StandOut (18 page)

• You are naturally interested in human energy of all kinds—emotional, physiological, spiritual.
Research this subject
. Depending on your personality, this could mean simply reading up on the subject. Or it could mean putting yourself through a regimen to become more proficient at managing your own levels of energy. Or it might mean watching other Stimulators in action. Whatever your preferred research style, keep looking and you will soon find some new trick, insight, or technique that will help you get better at what you do naturally.

• For most Stimulators, doing leads to learning. So keep doing.
Establish a routine where you are, with predictable frequency, putting yourself out there to gauge people’s reaction
. Test whether your data, your stories, and your logic flow are landing as you hoped they would. This kind of doing-driven learning will make you more confident and certain, and to other people this reads as credible.

• You need your “showtime.”
What are the high-energy events of the week going to be? How can you give these events the attention they deserve? How can you protect them from the busy-ness of your life? How can you create more of them?

What to Watch Out For

• Just as you need your showtime, you also need your downtime.
Build into your week intentional downtime
, time when you can regenerate the energy on which so many rely. Lacking this time, you might find that you come to a point where you simply crash.

• You are good at getting people to like you precisely because you care about whether or not they like you.
Don’t fight this need to be liked
—it is one of the sources of your effectiveness. Instead, seek out positions where success depends primarily on getting people to like you.

• But still, there will be times when you take things too personally. To combat this,
design a technique that will allow you to move past other people’s disapproval
. This technique cannot be simply saying, “I shouldn’t worry about what other people think,” because you do worry about what other people think. For you, other people’s energy—whether positive or negative—is tangible, physical, and while others can let it go quite easily, you are different; you are wired to hold on to it. So when you find yourself taking things personally, give yourself an emotional time-out. Walk away from the emotion of it, and instead discipline yourself to focus on the pragmatic, the practical, the “what’s next?”

• In your overwhelming desire to be agreeable, it can sometimes come across to others that you have actually agreed with them, even if you haven’t. Then when your true opinion emerges, the other person can feel taken aback, even “played.” So, one of your biggest challenges in life will be:
How do you make your true opinions heard?
You’ll never be combative, but you need to be clear. Find a technique that works for you.

How to Win As a Leader

Stimulator
: Your strength is your sense of the dramatic. You are the leader who celebrates our successes, who lifts them out of the noise of experience and honors them. Your energy fuels us.

• You are our gauge for the excitement around an idea. Be hyperaware of your own energy around anything you are supporting. We will be watching your reactions.

• Our expectations are high when it comes to your storytelling. You tell vivid stories with dialogue, drama, and detail. This is an effective way to engage us, but make sure the story is real. We can smell fiction.

• Keep seeking platforms to communicate your vision. You are best face-to-face but, if that’s not possible, find other unique ways to connect with us.

• Challenge yourself to make your workplace more dramatic. What can you celebrate? What can you have fun with? How about a mascot for the team? Or a nickname? Something we can all rally around. This might appear hokey to some, but you just might be able to pull it off.

• Make fun of yourself. One of your strengths as a leader is your humor. Be sure to turn it on yourself. We love seeing that.

• Find heroes within the organization and allow them to tell their own stories. Speak at staff meetings. Take pictures of excellence in action. Use video of colleagues and guests to highlight what you want to see more of. Create a quarterly newsletter. Each of these can bring excellence to life for us.

• We need to know that you’ll defend us. Sometimes, in your desire to keep the emotions positive, you can come across as a bit of a yes-man or yes-woman—you can appear to agree with things you don’t. Stay true to your core values and we’ll continue to fight for you. And with you.

How to Win As a Manager

Stimulator
: Your strength is your ability to make my work exciting. When my spirit wanes, you spark me back to give my best.

• Pay attention to the small events of my life and draw attention to them. If I buy a new car, send a gas card to my home. If I get a new kitten, send me a PetSmart gift card. If my daughter graduates from high school, give me a copy of your favorite book as a gift for her.

• Get me out of the office to visit the world of our clients. Remove us from our workplaces. Make our learning a physical experience.

