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The FACE Model
The principles of persuading and influencing the various types of people are core to most management training courses covering managerial negotiation techniquess. If these persuasion principles (sometimes called “selling”) are used consistently by the supervisor then more negotiation situations will succeed than by adopting a more random approach. But why should one method of persuassion work with one colleague or team member, but leave another unmoved? The answer to this question is simple: the individual’s personality. The art of persuasion is all about understanding people, and because people are different nothing works with everybody all of the time. We need to interact with different people in different ways, changing our approach or behaviour to best fit the style of the individual we are with. Therefore, an important part of our job as a professional supervisor is to identify the personalities of our colleagues. Being able to do this will allow us to tailor our approach to so be more persuasive.
So, what are the different types of personality? The FACE model, as taught on management training programmes, is about using two interacting scales to understand personalities. The first scale is how assertive they are, the second, how emotional they are. The FACE model cis usually depicted in the form of a grid or matrix with four distinct quadrants. Each quadrant representing a different personality type. So, for example, a person who is highly assertive and highly emotional would be labeled as the ‘Extrovert’ personality type and would appear in the upper right quadrant of the FACE grid.
We should stress, however, that no body is exclusively just one personality type. We all move around the FACE grid from time to time. However, we do tend to spend between 65% and 72% in one particular quadrant, known as our natural style qudrant.We will look at the personality traits associated with each quadrant in turn
1. The ‘Friendly’ personality. This type is an emotional and responsive person who is led by the needs of others and is people orientated. "Friendly" types find confrontation challenging to handle, as they value relationships with other people above everything else. They are great team members and will often turn to their team mates to have a decision supported. They dislike change and value security in the form of maintaining the status quo. They do not make fast decisions; indeed decision making can be extremely slow.
2. The ‘Analytical’ personality is unemotional and responsive. The most obvious characteristic of this person is their need for information and their decision making process is based on facts and logic. They are very methodical people and everything is done in a rational way. Because they are unemotional, they can distance themselves from a situation and are relaxed when criticising or making judgements.
3. The 'Commander' type is an unemotional assertive personalitywho favours action and gets things done fast. For a "Commander" the end result is often more important than the means. They are not concerned if a few egos get dented along the way. The ‘Commander’ is very time conscious and highly organised and needs to be in control. They are likely to be stubborn and also a poor listener.
4. The ‘Extrovert’ is both emotional and assertive. They like to be with others and are gregarious individuals. They also want to be at the centre of whatever’s going on. As individuals they tend to be impulsive and are not risk averse. However, they do find criticism hard to deal with because being recognised for their achievement is what motivates them. Details bore them; they want to see the big picture.
These are the four basic types. Perhaps the biggest benefit of management training that utilises FACE model is that managers can start to think about altering their natural approach and so become more effective with people.
