Personal Styles & Effective Performance

Book excerpt: Tens of thousands of professionals have attended David W. Merrill's acclaimed "Style Awareness Workshops" The goal: improvement of interpersonal effectiveness skills-inspiring better communication, improved productivity, and a more harmonious working environment. Students preparing for business, management, or sales careers can also benefit from Merrill's techniques, presented in Personal Styles & Effective Performance. Merrill's approach emphasizes the interrelationships between behavior and social style-encouraging students to consider how their own actions influence responsiveness from others. Those actions tend to be rooted in one of four primary social styles: Analytical, Amiable, Driving, and Expressive-which readers are invited to compare and contrast with their own styles, as a starting point for potential improvement. First published in 1981, Personal Styles & Effective Performance continues to be a popular resource for the self-improvement minded. By learning its lessons now, tomorrow's business professionals can have the edge in interpersonal effectiveness-one of the most important facets of a successful career.