Rapport Advantage

Read Your Emails The Right Way

Eighteen months back probably none of us would be able to predict that our communication with other people will soon be completely based only on emails and video calls. When that became our reality it became challenging to recognize what do people behind the screen to somewhere far away in their homes think when they write an email. Most experts agree that 70 to 93 percent of all communication is nonverbal, so it’s no wonder we get confused when nonverbal communication is taken out of the equation.

However, there are ways to improve your email communication with others. To be more exact, there are tells that will help you recognize what kind of personality is writing an email and how can you respond to make the email exchange smoother.

If you receive an email that holds no additional information besides the one that is the theme of the conversation, you can be pretty sure you are talking to a high D personality. D’s are direct and they talk and write straight to the point. They are all about getting results so to communicate effectively with them you need to be professional, direct and short to the point. Just answer the question that they asked and they will be more than happy. You can act the same as they do, just like in this example of their response:
You: Did you get the proposal?
High D: Yes. Will be in touch.

Contrary to a very to-the-point D personality, a high I will be sending you emails with a lot of exclamation points and often emojis. Reading their email means also feeling their energy through the words as it will be full of positivity and optimism.
You: Did you get the proposal?
High I: Yes, thanks! 😊 I’m excited to read it and see what you have to offer!

The most difficult style to recognize through an email is the high S personality style since they are reserved by nature. However, S’s are also people-oriented and will make you feel good about what you sent through compliments and expressing positive feelings. This is the style from which you can also expect an apologetic tone of an email if they feel as if they are not responding to you fast enough. However, generally speaking, the tone of their email will mostly depend on the tone of an email that they receive.
You: Did you get the proposal?
High S: Sorry I didn’t get back to you. I’ve been quite busy. Thanks for sending it. I will look at it soon.

If you keep receiving highly detailed emails from your supervisor, you can be sure you are exchanging emails with a high C. They are detail-oriented because they want you to know exactly what are they trying to say. Their effort to be clear will go so far that they will probably reorganize and edit every email before sending it out to be sure that they will get it right. Also, when they respond to questions you can expect sentences like: “I provided this spreadsheet so you could see our group’s responses and questions.” This is their way of making sure that everything is clear and their thoughts are organized and helpful to you.
You: Did you get the proposal?
High C: Yes. I am looking over the document on Thursday morning. You should hear back from me by 1 pm EST on that day.

Once you analyze emails that you are receiving in your Inbox and figure what kind of personality is on the other side of the screen, it will become much easier for you to communicate. This will also make your communication more effective, and that will leave you with more time to do the things that you love.

The last question to answer is: do you know which style is sitting on your side of the screen? This is the most important question because the first step to improve communication is to have self-awareness. Finding out which style you are in will help you understand yourself and others. Find that out right HERE.

By Alex Swire-Clark

How To Anticipate Your Response To Conflict?

I recently found myself in a fast-food drive-through and witnessed a perfect example of a person being triggered by an everyday situation where each personality style would have a completely different reaction.

What happened is: I was in a line to get my ordered food when a driver of a minivan started to go around me outside of all the lanes and tried to pull ahead of me. As a High S personality style, I bumped the horn ever so lightly, trying to figure out what was going on and what is the lady behind the wheel trying to do before she hits my car. What I got as a response was the “finger”!

How to respond to the “bird flip”?

A large number of insults followed the bird flip. This time, it was coming from the passenger on the side seat.

I decided to let them go ahead of me, but another bird flip from a driver followed that! And they didn’t even look at me once. Obviously, the person was triggered by something, and the question is: what would YOU do in this situation?

How your personality style determins your reaction

Suppose you have a high D personality style. What would make you a direct person who speaks what’s on your mind. Your reaction would probably be shouting and not allowing the person to push in front of me. High D’s might be aggressive and not have a lot of filters when in a conflict situation.

A High I who is outgoing and people-oriented might see how close they can get to the other car without damaging it and make the whole situation a bit playful. They would not do anything manipulative and try to get a positive outcome.

