PPS International Resources

How to Improve Project Team Challenges with Style Flexing

PPS International Limited — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 12:00:00 GMT

Project teams can create some of the most challenging interpersonal dynamics in the workplace. People are often pulled onto a project while still carrying their full-time responsibilities, which means competing deadlines, divided attention and uneven levels of commitment. Team members may come from different functions, locations or reporting relationships, and they may not all see the project as equally urgent or important. To make the situation even more difficult, the person asked to lead the project is often accountable for the outcome but has little formal authority over the people involved.

That combination can be stressful. Emails go unanswered for long stretches of time. Team members miss meetings or leave early, creating gaps in communication. Team members have different styles and preferences: some team members want detailed plans, while others only want the big picture. Some prefer quick decisions, while others need time to think. Some want conversation and connection before getting down to business, while others see that as a waste of time. When these differences are not recognized, project work can quickly become frustrating, inefficient and personal.

Shawn, an HR Manager, was chosen to lead a special project to streamline all HR processes. Members of the project team included fellow managers throughout the company, including four others who work remotely.

“This project is becoming a nightmare,” Shawn shared. “In team meetings, they come but aren’t prepared or they share too much information, derailing us from what we need to accomplish. There are even a few who don’t engage at all; they might as well not be present. Something’s got to change, or we won’t meet our deadline for recommendations. It’s creating a lot of stress.”

Many project team leaders can identify with Shawn. In these situations, using interpersonal influence by flexing to individual style preferences is essential to success.

Here are three steps Shawn (or any project team leader) can take to be more influential with co-workers.

Analyze and prioritize team member preferences

First, think about each individual and identify their preferred style of interaction:

Body Language: What clues can you gather from body language? Does the person gesture broadly while talking? Are they animated and expressive? Do they sit quietly with arms crossed? Do they seem relaxed in group discussion, or reserved and cautious? These clues can help you understand a person’s comfort level with collaboration, visibility and group interaction.
Speech Patterns: What about speech patterns? Does the person speak softly or with a loud, energetic voice? Do they think out loud, or do they pause before responding? Do they prefer quick verbal updates, or written information they can review on their own?
Content Focus: How do they begin meetings? Do they dive right into the business at hand, or do they take time for small talk about sports, family, hobbies or the weekend?
Information Receiving and Sharing: What type of information do they seem to value? Do they want details, charts, timelines and supporting data, or are they satisfied with broad outlines, outcomes and next steps?

The goal is not to label people or make assumptions but rather to notice patterns so you can communicate in ways that make it easier for others to engage, respond and follow through.

Use the Interaction Style model to more accurately understand styles

Adapt on one or two behaviors to reduce friction

Once you’ve considered what the preferences of other team members are, you can adapt your style to better meet their needs. Here are examples of behavior-style adjustments:

Offer information with a greater or lesser degree of detail.
Ask indirect or pointed questions.
Pause to ask about family, hobbies or sports before beginning a discussion or skip small talk and address the issue at hand.
Talk at a faster or slower pace.

Your adjustments should be geared towards the preferences of team members. In some cases, you will have the same preferences as your team. In others, such as Shawn’s situation, there were differences.

For example, Shawn’s detail-oriented team member may respond better to a clear project plan, written expectations and a deadline summary. Shawn’s relationship-oriented team member may be more engaged by taking a moment to connect personally before moving into the task.

Adapting does not mean becoming someone you are not. It means making intentional choices about how to communicate so your message is easier for others to receive and act on.

Uncover ways to adapt to others through the SOLO IS profile

Align on ways of working by communicating to preferred styles

Analysis and behavior flexing and adapting are powerful, but influence also requires alignment. Project teams perform better when people are clear on the purpose of the work, the expectations for participation and the consequences of follow-through or delay. Use knowledge of individual preferences to create guidelines that can suit the project and individual styles.

Shawn may not have formal authority over every team member, but he can still create alignment by clarifying the project’s importance, confirming roles and making expectations visible. If Shawn communicates and discusses this with the team according to their preferences, he is likely to be more effective in gaining agreement.

