Francie Dalton made me laugh. And she made me cringe. Her book, Versatility: How to Optimize Interactions When 7 workplace Behaviors Are at Their Worst, is a chilling look at seven personality types. Six are not desirable; the seventh is. With witty cartoon characters and accurate, if aggregated, examples of personalities we all face, Ms. Dalton lays out the challenges and drawbacks of each:
The Commander
The Drifter
The Attacker
The Pleaser
The Performer
The Advoider
The Analytical
The Achiever
Of course, everyone wants to be considered effective, knowledgeable, perceptive, constructive, generous and wise. Those are the traits of the so-called Achiever. I found myself resisting some of what she said because it used stereotypes to work with people. In reality, we are a pool of the above personalities. Some are more dominant than others. In all fairness, Ms. Dalton admits that she is categorizing people to make a point: the workplace environment does not always run smoothly based on people's annoying behavior. But you can harmonize with your environment (thus, the Chameleon's Edge) to maximize communication and, ultimately, improve the workplace environment by feeding into people's strengths while guiding their weaknesses out the door.