High S personality style as a caring person and all about supporting others would, at the moment the person started to push in front of them, let them try to help them get whatever it is they need faster. Even after the bird flip, a High S would still be welcoming and warm because they are very empathetic and understanding, so they will respond calmly.

And lastly, a high C will wonder why the driver chose to get in front of all the people and think about how the driver’s behavior is inefficient. They will probably let them in at the end but will have so many questions in their head at the same time.

You can only control yourself

We all have a unique way of responding to situations when things stress us out. It’s crucial to have self-awareness about how we will react to prevent ourselves from being triggered in those moments. Otherwise, we let everyone else influence our own emotions and our attitudes. Remember: the only thing we can control is our attitude and actions in this world. If we let someone steal that from us, then the question is where we are as a society. And we become very reactionary instead of proactive in terms of how we approach the world.

To keep control of our attitudes and reactions, it is important to get to know ourselves as much as possible. Finding out your personality style is so helpful in that so I invite you to check out the Store and find out for yourself.

By Alex Swire-Clark

Why Is Communication Regarded as Difficult and Complex

Each person on this planet gives and receives information in completely unique way. The reason for it is that we all have a specific lens that we look through and that lens determines how we see life. Harsh truth is this: until you learn how to expand that lens, you won’t be able to communicate with people as effectively as you could, and your relationships are going to suffer as a result.

The key to good communication is to understand what drives people to do what they do and say what they say, and why do people communicate verbally in a way they do?

Communication style of every person depends on their personality style.

High D personality style will communicate very directly, and they are going to say things in a very few words. These people like to move fast and talk fast so you can expect them to give you a short answer to a question and answer exactly what you asked and nothing more or less Also, a high D personality type is going to interrupt you if you start to tell a tale and talk a lot. Remember: they are not trying to be mean, but their brain is just full of questions and news ideas and they must say what is on their mind as soon as it comes there.

If a person from your environment likes to talk with their hands, they are probably a high I personality style. These people are very emotional and excited about everything. They have high energy and want to express themselves any way they can. That means you can expect a lot of emojis in their text messages and emails. Also, they suffer from shiny object syndrome, so they get distracted very easily and extremely fast. Remember that they are not trying to annoy you, they are just wired that way and they need you to snap them out of excitement and pull their focus back about the conversation.

Your co-worker or a friend who doesn’t say much and does so softly when they do is probably a high S personality style. This behavior comes from their lack of willingness to rock the boat or to create conflict. These people are afraid that they will offend someone if they speak their mind and you can expect them to give up on their wishes to please others.

Being cautious in communication is also the biggest trait of a high C personality style. You can recognize them through their monotone tone of voice and lack of emotions. Their expression is never too low nor too high. But don’t get fooled; high C’s are buzzing in the background. Their mind is full of questions and that’s why they communicate the way they do because they need to process all the information carefully to say the right thing, at the right time, and to the right people.

Did you recognize yourself in any of these descriptions? Take notice that without self and social awareness, we can not communicate effectively.

The starting point is to understand yourself and your personality style. That will help you know how and why you communicate and how you can communicate with other personality styles.

You can find out more about different personality styles on my YouTube channel or on my Podcast, and if you want to take that first step towards better communication today: check the DISC assessment in the Store.

By Alex Swire-Clark

Is It Possible to Be More Than One Personality Style

There are all kind of great tools out there to understand human behavior (such as culture index, Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, StrenghtsFinders test, etc.) but we are concentrating on DISC method here, where you find does your personality belong to D, I, S or C personality style. (The easiest way to learn more about each type is to check the highlighted posts in the sidebar on the right)

Since there are four personality styles: D, I, S and C, it is important to know we are all a unique blend of all four!

That means that a person can never be fully one personality style, because the others will appear in certain amounts as well. How big or small is a different question, but they will always be there.