For example, Shawn could open the next meeting by saying:

“This project affects how HR work gets done across the company, so each person’s input is important. Some of us have a lot of details to share. Let’s find a way to get that information out, without having to use our meeting time. How about each of us give a suggestion and we make a decision?” This way of raising the need acknowledges individual preferences and draws out those with a quieter style preference.

Shawn can ask team members to confirm commitments, identify barriers and agree on how the team will communicate. He can clarify which decisions need group input and which can be made offline. He can also create shared accountability by documenting next steps after each meeting and following up in the communication style most likely to work for each team member. All of these actions help to align the project team, but, the way in which Shawn introduces and communicates to the team should adapt to their style preferences.

Most people find that investing time in analyzing others’ styles, adapting their own approach and aligning the team around clear expectations pays off in the long run. With intentional focus and thoughtful modification of interaction style, project leaders can increase their influence, even when they do not have formal authority. And in complex project environments, that influence can make the difference between missed deadlines and meaningful results.

When leaders, managers or project team members need to strengthen their ability to communicate, collaborate and influence across different working styles, learning more about style preferences and strategies for flexing can help.

Learn how to flex to style preferences

Sales Leadership Development Program Planning | PPS

PPS International Limited — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 12:00:00 GMT

Planning sales leadership training can be tricky. Sales leaders are under constant pressure to deliver results, coach their teams, navigate market differences and build a consistent sales culture across geography. Knowing this, using training that is focused on experiences is an ideal way to develop sales leaders. For more than 25 years, PPS International Limited has focused on building leader capability, including sales leaders. This expertise points us to a few pieces of advice to consider when planning sales leadership development.

Start with the business outcome, not the training topic.

Before deciding what to develop, clarify what the business needs sales leaders to do differently. Is the goal stronger forecasting, better coaching of sales representatives, improved use of business acumen, more consistent account planning or stronger cross-region collaboration? Planning sales leadership development should ensure that any activities connect directly to commercial priorities and sales strategy, not sit beside them. It’s almost always appropriate to link sales leader training to capabilities such as commercial execution, strategic account thinking, financial and business acumen, coaching, cross-functional influence and leading distributed teams.

Use 70-20-10 as a design discipline for sales leadership training, not a slogan.

The value of using the 70-20-10 model in planning sales leadership development programs is that it forces leaders to think beyond the workshop. Ask: What experiences will build capability? Who needs to coach, mentor or provide feedback? What formal learning is truly necessary? In sales leadership development, the “70” may include territory business reviews, strategic account assignments or cross-regional problem-solving. The “20” may include peer coaching circles, mentoring and field observation. The “10” may include targeted sessions on commercial acumen, financial literacy or sales leadership tools.

Learn More About The 70-20-10 Model

Embed development into the sales operating rhythm.

Sales leaders are already busy. Rather than adding a separate development burden, build learning into existing business routines: pipeline reviews, forecast meetings, quarterly business reviews, territory planning, ride-alongs and team calls. This makes development more relevant, easier to sustain and more likely to translate into behavior change.

Equip sales leaders’ managers to coach, not just direct.

When planning sales leader development, remember: a strong development strategy requires manager involvement. Managers need simple tools to observe, inquire, debrief deals, give feedback and connect daily work to development goals. The managers of those sales leaders need to be able to support learning from experience and exposure (the ‘70’ and the ‘20’). They need to shift from directing to observing, inquiring, developing and exposing people to growth opportunities.

Plan for team cohesion, especially in distributed sales environments.

Field sales leaders often work independently, which can create inconsistency, isolation and uneven sharing of best practices. Build in peer cohorts, cross-region problem-solving groups, virtual field-sharing sessions, collaborative account strategy sessions and peer coaching partnerships. These mechanisms develop capability while also strengthening the sense of team.

Assess before prescribing.

Use stakeholder interviews, self-assessments, multi-rater feedback, commercial diagnostics, territory planning reviews or observation of sales reviews to understand where capability gaps actually exist. The output should be clear: individual development profiles, group heat maps, priority capability gaps and segmented development pathways. When planning sales leadership development, assessments provide a valuable source of intel on where to prioritize learning.

Explore Employee Assessment Tools

Measure application and business impact when planning sales leadership development.

Do not stop at attendance or satisfaction. Look for evidence of changed behavior and business relevance to measure outcomes for learning: stronger coaching conversations, better account strategies, improved forecast discipline, more effective business reviews, stronger collaboration across regions and progress against commercial metrics.

