PeopleSmart in Business eBook - The Platinum Rule

promise is appropriate. You’ll also understand when it’s necessary to
adapt to the other person’s behavioral style.
Practice managing relationships in a way that allows everyone to
win. Be tactful, reasonable, understanding, non-judgmental, and comfortable
to talk to. Th is results in a moderate position between the two
extremes. You’re able to better meet the needs of the other person as
well as your own. Adapt your pace and priority. Work at relationships
so everybody wins at work, with friends, on dates, and with family.
So self-knowledge of how Direct/Indirect and Open/ Guarded you
are provides help in better dealing with yourself and others. Just as
you discovered your own unique behavioral type and the characteristics
that go along with it, you’ll learn to identify others’ key strengths
and weaknesses. Recognizing sterling traits and potential pitfalls of
diverse people means you can better understand their behaviors and
relate more eff ectively with them.
When you try to accommodate the other person’s expectations and
tendencies, you automatically decrease tension and increase trust.
Adaptability enables you to interact more productively with diffi cult
people, helps you in strained situations, and assists you in establishing
rapport and credibility. It can make the diff erence between a productive
or an ineff ective interpersonal relationship. And your adaptability
level also infl uences how others judge their relationships with you.
Raise your adaptability level—trust and credibility soar; lower your
adaptability level—trust and credibility plummet.
Another way of looking at this whole matter is from the perspective
of maturity. Mature persons know who they are. Th ey understand
their basic behavioral type and freely express their core patterns.
However, when problems or opportunities arise, they readily and deliberately
make whatever adjustments are necessary in their core patterns
to meet the need. Immature persons, on the other hand, lose
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