With an awareness of an employee's personal value system and how it shapes his/her behavior, you can develop new strategies to ensure that the new employee gets those essential elements he or she needs to perform well. You can also put his/her manager in an excellent position to motivate this employee toward top performance. You can reduce the risk of conflict and enhance an environment of cooperation.
The Six Attitudes Are: Theoretical, Utilitarian, Aesthetic, Social, Individualistic and Traditional. Each one holds its own set of goals, focuses and behaviors. By determining which "attitude type" your prospective employee has, you will break down barriers that might otherwise cause conflict and job dissatisfaction.
Theoretical Attitude
Goal: To discover truth and knowledge. They save seminar flyers and want to go to all of them.
Focus:
- Discovery of Truth and Knowledge
- Solving a problem
- Hard, cold facts and research
Value to the Team/Passions:
- Solving problems
- Objectivity in all areas
- Identifying, differentiating, generalizing, systemizing
- Pursuit of knowledge, identifying truth and untruth
- Knowledge for sake of knowing
Basic Attitude:
I will use my cognitive ability to understand, discover, and systemize the truth.
Tendency Under Stress:
- Pursuit of knowledge is so primary that practical matters are neglected or ignored (home, family, children, money)
- Discovery of truth may be placed higher than personal safety
- Inability to know, learn or discover
- Emotional, subjective experience with no rational justification
Utilitarian Attitude
Goal: To discover utility and what is useful or practical. Show them a forest and they see houses; to them the sun becomes solar energy.
Focus:
- Return on an investment of time, energy or money Value to the Team/Passions:
- Practicality in all areas of life
- Utilizing resources to accomplish results
- Gaining a measurable return on all investments
- Creative application of resources
- Producing goods, materials, services and marketing them for economic gain
- Capitalism
Basic Attitude:
Every investment I make will have a greater return in time and resources.
Tendency Under Stress:
- Workaholic
- Self-preservation; little or no concern for others
- Wasted resources, time materials and/or services
- Investments with inadequate or no return
Aesthetic Attitude
Goal: To discover experience, impression and expressions. They see the sunset and want to paint it or take a picture of it.
Focus:
- Subject experience of self and others; feelings Value to the Team/Passions:
- Appreciation and enjoyment of form, harmony and beauty
- Enjoyment of all senses
- Subjective experience
- Understanding feelings of self and others
- Self-realization, self-fulfillment and self-actualization
- Creative expression
- Appreciation of all impressions
Basic Attitude:
I will enjoy and experience the beauty around me and allow it to mold me into all I can be.
Tendency Under Stress:
- Functioning outside of reality
- Disturbance of form, beauty and harmony in self, others and environment
- Objective truth
Social Attitude
Goal: To eliminate hate and conflict. They get the address labels in the mail, and they send a small donation.
Focus:
- How your ideas will benefit others Value to the Team/Passions:
- Investing self in others
- Selflessness
- Generosity of time, talents and resources
- Seeing and developing potential in others
- Champion of worthy causes
Basic Attitude:
I will invest myself, time and resources in helping others to achieve their potential.
Tendency Under Stress:
- Primary focus is on others, can be injurious to self
- Over-zealousness for a cause may lead to harmful behavior to self and others
- Individualism
- Decisions or actions which are insensitive to people
Individualistic Attitude
Goal: To assert self and have his/her causes be victorious. They gravitate toward leadership roles - major "networker."
Focus:
- How presentation will increase power
- Advancement of person's position or company's position Value to the Team/Passions:
- Leading others
- Achieving position
- Advancing position (forming strategic alliances)
- Attaining and using power to accomplish purpose
- Planning and carrying out a winning strategy
- Tactics and positioning
Basic Attitude:
I will achieve the highest position and wield the greatest power or influence.
Tendency Under Stress:
- Position of self may be more important than others
- Absolute power corrupts
- Actual or perceived threatening, diminishing or loss of power or position
- Inability to advance, lack of opportunity for individual advancement
Traditional Attitude
Goal: To search for a system for living. They are very clear about what they believe to be rules to live by.
Focus:
- On the meaning of life, the totality
- Bring in the spiritual element
- Show how this will move us all toward the ideal
Value to the Team/Passions:
- Understanding the totality of life
- Finding meaning of life in a system
- Pursuit of the divine in life
- Following and dying for a cause
- Living consistently according to a "closed" book
- Converting others to their system
Basic Attitude:
I will pursue a system for living.
Tendency Under Stress:
- May break the law by following their "book" (higher)
- Sacrifice of self for beliefs, willing to die for them
- Closed mindedness/judgmental of other viewpoints
- Opposition to others beliefs