Engagement Strategy – Relational / Task Copy

Meta-program: Work Organization

How does someone organize his work? Does the person focus more on thoughts and feelings, relations, or on ideas, systems, tools and tasks?

Work Organization describes whether someone focuses more on feelings in their work or on getting things done. There are two patterns in this category:

Person-related:

Individuals who are person-related pay attention to feelings and thoughts, both their own and others. Emotions gain such importance that they themselves become the task. These people will organize their work so that they can focus on people and their feelings. They easily manage to build rapport.

Object-related:

People who are object-related focus on products, ideas, tools, tasks and systems. They treat people and ideas as objects and believe that feelings have little place in the world of work. They want to do their job and are highly task-oriented.

Question:

Tell me about an experience in your work that was (criterion of the person). Wait for an answer: “What did you like about it?”

Relational

• talks about people, emotions, feelings
• calls people by name, uses personal pronouns
• persons occur in their sentences

Task

• talks about processes, systems, tools, ideas, tasks, goals
• will not often mention people, except in the form of impersonal pronouns such as “they” or “he/she” “the sales manager”
• people become objects, parts of processes

Examples:

• person-related: “Mr. Richler was enthusiastic about my report, and I was quite happy with it.”
• primarily person-related: “Mr. Richler was enthusiastic about my report, and I was pleased because it was quite a breakthrough for the entire company.”
• equally person- and object-related: “Mr. Richler was enthusiastic about my report and it was quite a breakthrough for the company.”
• primarily object-related: “My report was quite a breakthrough for the company. I also my boss, too.”
• object-related: “My report is quite a breakthrough for the company.”

Language patterns:

Relational:

uses personal pronouns; names of persons; feelings; thoughts; experiences; “for you”; “for others”; “the people”; “our team”; “our group”

Task-related:

uses impersonal pronouns; things, systems; objects; tasks; aims; processes; finish tasks; focus on the task at hand; the goal; the enterprise.