Social Style/Management Style

Rating:
Summary: Great Book
Review: Assigning someone to one of the four social style quadrants does not provide a complete picture of an individual, as the authors would be the first to admit, but social styles do provide a convenient and useful starting point for understanding your own and others behavior. The book also contains much practical advice for improving relationships and your own effectiveness within the context of the social style theory. Social Style/Management Style is a great little book. However, Bolton and Bolton's later book on styles, People Styles at Work, contains much of the same material and more.

Rating:
Summary: A Newer Version of This Book Exists
Review: First of all, my rating is biased--I'm the son and colleague of the authors. But the purpose of this "review" isn't to promote the book. It is to let you know that the publisher, AMACOM, has published a newer, more accessible edition of this book entitled "People Styles at Work." That book was originally planned to replace "Social Style/Management Style," but both remain in print. My personal opinion is the the newer work is more user-friendly: it was streamlined to help readers better relate with colleagues of other styles. That said, "Social Style/Management Style" has been well received for nearly 20 years and has been translated into many languages. Either one is useful, but if you buy both books, you'll find a lot of redundancy.

Rating:
Summary: Great TOOL!
Review: I read this book years and years ago. It's tattered, marked up like a useful handbook. Learning to flex my style to others was part of my success. It didn't come easily but the simple tools of identification in this book enabled me to first, see myself and then see the world from another's view. At a glance I could enter someone's office and know their primary communication style. In a meeting I could quickly discern what I needed to say and how to say so it would be heard by decision makers. When it came to conflict management, the information in this text often helped me to understand that most conflicts weren't about real issues but more about folks not communicating.

What makes this book different from the hundreds of theories and books on communication out there? It is practical. It is not a book filled with psychobabble. It's an easy read. And it makes sense.

Social Style Management Style was indeed one of the best tools I've come across. There's lots of info out there but few so easy to read, understand and apply.

My list of books that truly made a difference in my life is short and this one is on it.