Overview - What's My Style?

Objective - To identify behavioral style
Intended For - All organizational members
Time Required - 1 hour
Participant booklet also available in Spanish

Check two recent uses of the What's My... tools on our Team Blog.

What's My Style? is a fast, fun, and memorable learning instrument to identify behavioral style. It can be used with a wide range of training activities, including management development, leadership training, and team building.

Through a simple inventory of paired adjectives, participants will learn their preference for one of 4 basic behavioral styles: spirited, direct, considerate, or systematic. Easy-to-read charts allow respondents to quickly scan the strengths and trouble spots that characterize their particular styles. They also learn the impact of each style in the workplace.

What's My Style? (WMS) is based on the assumption that people have personality styles and that those styles drive behavior and communication. We define personality styles as: the way a person acts when he/she is able to do things his/her own way. Does this mean that people act the same way all the time? Certainly not. Even the most boisterous individual would not be loud and jovial at a funeral. But most people do have enough consistency in their behavior to allow themselves and others to predict their behavior. Everyone acts friendly sometimes, but when a person acts friendly more than the average person, others start to think about that person as being friendly. People then come to expect friendly behavior from that person all the time.

What's My Style? provides a simple and fun way to measure general personality style. By choosing adjectives that best describe them, participants are able to gain a good understanding of their personality style. WMS is a non threatening look at personality style. It presents the positives and negatives of each style so that participants can begin to use knowledge of their skills to create greater success in their lives.

Development
WMS may be quick and easy to use, but it was developed through a systematic research process. We began by generating a list of more than 50 adjectives from the literature on personality style. The list was narrowed to 15 adjectives per style. The adjectives were mixed randomly and given to three people familiar with the classic personality theory on which What's My Style? is based. They coded each adjective by labeling it with the style they thought it described. The author took from that list only the adjectives for each style on which all three coders were in agreement.

The adjectives were then paired so that each style was presented nine times and each style was paired with every other style an even number of times. A test version of What's My Style? resulted, which contained 18 pairs of adjectives. The test version was given to 30 people. The people in this sample were each asked whether the scores they obtained were a true reflection of their personality. Most people indicated that the scores were accurate. This testing did surface a few problem adjectives that were later changed.

In addition to asking for qualitative feedback from the sample, the author examined correlations among the adjectives. This analysis revealed that the adjectives with which people had problems did not correlate well with their respective styles. On the basis of this analysis, three adjectives were replaced.

Administering the Exercise
What's My Style? was designed for easy administration. All of the information needed to score, interpret results, and make plans for capitalizing on one's style are contained in the booklet.

The instrument contains 18 pairs of adjectives. For each pair of adjectives, participants assign a total of 5 points by dividing the points between the two adjectives. Points are assigned according to how much the adjective describes the participant. Participants should assign a 5-0 split if one adjective describes them completely and the other not at all; assign a 4-1 split if one adjective describes them well and the other describes them slightly; or assign a 3-2 split if one adjective describes them a little more accurately than the other.

What our customers say...

"What's My Style? is a great exercise to help team members understand one another's differences and preferences. The insight and acknowledgement is very powerful in learning how to best interact with each other and set expectations accordingly. This awareness will help our team work more productively and positively."

Diane Houdek
Learning & Development Manager
Wells Fargo