Do you ever find yourself getting frustrated with people who aren’t understanding what you’re saying? Or they’re not doing things the way you think they should be done? It can be hard. It can sometimes be quite a challenge in your day to day life. Well, I picked up a book my husband has been reading yesterday, and I skimmed through it. I ended up reading a lot of it yesterday actually, so I thought I’d do a little review. 

The book is called “The Four Tendencies,” by Gretchen Rubin. And I loved it! It explained so clearly these four different tendencies into which most people can be grouped. There are sub-tendencies also, but we each have a dominant tendency that influences how we think, how we view the world, how we’re motivated. The book explains each of these and teaches how to deal with them, and how to work with them, and how to communicate effectively with each tendency.

I found this book so helpful, so, to chunk it down a little bit for you, I will introduce the four tendencies. First is the Rebel. This is the type of person who, if you tell them to do something, they won’t do it just because you told them to do it. Yeah…we all know some of those, don’t we? 

Second is the Upholder. They just love rules. They love an outline. They love organization. They are like “Oh, if these are the rules, then I’ll do that.” These people can be easy to work with if you have rules, and if you realize that this is how they think, right?

Third is the Obliger. These are people who are people pleasers. They’re like “Okay, what do you want me to do? What do people think is the best way?” They kind of look around and try to figure out what’s going on and can kind of mesh with things, and flow, and really get in rhythm with what’s going on. That is great…if you have something going on. It could be hard, though, if you don’t have a system, or they don’t have anybody to look to for guidance. 

(As you can see, all of the tendencies have their pros and cons.) 

Fourth is the Questioner. These people have lots of questions. They want to know everything about everything, and once they can understand what’s going on, they’re totally on board. They can move forward, and they’re motivated to move forward, when they know why they’re moving forward, why this particular project, and why now. We all know some of those, too. 

So this book really talks about how they can flow together and how to effectively communicate with all of them. I highly recommend it. My biggest takeaway from the book is that all four tendencies need three things for us to be able to effectively communicate with them.

They first need information. Give them all the information that you have. Everything that you can think of that applies to the project, or the thing that you’re working on or what’s happening in life, or happening in the day, or what you expect. Information! They need information. Second, they need to understand what the consequences are if the task isn’t done, or if things don’t happen the way that they’ve been informed need to happen. So, consequences. Once they understand the consequences, they need to be given a choice. Once they have the information they’re like “Okay, you’ve given me all the information. Now what happens if I don’t do it? What happens if I do do it?” And then after that, give them a choice. Let them decide. What are they going to do? Are they going to choose to use this information? Which way? Are they going to act on it? Are they not going to act on it?  

If they provide these three things when you communicate your desires to others, then you can feel satisfied that you have communicated effectively, and that the other person (or people) understood what was going on, what the consequences were, and that they had choice.

I’m so excited to be able to start applying these principles. I think it’s going to be amazing. Because I know people are so different and they think differently than me. And the people that I work with everyday, especially my kids, they’re so different from me. Some of them are similar, and that makes it easier, but some of them are different and that makes it also easier because they can do things that I can’t do.

So, I encourage you to act on this. I have given you the information. The consequence of applying some of this could be amazing. The consequence of not…is fine too. But, now that you have the information, I’m guessing you’re going to be thinking “Oh, maybe I could apply that. That would be cool.” So, try it out. Let me know if it worked for you. I think you’ll have a good experience.