[Sarah Ambrose]

What are the potential strengths in the relationship?

Both skilled and experienced in their areas and seem respected for this within their team. Have a shared goal and driven by similar outcomes and success. Both have a strong preference for the Challenge voice and therefore this suggests that they are both concerned with quality and motivated to make improvements.

What are the potential areas of tension in the relationship?

Simon’s profile is predominately in the sense making axis, whilst Victor’s, his manager is predominately in the decisiveness axis, which suggests that Victor may drive to make decisions quickly, Simon’s approach may be to diliborate more, over analyse, which will slow things down. When under pressure both seem to over use these voices with adverse results, leading to the relationship and task getting stuck and frustrations rising.

What are your hypotheses?
With the relationship stuck, with minimal understanding and flexibility, both are alienating each other and possible the rest of the team. Victor needs Simon to think and respond quicker, but possibly doesn’t articulate his expectations early enough or allow time for Simon to ask questions, process and come up with a response, which leads to more pressure being piled on and Simon becoming defensive and procrastinating too much, which again frustrates Victor.

What lines of enquiry would you follow?

How much is Victors / Simons voices present inner / outer?
What would help both to understanding each others expectation and what could help to reduce tensions in their relationship?
Victor – what circumstances would persuade you to initially use a voice other than challenge and could this impact on the overall outcome of the task and building relationships

What development recommendations would you make for Victor and Simon?

Victor – considering the use of another sense making voice, initially to allow for people to understand your expectations early which would reduce the need for delay and your frustration later. Team member would find you more approachable and not so ‘difficult’

Simon – more use of ‘Challenge’ voice, which will resonate with Victors. Ask for clarity earlier on but provide answers / information regularly to ensure buy in.

[Sarah Ambrose]

1.Articulate: You say that you are finding things hard at the moment, is this at work or in your personal life?

2.Advocate: With my experience, I strongly recommend this course of action, if you want to ensure success

3.Advise: Perhaps a suggestion would be to take some more time over this problem before making a decision

4.Challenge: There are a number of opinions being expressed, are we now ready to agree to a solution that will improve the situation?

5.Direct: You haven’t followed the correct procedure, set out in the organisations safeguarding policy, which has put the child at further risk

6.Evaluate: The project plan clearly defines aims and objectives, however what hasn’t been detailed is labour and material costs

7.Probe: Could you tell me more about that and explain what you mean?

8.Inquire: What can I do to help you?

9.Diagnose: The data demonstrates that our sales have decreased and the feedback provides suggestion on how to improve our approach and what initial actions to take

[Sarah Ambrose]

What do you hypothesise from Yvette’s triangle?

All nine voices were scored low and therefore used occasionally. She works as part of a large senior management team, who all are expected to complete VoicePrint to review as a team. Yvette may have been reluctant to do this in this environment and therefore was cautious answering the questions, for fear of being ‘exposed’ or put on the spot.

What does Yvette’s comparative track tell you about her tendencies under pressure?

No score in Direct and Probe, which implies that under pressure there is no use of these voices. Under pressure, Articulate, Challenge, Evaluate and Advise are significantly less used, which could imply that there is a reluctance to speak up, offer an opinion or even challenge. Advocate and Diagnose scores higher when under pressure, therefore there may a risk of over-use, but this is probably only if really pressure to do something or provide an opinion.

What are your hypotheses and lines of enquiry to explore Yvette’s profile?

Where is she within the team? Does she feel able to verbalise her opinion? What are her inner voices and what does she feel is her role with the team? What previous experience has influenced how she responds under pressure and is she aware of any impact on her current team / role?

[Sarah Ambrose]

What are your hypotheses?
Becca job, involves working with teams, governments, aid agencies on a global scale, in disaster areas, providing training in life saving skills. A highly intensive environment which requires her to respond quickly and ensure to the highest standards as the outcomes of falling short could be catastrophic. Her profile is strongly place in the Controlling cluster and her preferred voices include Direct, Challenge and Advise, with Evaluate at medium. Her lesser used voices include, Probe, Inquire, Diagnose, Articulate and Advocate. Her starting points and where she places most energy, is of no surprise, as she has to respond quickly in emergency situation, often thinking strategically and emobilising people and resources quickly in order to save lives. In pressurised situations, she uses her Inquire and Advocate voice more and Evaluate on her pressure profile is completely red, which may result on people feeling interrogated. However this may be due to what she needs to do and ensure that people are accountable etc.

