The NPSI styles: Investigator

Welcome back as we finish our journey through the different personality styles of the Navanter Personality Styles Instrument. If you missed the previous parts of this section, you can start here. To take the NPSI test yourself, visit this page.

Motivation: Quality and reliability

There’s only one way to do something as an Investigator, and that’s the way which is most likely to achieve strong results with a minimum amount of risk, even if this means a longer process. “Shortcut” doesn’t appear in the Investigator’s vocabulary – if a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing properly.

Words chosen: Precise and detailed language where appropriate

Investigators are not particularly verbose under normal circumstances, preferring instead to take a step back and observe rather than rushing in with solutions to problems. However, when something is said, it’s important that it’s said clearly, and Investigators are skilled at using precise language in order to communicate an exact idea to others. This precision can result in the Investigator being over-detailed, which runs a risk of the other person switching off before the end, so missing the point of the message.

Tone of voice: Deliberate and efficient with little emotion evident

For an Investigator, the text of the message will be suitably precise to give clarity of meaning to the other person, and there is little need to allow inflection or dramatic volume shifts to cloud the message. An Investigator often speaks quite slowly in order to ensure the message is understood before moving on to the next point.

Body language: Controlled and precise

An Investigator would be great at playing Poker, as they don’t show their emotions readily in their body language. Investigators, with their low-assertive style, prefer only brief eye contact, and can have quite a closed posture. For the Investigator this feels comfortable as it’s better to use a more precise medium to communicate than body language. For other types, this can come across as slightly austere and cold.

Preferred environment: Neat and organised

The Investigator thrives on high-quality work, and this requires order in the workplace to achieve results effectively. The Investigator has a tidy desk with important tools and resources easily at hand. Investigators are very organised, and will know where something is when they need it. Investigators enjoy their personal space.


Location: London, UK

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Critical thinking - scanning the environment

Image
The first place to look for opportunities and problems is within the organisation. For this, you can use a STACK analysis to get a good understanding of the current situation in the business. Strategy Tolerance for risk & change Available resources Configuration Knowledge & skills A STACK analysis helps us to do a few things: Get a good understanding of the current state of the organisation and its readiness to implement change Understand how well-aligned the organisation is from the top, where strategy is developed, down to individual contributors Consider whether there are sufficient resources to take actions you need Identify whether the way the organisation is set up would be helpful to grasping opportunities or addressing problems Understand whether additional expertise might need to be brought in from outside. Once you’ve understood the internal situation in the organisation, it’s time to look at whats going on externally which could affect your strategy. For this...
Read more

Understanding where problems (and opportunities) have come from

Image
If you can understand the conditions which caused a problem to develop or an opportunity to come along, then you’ll be able to think about how you can replicate those conditions (for opportunities), or change them (for problems). For example, if you realise that an opportunity presented itself which you were only able to take advantage of because of your proactive recruitment strategy, you’ll want to continue that strategy in the future. 5 Whys The 5 Whys technique encourages you to look not at superficial causes, but to look deeper for root causes. For example, imagine you’re waiting for a train and an announcement comes over the loudspeaker saying: “Your train is delayed due to the late arrival of a preceding service.” You likely find this frustrating because it’s not a real reason for the delay – you want to know why the preceding service was running late. The idea with 5 Whys is that you keep asking “why?” until it feels like a daft question. This is likely to be around 5 times. Th...
Read more

Recognising and resolving conflict

Image
There are many definitions of “conflict” in the business world. It’s important to remember that conflict isn’t always visible. Some people might be “in conflict” with others, but instead of raising their voices and arguing, they withdraw inside themselves and go quiet. I like the following definition of conflict: Conflict is when someone is forced by someone else to operate in a way which makes them uncomfortable. If you take this definition, then the topic captures quite a wide range of situations. How does conflict start? Conflict comes about when an event happens which makes someone uncomfortable, and when it then spirals unchecked into a breakdown in the relationship. It goes through 4 steps: Situation: Something happens. One person does something the other person doesn’t like. Example:     Your manager gives you a big piece of work at 3pm on a Friday and tell...
Read more