[Scott Kennedy]

All voices are in the low range with the only significant mover when under pressure being advocate. She is the HR manager in a company that provides complex IT solutions. This could be for a number of reasons all of which would need exploring. Her advocate voice is the strongest under pressure with her challenge voice not moving at all. Is this because of the role she plays in the organisation. Are the conversations mainly around the technical side of the business which means she sits back and listens more and only speaks to push HR based points? This would need to be explored more. Under pressure the explore section comes out abit more however challenge goes down.
I would want to explore what she sees as her key role in the organisation and how this plays out especially in the senior manager meetings. I would want to understand what she sees as challenging conversations and when she feels the most comfortable.

[Scott Kennedy]

What are your hypotheses?
Due to her role she focuses on getting information across ahead of anything else. Under pressure she will ask more questions however still favours a direct voice which is at the extreme dictate end of the spectrum. Under pressure she also uses Criticise at the extreme end. With Controlling quadrant being the strongest followed by positioning she could come across as being very closed in her approach. She could potentially come across as difficult to deal with.

What lines of enquiry would you follow?
I would want to understand the context behind her role including the pressure points and if she has to act at pace the majority of the time. As her work is dealing with disaster prone countries and her being seen as an expert has this driven her high use of Controlling voices.

What questions would you like to ask Becca?
Tell me about your role. What aspects of your role do you like the most. How would you describe the majority of people you deal with? How do you plan your meetings / conversations.

[Scott Kennedy]

Q1. What hypotheses do you have about how Marcia’s profile helps her to be effective in her role?
She has had two roles both of which rely on obtaining information and probing to understand deeper context. Her strong voices of Inquire, Diagnose & probe suggest she is curious and probes to understand first. This is a base requirement when in change management especially when dealing with process improvement. Her secondary group of voices are all in the positioning quadrant which would help her build trust in her role.

Q2. What hypotheses do you have about her how profile might cause her difficulties in her role?
If she overuses her voices and they display as interrogate or intrude she could harm any relationships she already has and struggle to build trust and buy-in from others involved. This would hamper her ability to implement any process improvements she is recommending.

Q3. What sort of conversation might you expect to have with Marcia?
I would want to understand the positive work based conversations she is having and why she believes these have gone well. Then probe around any times these types of conversation didn’t go as expected. This would aid to help her understand the impact of overusing particular voices and being conscious of the environments where this can happen.

Q4. What voice/s do you think it might be helpful for her to develop? Q5. In what way/s?
I would encourage her to look at using the Evaluate voice more. IN her role this would show how she is weighing up the options and considering all angles. This would show she is listening and would help reduce the Inquire voice coming across as Interrogate.

[Scott Kennedy]

Q1: 3 stand out. Interrogate, Intrude, Patronise
Q2: tend to get annoyed when spoken to that way and short with responses
Q3: I think it is an instinctive reaction
Q4: I tend to switch off, can come across as not interested or negative which can cause the other person to become more Patronising etc creating a downward conversation spiral