• You spend more time focused on developing and leveraging my strengths than fixing my weaknesses. You seek out opportunities for me to do more of what I love, and I love you for it.

• You celebrate what’s right with the world. It’s inspiring to work with someone who’s focused on learning from what’s working rather than on criticizing and blaming. I am more encouraged to seek solutions when I know you’ve got this perspective.

• Your presence fills a room. If you’re having a good day, everyone feels it and is buoyed by it. If not, ugh. I don’t want you to be fake, though, so perhaps take a break until you’ve regained the spring in your step.

How to Win in Sales

Stimulator
: Your strength is your enthusiasm. You bring passion and energy to clients and their projects.

• You are good in a room. Your energy, your smile, the tone of your voice—all of these are more powerful when I can actually see you. Do whatever you can to secure a face-to-face meeting with me.

• Celebrate my successes with me. Help me know what my successes are. Help me know what we should celebrate together. Help me know how.

• Your gift for creating energy stimulates me to refocus and move forward. When there is a break in momentum— and there always is—you bring the passion I need to rekindle the fire.

• You look for what’s working. Your outlook is ever inspiring as you weather challenges in serving me, a (sometimes) demanding client.

• At times I may misinterpret your enthusiasm as insincere. Support your superlatives with facts so you are not viewed as a Pollyanna. And always attach your recognition and celebration to legitimate, measurable successes.

• Seek opportunities to sell in high-visibility scenarios: showrooms, trade shows, formal presentations, wherever there are lots of lights, action, and people. The stage will help you tap into your most creative and engaging self and in turn, help you sell.

How to Win in Client Service

Stimulator
: Your strength is making my situation feel important. You shine a spotlight on my issue, giving me a sense that it will be taken seriously.

• You are always reaching out to me, encouraging me to be just a little more involved with the goings-on at your company than I might otherwise be. Keep doing this. I, your client, instinctively feel that there is a wall of separation between us. You excel at breaking this wall down and inviting me into your world. You put me on your “team.”

• Your energy matches my energy. Rather than trying to placate me, you genuinely empathize. Just make sure it doesn’t turn into a pity party. Get into action as soon as you can.

• While I value the passion you bring to my problem, at times it will serve us both better if you display the opposite emotion from mine. If my voice gets louder, yours gets softer. If I talk faster, you talk slower. This can help balance what could be an overreaction on my part.

• You maintain your intensity throughout the process of solving my issue. You seem tireless. I love to have someone working so hard for me. Use your humor to diffuse the tension if it gets too thick.

• Use your energy to light a fire under your colleagues. If someone else needs to be engaged to help me, motivate him to move at the same speed as you. I love it when I feel that there is an entire team mobilized to help me; and you, of all people, are a fantastic mobilizer.

• In your effort to keep me happy, you may find yourself agreeing to measures that you cannot in fact take. It will be worse to have to renege on a commitment, so be realistic about your service recovery. Make as few promises as possible and keep them all.

TEACHER

The Definition

You begin by asking,
“What can he learn from this?”
Your focus is instinctively toward the other person. Not his feelings, necessarily, but his understanding, his skills, and his performance. You see each person as a work in progress, and you are comfortable with this messiness. You don’t expect him to be perfect; in fact, you don’t want him to be perfect. You see the possibility in imperfection. You know that imperfection creates choice, and that choice leads to learning.

Since you are energized by another person’s growth, you look for signs of it.
Where was he last month?
you ask yourself.
What measurable progress have I seen?
You create novel ways to keep track of his performance and celebrate with him when he reaches new heights. You ask him a lot of questions to figure out what he knows and what he doesn’t, how he learns best, what is important to him, and what journey he is on. Only then can you join him at the appropriate level and in the appropriate way. Only then can you help him learn.

You, at Your Most Powerful

• People’s performance improves when you’re around. This is your greatest gift.

• Instinctively people know that you care about them and that your caring is genuine. They get it. They feel it. They never doubt it. And this certainty frees them. They can experiment and reach and fall and fail, and then reach again. And you will still be there willing them to keep reaching.

• You don’t give up on people. No matter how much they struggle, you keep believing that they will find a way to move forward and to improve.