What lines of enquiry would you follow?
Continued use of controlling cluster, background and circumstances. Impact on people and does this effect relationships? Is there resistance and how do people respond.

What questions would you like to ask Becca?

What impact / effect does using preferred voices have on people and yourself? Under pressure, what circumstances would influence you to change direction and utilise other voices? Is there opportunity to utilise more ‘exploring voices?

[Sarah Ambrose]

What are your hypotheses?

Marcia has strong voice preferences in Inquire, Probe and Diagnose. Her medium preferences are Articulate, Challenge and Advise, with the lesser used voices of Evaluate, Direct and Advocate. With this, she is strongly positioned in the area of Exploring and then next Positioning. Her previous experience as a Nurse working in Palliative Care, suggests that she would have had direct contact with patients and families at end of life. Therefore her preferred voices would’ve have been effective, particularly when delivering and ensuring quality care for the patient that was fit around their individual needs. However in pressurised situations, it suggests that the overuse of some of these voices may come across as interrogating, patronising and even over analytical.

What lines of enquiry would you follow?
What has been the change from old to new role? New role is less about direct patient care and more about improving processes, working with professionals to improve practice and making decisions that could impact significantly. She may need to influence and manage people that find change challenging, which may require a more controlling voice. She may find herself in a position of balancing the needs of the patient against the needs of hospital and financial, etc

Were there any surprises in Marcia’s profile?

The Advocate voice seems to be more prominent when in more pressurised situation, possible if she feels her experience working with patients is compromised and may use this potentially to influence positively.

What might be missing that could be useful?

As mentioned above, in her new role she may benefits from using her ‘controlling’ voices more effectively. For example Direct and Evaluation, can be effective when communicating change, and ensuring the continuity of standards, when complemented with the other voices. Her previous experience is key to the success of her new role and advocating on behalf of patients will influence buy in.

[Sarah Ambrose]

Q1: Advocate / Preach
Q2: I can react defensively, or even feel myself switching off and not listening
Q3: My reaction, I feel is largely instinctive, but I recognise this and attempt to regulate my response
Q4: This can mean I don’t remain objective or listening carefully which can cause the point being missed or missing important and useful information

[Sarah Ambrose]

Q1: What catches your attention?
Jack has a number of high scores and regularly uses advocate, advise, challenge, evaluate and probe. His least used voices include voices include inquire, diagnose and articulate. Jacks preferences strongly align him to the controlling and positioning cluster.

Q2: What impressions do you find yourself forming about Jack from his profile?
Jacks tendency would be to rely on the advocacy voice as his starting point, with a lot of time and energy put in to this, possible due to his previous operational background and as senior executive. The expectation to lead, make decisions and drive improvement, has been prominent, with perhaps less importance or time given to exploring or finding out how, what and why. Jack’s decision next to use advise and challenge and then probably in quick succession probe and evaluate, suggests that he may use this in order to gain agreement and consensus and re-focus people.

Q3: What aspects of the context might be important in this case?
New role is as ‘advisor’ for short term contract, working with teams unfamiliar to Jack. Initially he may need to consider the use of other voices, for example ‘inquire, being open minded in order to find out more and ‘diagnose’ in order to come to an understanding before advising on change and possible new concepts and ways of working which will influence working relationships and bring people on board.

Q4: What issues might you be looking at to explore with Jack?
I would ask Jack why he thought he had been asked to complete VoicePrint and if he had considered the value of the process moving forward. I would find out more about his previous experience and what he felt were the expectations of his new role and if there was any areas that he anticipated challenging and how he may approach these, using his preferred voices. Using his profile I would ask him to consider any examples / situations in his past experience, where in hindsight his choice of voice may have hindered work or relationships and if the use of other voices may have influenced the outcome. Also I would want to explore with Jack any benefits, in his new role, of utilising those voices he uses less frequently.