PPS helps organizations build the capability of sales leaders through experiences that are practical, measurable and embedded in the business cadence. Contact us to explore how we can help strengthen your sales leaders’ capabilities and accelerate commercial results.

70-20-10 Development Model for Sales Leaders | PPS

PPS International Limited — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 12:00:00 GMT

Sales leaders face a unique set of pressures: delivering consistent revenue results, coaching teams, navigating regional market differences and building a unified and consistent sales culture across territories. For organizations, the question is rarely whether to develop sales leaders, but how to do it in a way that actually sticks.

Traditional, singular training events rarely build lasting sales leadership capability. One workshop or off-site program can introduce concepts, but it cannot replicate the judgment, adaptability, and coaching instincts that high-performing sales leaders need. Sales leaders are often reluctant to step ‘out’ of the demands of the sales cycle and are sensitive to any learning that isn’t practical and immediately applicable to their role. That is where the 70-20-10 development model offers a powerful, practical alternative to learn in the flow of work or through a focused experience.

What Is the 70-20-10 Development Model?

The 70-20-10 model is a leadership development framework that recognizes most leadership growth happens through experience (70%), learning through others (20%), and targeted formal learning (10%). Rather than pulling sales leaders out of their roles for periodic training, this model intentionally weaves learning and development opportunities into moments that already matter: pipeline reviews, forecasting meetings, quarterly business reviews, territory planning, ride-alongs, team calls and account strategy sessions.

70-20-10 Development Activities for Sales Leaders

70%: Work-Embedded Stretch Experiences

The largest share of learning and development comes from work-embedded stretch experiences. In a sales environment, this means designing growth into the moments that already exist in the business cadence. Specific stretch activities for sales leaders might include:

Leading territory business reviews
Taking on strategic account assignments
Participating in cross-regional problem-solving projects
Practicing high-stakes decision-making under ambiguity in real life situations

These experiences help build commercial execution, business acumen and strategic account thinking without requiring time away from business priorities. Development happens because the work is designed with intention.

20%: Learning through Others

Field sales leaders often operate independently, travel heavily, and have limited natural opportunities for peer connection and reflection. This makes the “20” especially valuable in a sales context.

Peer coaching circles, leader mentoring, field observation with structured feedback, and communities of practice all create space for reflection, shared problem-solving and consistency across regions. When sales leaders regularly hear how peers handle similar challenges, they build both skill and a more cohesive sales culture.

This is also where manager capability comes into sharpest focus. Managers in a 70-20-10 system are not just directing activity; they are observing, questioning, coaching, and connecting business challenges to development opportunities. A well-designed “20” builds better leaders at every level of the sales organization.

10%: Formal Learning

Formal learning still has a role, but it should be precise and practical. For sales leaders, the most effective formal learning tends to be tightly scoped, including targeted sessions such as commercial acumen micro-learning, financial literacy sessions, sales leadership tools, product updates or custom-built learning programs.

The critical design principle here is connection. Formal learning that does not link back to real work challenges or upcoming business priorities will not transfer. When it does connect, it accelerates the growth happening in the 70% and 20%.

Reinforcing the Sales Manager’s Role Using Development

One of the most underappreciated benefits of a strong 70-20-10 approach is how it reinforces the manager’s role. Instead of simply directing, managers learn to observe, inquire, develop and expose their people to growth opportunities. They coach, debrief deals, provide feedback and help sales leaders translate business challenges into development opportunities. When development is embedded in business activities rather than delegated to training events, managers are able to become active developers of their teams.

For organizations seeking stronger sales performance, better leadership consistency, and more cohesive regional teams, this shift in the manager’s role is often as valuable as any formal program.

Designing Sales Leadership Development as a Business System

For talent development leaders, the practical opportunity is to stop treating sales leadership development as an event and start designing it as a business-embedded system.

That system includes:

Assessment to identify the capabilities each sales leader needs to build.
Experience design that intentionally places leaders in stretch situations.
Coaching and peer learning structures that drive reflection and consistency.
Targeted instruction that fills specific knowledge gaps when they arise.

Ready to Build a Stronger Sales Leadership Pipeline?

