mobilize their whole network of friends against you – and they only have friends, not simply acquaintances. That is dangerous for you, even if many of these friends will basically apologize to you for the Adapting/Dealing person’s behaviour.

What could/should you do?

- Constantly reassure them that they are popular and that they are needed. You like them, you need them.

- Show them that you are looking for new compromises and solutions. You and them, together.

- Assure them that you like people who openly talk about their anger, show emo-tions and even become furious. You should even encourage them in this: “Get it out. Yes, scream it out.” “I’m sick of it, too.”

- And then redefine problems as opportunities: “In spite of all the problems, the good thing about this is…”

- Have heated discussions. - Draw, use a flipchart. Ask them to sketch or draw the problem or challenge. - Keep changing the subject. There are as many expressive sidetracks as you can

imagine. - Ask them about their personal lives and hobbies. Create parallels between per-

sonal issues and the challenge. - If they start to lose focus and talk about things that are completely irrelevant, you

should ask questions about relevance and not simply dismiss them. Bring them back to the matter at hand in an elegant manner (backtracking).

- Let them save face under any circumstances, even if they completely lose it. - Give them the task of motivating other colleagues. Let them do presentations. It

will make them more committed to the project.

Your Adapting/Dealing colleagues will want to continue to - be seen as likeable and universally popular. - be applauded. - ensure that everybody is satisfied and happy with the changes and know that

they made it happen. - ensure that everybody likes what they do.


Bowling Lanes Can Trigger Change Reactions, Too

Allan Katcher, one of the two authors of the LIFO®-Method is a passionate bowler. He told me a very personal change story: At some point, his favorite bowling center changed owners. The new owners were full of new ideas and wanted to offer something new to the costumers. For Allan, this was too fast, too much, too new, too everything. And, most importantly, people like him had not been asked. This experience inspired him to come up with the following concept on the issue of “Change Styles.” How might the different styles react to the surprise? In a best case scenario, that is.

Allan also proposes a strategy that bowling lane users could use to ensure that all styles feel addressed somehow at some point.

1. Supporting/Giving If that’s what’s offered I’ll try to do it. It’s for a good purpose. I’m annoyed, but why upset the employees; they’re not the ones responsible. It doesn’t feel right; they should have done it this way.

2. Controlling/Taking They have asked me/us. I was a major part of the decision process. I can see the challenge I am/we are facing. There are clear benefits. They have a plan to fix problems coming up.

3. Conserving/Holding They have really thought about it: they have a clear time-plan, a good project. Good analysis of expectations. No disruptions while change is going on. You can see one step after the other.

4. Adapting/Dealing Cool, what a neat idea. A chance to play, try something new. Something different; let it wake people up to… Kid around with others. Why don’t they note who came, give them a memento.

Are we not all bowling lane owners in a way? You too, as boss at a company? Employ-ees want to be appropriately informed, too, and, most importantly, they want to be in-volved. Let yourself be inspired. You might even have an idea for a book titled “Bowling – The Ultimate Management Concept.”

How Can Employees Become Involved in Change Processes?

Here are some more ideas on how you can get your employees involved. (Employees are clients, too, right?) Ideas for your change-marketing. The following ideas are the result of a brainstorming session with managers of a high-tech company:

- awareness workshops - trainees and interns as “company consultants” - benchmarks - share of the results - open space - one-on-one conversations - groups to share experiences


- forums - information booths in front of/in the cafeteria (staffed by moderator) - job rotation - social get-togethers in the evenings - mini-trainings by executives - surveys of employees’ attitudes and ideas - motivating lower level managers to get involved - lunch - corporate proposal system - company strategy - company convention - coaching - newsletter - opportunity for improvement - godfathers - partnerships between departments - pilot projects - podium discussions - publicizing the problem, questions (“chatroom”) - roadshows - training - representation at conventions, meetings etc. - corporate strategic planning simulation - future workshops

And If You Are a Change Manager Yourself?

Unfortunately, things are a bit more complicated when you are a change manager your-self. Change managers usually stay with the project throughout the whole change pro-cess. From a LIFO® perspective, it is all but impossible for a single change manager to pull off a complete change process from beginning to end. The individual phases require fairly different styles. How many people do you know who require and have the ability for this behavioral flexibility? I will show you a change management process and my ideas about what Style Profiles are required in the individual phases.

LIFO® Styles in Change Management

In my work as a consultant and trainer, I often have the opportunity to accompany change processes. When working on change projects, I am particularly fascinated by how the behavioral profiles of the people who drive the change make them interact with each other. I will use one particular change team I have worked with as an example. I have rarely seen such an ideal constellation. Even without reading the text, you will immediately notice that, here, people with rather different LIFO® Profiles were allowed to work together.

The Project

Mr. R., the department head, and his two business managers, W. (Project Manager) and G. (Poolmanager), were three “drivers” with different roles in a very big change project. They were aiming to double the pace of software development in their applications de-velopment division and to cut the error rate by 50%.