What DISC Assessment asks you to do is to choose the most or least out of the group of words. It is not uncommon that if you are a strong mix of two or three personality styles, you need to stop and think about what you will choose. Sometimes people can’t continue to the next question of assessment since they are conflicted. And that conflict comes from the fact that they are being pulled to the high areas of each DISC model. If that happens, that kind of person will have most of their traits between 40 and 60 (if we’re looking at a scale of 0 to a 100). So, they are not really intense in any of personality styles, but there will be a high amount of two or three of them and that will create a conflict.

Having more personality styles as your high ones is not a bad thing. The reason is, this also means that you have fewer blind spots, you are closer to the centre of the DISC graph, so your emotional intelligence is going to be higher than someone who has blind spots that come from having only one exceedingly high personality style.

What is good to remember is that there are no right or wrong answers in assessment questions and equally, there is no right or wrong personality style. We are all blend of these 4 traits and that’s how it’s supposed to be.

I suggest you look at the more detailed posts about each personality type in the sidebar and then take an assessment to see where you are on the graph. I can guarantee you will get six pages of great data that will help you better understand yourself. Because if you understand yourself, you will be able to adapt your behavior to meet others where they are and that will significantly reduce conflicts and misunderstandings in your life. Read the posts and then click on the Store in the Menu to find the right assessment for you.

By Dina Bralic

How Does Self Awareness Affect Career Planning?

I’m pretty passionate about this topic. I’ve got a daughter who knew she wanted to be a choral teacher since the 7th grade. I’ve got a son, who has NO IDEA what he wants to do as a rising junior in high school. That’s fine of course. However, most students don’t have any idea the variety of career paths that are out there. Our school has moved away from career fair day to job shadowing day. Most kids just take the day off and are left with no idea about various careers outside of doctor, lawyer, teacher and whatever their parents do for a living.

However, to find a career that will best suit someone, it is important to know what jobs and what environments would work well with a person. Knowing yourself is the key here. We are all a blend of 4 different personality styles: D, I, S and C. Finding out which one is the highest for you will do wonders in choosing which career path you should take.

I will break down four personality styles and what should they do:

D personality style: you belong here along with the rest of 10% of population if you have never found a challenge you can’t face and you like to be in charge. D personalities are risk takers and love to be rewarder for their individual success. If that sounds like you, choose a fast-paced environment and you’re up to a great start in your career!

I personality style is someone who loves influencing others and is oozing charisma all the time. This 25 to 30% of population just wants to have fun all the time. That’s why a great career choice for an I is anything where they can express themselves, like acting, teaching or even sales.

S personality style is supporting, exceedingly kind, a kind of person that is a great friend and excellent listener. So if you recognize yourself in this go after it: your career path should involve health care, counselling, education…. Any position where you find you can lift others up as you will be remarkable at it!

And finally a C personality style: high-level thinkers, people who don’t say much but when they finally do, it is so carefully thought out that listeners are in awe. C’s are all about understanding why and organization so a career as a lawyer, doctor or engineer is a path to consider.

It is important to remember we are all a blend of all four personality types. But one of them is dominant.

That’s why not everyone is wired to go out there and perform on a high level in a pressured environment in a sales department. And that’s perfectly fine! What is important is that you have to understand yourself. If you are an I you cannot compare yourself to a D. Stop comparing yourself to others because you are gifted in areas someone else is not and vice versa.

No one is right or wrong. And I hate the saying “You do you”. But when choosing a career you can’t look at what your mom or brother or anyone else did. You got to find out where your passions are.

Quite frankly, no one fits the career path that you will choose like you will. You are a unique individual, remember that.

And in order to find that job that you would do for free and that makes you tired in a good way (and trust me, that exists!), you need to take it step by step. The first step is self-awareness. And to do that you need a tool that will give you that objective data. It can be done for an adult, teenager, kid…. You name it. Find out more in the Store and take the first step today!

Rapport Advantage

How to respond to the “bird flip”?

How your personality style determins your reaction

You can only control yourself

Concise Adult Version