PPS International Limited helps organizations design processes to develop sales leaders through experiences that are practical, measurable and embedded in the business cadence. Whether you are building a program from the ground up or looking to make your existing approach more effective, we can help you get there.

Talk to a PPS consultant about developing your sales leaders.

Scale Leadership Development with Group Coaching | PPS

PPS International Limited — Tue, 26 May 2026 12:00:00 GMT

Group coaching bridges the gap between individualized development and scalable learning. This is because it combines coach-led support with the insight and momentum of a shared cohort. We know that leadership coaching is one of the most effective ways to help leaders translate insight into action. At its best, coaching creates space for reflection, provides balanced feedback from stakeholders, focuses development and encourages practical behavior change. The challenge for many HR, Talent and Learning Leaders is scale. Individual coaching can be powerful, but when dozens or hundreds of leaders need support, one-on-one coaching may not always be the most practical or cost-effective option.

Group Coaching Leverages the Power of Individuals and the Group

Individual coaching is a personalized, one-on-one partnership focused on the coachee’s unique goals, development needs and context. It provides a highly tailored experience where the coachee can work deeply on self-awareness, leadership effectiveness, influence and goal achievement.

Group coaching, as PPS International Limited defines it, is a shared coaching experience where individuals learn together, guided by a coach who manages the development conversation. It is often embedded into broader development initiatives, such as blended learning programs or team-building efforts. While it is different from individual coaching, group coaching retains many of the elements that make coaching high-impact: a skilled coach, intentional reflection, practical application, accountability and psychologically safe dialogue.

Group Coaching Provides a Cost-Effective Solution for Development at Scale

For organizations seeking coaching at scale, group coaching can be a smart investment. It extends the reach of coaching without reducing development to a generic training event. Participants still receive guided support, but they also benefit from the collective wisdom of the group.

Here are distinct scenarios where a learning leader might use group coaching:

As part of leadership development programs, to help participants apply learning, discuss workplace challenges and stay accountable for change.
For emerging managers, to support them moving from individual contributors to people leaders, helping building confidence and judgment.
During organizational change, to help leaders process change and share what is working across functions or regions.
To reinforce managers’ coaching skills, giving managers practice using coaching questions, active listening, feedback and accountability conversations through peer support.
For high-potential talent cohorts, to provide visibility and connection as future leaders without relying only on one-on-one executive coaching.
To support leaders facing similar business challenges. For example, leaders managing hybrid teams, improving employee engagement, leading through ambiguity or strengthening cross-functional collaboration.
To build development momentum after implementing assessments, after tools such as 360 feedback, DiSC or leadership assessments, group coaching can help participants interpret insights, set goals and identify practical actions.
For geographically dispersed leaders, to create connection and consistency among those who may not often work together in person.
To extend coaching when budgets are limited, providing coach-led development to more employees while preserving reflection, accountability and application.

When thoughtfully designed, group coaching helps organizations make coaching more accessible and sustainable, while preserving the high-touch qualities that make coaching effective.

Extend the impact of coaching across more leaders without losing the high-touch experience that makes coaching work.

Explore a group coaching approach

Designing Training Programs for Hybrid Participant Groups | PPS

PPS International Limited — Tue, 05 May 2026 12:00:00 GMT

With more than 25 years experience in designing and implementing learning for global audiences, we’ve configured learning to address distributed workforces, including working with groups of participants who aren’t all learning in the same virtual or in-person location.

Here’s a couple of practical ideas for designing training programs that work for hybrid groups of participants:

Design to engage both audiences. For example, use highly visual, ever-changing graphics. MORE diagrams, FEWER words, MORE slides so nothing ‘sits’ on screen too long. This helps both those in person and in the virtual room feel more engaged.
Design activities with parallel paths for live and virtual participants. Without parallel paths, one group is watching instead of interacting and engagement drops. To support complex activities and avoid confusion, provide tools such as a pre-session playbook with numbered activities—easier to refer to the activity number so each audience has the instructions tailored to them.
Consider designing so that you have both a virtual AND an in-person producer to support the facilitator. This requires a more detailed agenda with specific instructions for each Producer, but it ensures the facilitator can stay focused on managing the group’s learning.

