Social Styles.

David Merrill and Roger Reid built the Social Styles model on what other people can observe: how much a person pushes their view into a conversation, and how much emotion they let show while doing it.

It is a practical tool for the moment when you are sitting opposite a customer, a candidate or a member of staff, the conversation is going nowhere, and you cannot work out why.

The two dimensions

The first is assertiveness: does this person tend to ask, or tend to tell. The second is responsiveness: do they contain emotion, or do they let it show. Neither end of either dimension is better than the other. Put the two together and you get four recognisable styles.

Analytical — wants the detail

Asks rather than tells, contains emotion. Wants the evidence and the time to think. Silence from an analytical often means they are processing. Push them for a decision in the room and you will get a no, because no is the safe answer when you have not finished checking.

Driver — wants the result

Tells rather than asks, contains emotion. Wants the outcome, the price and the date. They may interrupt and read the last page of your proposal first. A driver reads briskness as respect and a long preamble as waffle.

Amiable — wants the people

Asks rather than tells, shows emotion. Wants to know who else has done this, how it will land on the team, and whether you will still be there in a year. They often say yes in the room and then not proceed, because agreement was the polite thing to do and the real objection never got aired.

Expressive — wants the idea

Tells rather than asks, shows emotion. Wants the big picture, the possibility and the story. They are enthusiastic early and can lose interest quickly, so they need the exciting version and then somebody to pin down the detail.

Why an owner should care

You sell, hire, manage, negotiate with suppliers and hold difficult conversations. Many owners use a single style with everybody.

If the four styles were spread evenly across a room, three out of every four people you deal with would not share yours. Your natural way of communicating is a minority approach in most rooms. That explains why some meetings go well and others go nowhere.

Versatility is the actual skill

The useful part of the model is versatility: how far you are willing to move towards the other person’s style to make the exchange work. It means adjusting pace and detail in the direction the other person needs.

Drivers and expressives need pace. Analyticals and amiables need time. Analyticals and drivers want the facts. Amiables and expressives want to know how it feels and who else is involved. You can be a fully recognisable version of yourself and still slow down by a fifth, send the numbers in advance, or ask a question instead of making a statement.

What flexing changes in practice

An illustration rather than a client. An expressive owner of a small fit-out contractor pitches a refurbishment to a finance director who is plainly analytical: short emails, no small talk, asked for the specification twice before agreeing to meet.

First attempt, the owner does what has always worked. Forty minutes, three stories about similar jobs, plenty of energy, one photograph on a phone. The finance director asks for a cost breakdown by trade. The owner says he will get that over; it arrives four days later as a single line. The job goes to a competitor who turned up with a costed schedule and said almost nothing.

The work was good and the price was fair. The owner presented in his own style to somebody who buys in a different one, and read the lack of enthusiasm as a lack of budget.

Second attempt, same owner, same personality, three changes. The costed schedule goes over two days before the meeting, so the analytical has had time to check it. The meeting opens with a question about which line to start on, rather than with a story. The vision, which the owner is good at, gets four minutes at the end rather than forty at the start. He has moved the same content into an order the buyer can process.

Spotting the style in thirty seconds

Two questions get you close enough: does this person mostly ask or mostly tell, and do they let you see what they feel. These signs help.

Email length. Two lines with no greeting is a driver. Two lines with a smiley is an expressive. Six paragraphs with attachments is an analytical. A friendly paragraph asking how you are is an amiable.

How they open a meeting. Straight to the agenda, or a minute on the weekend first.

What they do with silence. Fill it, or use it.

What they ask for at the end. The price, the detail, the timeline, or a reference.

How to use it this week

Place yourself first

Answer the two questions about your own behaviour, then get a second opinion from somebody who works with you.

Map your top ten relationships

List your biggest customers, key staff, your bank contact and your accountant, and give each one a style.

Find the two that grind

Pick the relationships that take more effort than they should and check whether they sit diagonally opposite you on the grid.

Change one thing for one meeting

Send the detail in advance for an analytical. Cut your opening in half for a driver. Ask an amiable what their team will make of it. Give an expressive the headline before the process.

Rewrite one proposal in the buyer's order

Price and specification first for a driver or an analytical. Outcome and possibility first for an expressive or an amiable.

Brief your team on it

Teach the person who answers your phone to spot a driver and skip the script.

Questions to ask yourself

• Out of ten, how well do you adapt to people who communicate differently from you?
• Which style do you find hardest, and what has that cost you in the last twelve months?
• Think of the last deal you lost that you thought you should have won. Whose style was the meeting run in?
• Who on your team is diagonally opposite you, and how often do you hear them?
• What would your last three proposals look like if they were sequenced for the reader rather than for you?

Where this connects

This underpins the communication work in Leadership Coaching. Read it with Situational Flex, which flexes how much direction you give rather than how you say it, and The SPIN Cycle, which is what to ask once you know how the person in front of you wants to be asked.