Change Management: Consider Employees’ Thinking Styles

As mentioned in my last blog post, Extrinsic Thinkers are both risk averse and change resistant. This needs to be taken into account in recruiting solutions as part of an effective employee retention program.

In previous blog posts, I have also described employees with this style of thinking as having strong listening skills and individuals who solve problems in collaboration with other more innovative colleagues. In this blog post, I want to bring together what we have learned so far about employees who have an extrinsic style of thinking.

Personality Traits and Employee Motivation

Personality traits, such as change resistance, are underpinned by motivational factors. Employees, who are change resistant, don’t want change. Note the emphasis on the word ‘want’. Saying an employee doesn’t want change is just another way of saying that they become demotivated in situations of change. This link between traits and motivations became apparent through the deployment of the Talent Chaser performance profile questionnaire, which is the evidence-based alternative to personality testing and which is successfully used to screen job applicants in recruitment situations.

Unlike a personality test, the performance profile questionnaire covers thinking styles and motivations in addition to behavioral traits. When it was deployed within client organizations that also deployed the Talent Chaser performance appraisal module, the link between behavior and motivations was quickly discovered. It turns out that understanding this link is fundamental to the introduction of effective employee retention programs. Employee retention is all about motivations. Keep the employees motivated and you go a long way along the path to reducing employee turnover rates. Keeping this in mind, now let’s return to our discussion regarding the Extrinsic Thinker.

Change Management and the Extrinsic Thinker

We have discussed the fact that Extrinsic Thinkers prefer to solve problems in collaboration with others. Because of this, they rely on their listening and related interpersonal skills more. Over time through practice they become ever more adept in using these skills.

Extrinsic Thinkers typically prefer the company of other employees. They are usually quite gregarious. As a result of this and their listening skills, they become knowledgeable about much of what goes on throughout the organization within which they work.

In addition, because of their natural aversion to risk, Extrinsic Thinkers usually focus on the potential negative consequences of solutions and actions. This focus on negatives is habitual and results in Extrinsic Thinkers usually developing a solid understanding of the true nature of problems. When an Extrinsic Thinker is in collaboration with an Intrinsic Thinker, problems flow from the Extrinsic Thinker to the Intrinsic Thinker.

During this process, the Extrinsic Thinker remains focused on the potential negatives and the Intrinsic Thinker focusses on the positives arising from proposed solutions. When anyone’s ideas are challenged, there will always the potential that the person will become demotivated. None of us like our ideas to be rejected and Intrinsic Thinkers are no different. However, because of their strong social skills, honed through extensive use, Extrinsic Thinkers are highly skilled when it comes to challenging ideas while at the same time keeping the innovator well motivated.

By studying appraisal data generated through the deployment of Talent Chaser, it has become apparent that Intrinsic-Extrinsic problem solving has the potential to keep both participants well motivated and results in a highly effective problem-solving methodology.

As a result, by building teams with this in mind, it is possible both to improve employee motivation and resolve difficult problems. Both of these outcomes help organizations develop employee retention programs that lower employee turnover rates.

Talent Chaser is the first evidence-based recruitment and management development software, independently verified to improve employee retention and performance. Watch our Free Demo to learn how the application of Talent Chaser’s research of thinking styles reduces employee turnover.