As the boss, Mr. R. was not only the sponsor of this project, but, in the ideas phase (the first phase of the project), also the one who developed a vision for the future – in associ-ation with a big business consulting company for the technical part, a team of seven di-


visional mangers, and myself as moderator and consultant for organizational and human resources development. Mr. R. decided that the project should begin and how and with what “drivers” it should begin. Of course, he did not assume a neutral/distanced role for the duration of the entire project. In fact, he was actively generating ideas and available to talk to all involved, for the “drivers” and his executive team, as well as for all of the department’s employees.

He did not meddle and actually let the drivers do. But he reserved the right to contrib-ute his ideas in important decisions and to check the correctness of these decisions. He repeatedly brought his executives together in workshops, where they only marginally dealt with factual questions and instead discussed how management needed to work together as a team in the change process and how this process could be optimized. They had recognized from the very beginning how important cooperation is. A number of personal conflicts were dealt with and solved in these workshops.

In accordance with his strongly Adapting/Dealing but also strongly Conserving/Holding LIFO® Profile, Mr. R. was, in spite of all ambition and toughness, very interested in hav-ing as many employees as possible involved and having them feel that, in the end, they had succeeded together and that it had been fun. It also seemed to me that, beyond this, he not only wanted to make the project succeed, but also wanted to show his fellow ex-ecutives what great achievements his team was capable of under his leadership. I can confirm that this project was the most perfectly conducted change project that I have ever been allowed to witness, in which the drivers, consultants and coaches found eve-rything they needed to work professionally and took advantage of it.

Mr. W. took over the project from the phase where – together with the big business con-sulting company and a total of four project groups, each composed of a consultant and approximately eight to 10 of the company’s own employees – the concepts were worked out (concept phase), tested (analysis phase with pilot projects) and prepared for imple-mentation (design phase). Mr. W. also functioned as a partner for the business consult-ants. His most noticeable quality in this project can easily be gleaned from his LIFO® Profile. He was able to clearly structure the big project with the business consultants and to matter-of-factly execute it, without consideration for his colleagues’ and employ-ees’ groaning and complaints about the additional effort they had to make. He was com-pletely focused on his timetable and criteria that had to be met for the project to suc-ceed.

From the very beginning, Mr. G., the poolmanager, was designated to oversee the organ-izational and personnel development aspects of the project. He was the link between the company’s human resources developer, Mr. H., and myself and my ctn team.

The strengths of this trio: - All three: analytical and organized, liked structure. - Mr. R, who was creative and full of ideas, but with both feet firmly on the ground,

took care of the team and tried to get everybody to cooperate. - Mr. W., who was strongly Controlling/Taking and Conserving/Holding, assumed

the role of the “driver,” the person who makes the changes happen. - Mr. G. was able to take full advantage of his Supporting/Giving aspects to con-

vince people and get them involved and to manage the information flow.

The three of them covered the whole behavioral spectrum and had discovered very ear-ly on how they could use their individual differences to complement each other.

In addition to the R-W-G team, there was a second change-agent team. This second team consisted of Mr. G, Mr. H, the external business consultant (Mr. K., PhD), and myself as


moderator and coach for change support. We regularly sat down together to talk about how we should support the change process by getting the employees involved and keep-ing them informed, by coaching the consultants and executives, including the depart-ment head, and through skills seminars.

When you look at this LIFO® image, you will also immediately discover how the four of us complemented each other. The other external consultant and I contributed a lot of energy. While I kept coming up with ideas, Mr. K., PhD, and Mr. H. continued to keep us focused and drove the implementation process. Mr. G. was excellent in his role as a coach for us. He briefed us, questioned our ideas, had us explain everything in detail, made sure all bases were covered, and actively supported us.

Maybe I enjoyed this change team so much because I was allowed to fully indulge in my preferred Adapting/Dealing style since this was the style the team still had been miss-ing.

Pas de Deux

Following is another successful change team that we ctn consultants were allowed to work with for five years, serving as consultants and providing seminars and workshops during many consecutive change projects. I was able to complement this duo very well with my strong Controlling/Taking Style.

The Intellectual and His Jester

With this team, I was allowed to regularly play moderator between the two. They per-fectly complemented each other as executives because they had learned not to meddle with each others’ tasks and responsibilities. During the change project, I always had a choice of either taking the middle ground, as both had rather different ideas and ways of doing things, or to function as a moderator, mediate between them and “force” them to make clear decisions.

A far-reaching conclusion for consultants, coaches and moderators

You should know the behavioural profiles of the people in the team and – apart from all other professional good deeds – at least temporarily provide styles that the team might be missing or that may be only weakly represented. Of course, you should draw their attention to this issue and, if necessary, you should help the team to develop the missing behavior(s) themselves, learn techniques to be able to provide it, or round out the group by adding an additional member. In the example of the change team above, however, I was part of the team at the same time that I was a consultant. I thus could not afford the luxury to stand at the sidelines and observe, evaluate and consult them strictly objec-tively. I had to and wanted to do things, to contribute to the change process. It is diffi-cult for me to provide styles to a team that are actually my Neglected Styles, like, for ex-ample, the Conserving/Holding style. But I know I can be analytical, organized and ra-tional, too. I have learned to activate my “least preferred” style. And you can do it, too.

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