After using an inventory to discover personal interests and values, we found that the sales manager, Tom, ranked high in Utilitarian while his salesperson, Dale, ranked high in Social. This means that Tom was focusing on getting things done, while Dale was focusing on having smooth social interactions and having people approve of him. This discrepancy posed a problem.

As a region salesman, Dale covered a geographically large territory—Minnesota, Wisconsin, and North and South Dakota. Keeping Dale on the road was expensive. It was important to make the most of each visit and yield a return-on-investment, but Dale’s social motivation was not helping. He felt the need to help clients even if the company didn’t benefit.

Armed with knowledge of Dale’s values, Tom reframed the purpose of Dale’s travel to meet the needs of both Dale and the company. Tom said, “Dale, it’s great that you care about your client’s needs, but you also need to think about the needs of the people who work at the company. We need your help in closing sales so we can continue to help them feed their families and send their kids to college. And, without them, we can’t service your clients.”

This made sense to Dale. He started being more thoughtful about his decisions.

By understanding the values of your people, you can more easily achieve the goals of your company.

Understanding the attitudes of an individual helps you understand why they behave the way they do. By learning their values, you can tune your communication to resonate with them. To maximize their performance, understand what values motivate them. The assessment tool I use measures the relative prominence of six basic interests/attitudes.

What are the underlying values that drive your people to make the stupid decisions that you think they make?

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