We have experience in designing training for hybrid participant groups, as well as facilitating learning for these audiences. If you need help, we'd love to share our expertise.

Start a discussion and explore more

70-20-10 Learning Model: How to Manage Participant Choice | PPS

PPS International Limited — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 12:00:00 GMT

Many organizations subscribe to a 70-20-10 model for learning where 70 percent of learning comes from on-the-job or experiential learning, 20 percent from social learning and learning from others and 10 percent from formal, structured learning. This learning design principle shifts the focus away from over-reliance on formal training and toward embedded, on-the-job development. This approach builds learning transfer, ensures applicability and allows for participant choice. At the same time, it can be overwhelming to manage the amount of information and available options, especially when talent development organizations typically operate with limited resources.

The Benefits of Participant Choice

The 70-20-10 model for learning offers participants choices. Having a variety of options for development works well because it ensures that participants have choices in both what they learn and the way in which they learn it. This participant-centered approach supports different learning styles and just-in-time learning. It also honors what we know about skills that are critical to achieving role success—some skills are more difficult to learn, more linked to reaching goals and more difficult to recall than other skills. Having participant choice allows for individuals to reinforce their learning through a variety of methods.

Avoiding Overwhelm in Managing Your 70-20-10 Model for Learning

If you or your organization are building participant-centered learning using a 70-20-10 model for learning, a campus-style learning or structuring development paths, consider these keys to success:

More choice can mean more complexity for those administering and managing development. Keep complexity low where possible.
Participants faced with choices will still need guidance on what to select and how to sequence their learning. Prepare the learner to use the systems you've set up.
Not all skills require multiple options for learning. Give priority to those skills that are closely linked to outcomes. These high priority areas benefit from a variety of options for learning.
Learning choice can be in both WHAT is learned and HOW it is learned. In sorting through options, consider putting the most variety into the methods and leaning into broader content areas.
Just as having choice can add to complexity in administering and supporting implementation, it also can add to the burden of keeping learning evergreen. Design and build with ease of updating in mind.

PPS International Limited can support your organization in creating participant-centered learning as part of your 70-20-10 model for learning. We'd welcome a conversation of ways we can help your efforts.

How to Measure Leadership Training Effectiveness | PPS

PPS International Limited — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 12:00:00 GMT

Measuring outcomes for learning is important to gain support for learning, improve development options and to drive organizational outcomes. So often, Chief Learning Officers and those in Talent Development roles ask, “How do we know leadership training actually works?” To assess whether leadership development efforts are producing meaningful business impact, best practice shows that we should look for evidence across leader behaviors, business outcomes and existing organizational metrics to have a complete view of learning effectiveness.

What Are Cues to Results for Measuring Outcomes for Learning?

When measuring outcomes for learning, focus in a few areas:

Behavioral Transfer (Are leaders behaving differently?) If behavior doesn’t change, a change in business outcomes cannot be attributed to learning. With people-development, behaviors drive results. If you are only measuring outcomes for learning in one area, this is the place to focus. For example, is there a higher frequency and quality of feedback conversations? Do leaders delegate more often? When making decisions, do leaders establish clear criteria and seek stakeholder input? Measuring outcomes for learning in this area will point to specific, repeated actions that were not happening before training.

Experience of Teams (Are teams experiencing a “different” leader?) This measurement area is a twist on behavioral transfer: measure the perceptions of direct reports about their interaction with leaders. Examples of indicators could include team members having increased clarity on priorities and expectations or reduced dependency on their supervisor in order to make decisions.

Performance and Business Outcomes (Is the work improving?) When measuring outcomes for learning, this is THE area to strive to see improvements. It is also one of the most difficult areas to attribute discretely to learning and development. Measuring here may show shorter cycle times, higher customer satisfaction and improved profitability margins for specific leader-led departments. If you uncover a pattern of improvement in development-rich, leader-led departments, this can indicate strong outcomes.

What Measurement Methods Work Well to Uncover Outcomes?

Here are a few ideas of tools and processes that can be helpful in measuring outcomes for learning:

Pre- and post-development 360 assessments
Manager observation rubrics, implemented by internal or external individuals
Pulse surveys tied to specific behaviors
Engagement surveys (manager-specific questions)
Team pulse check surveys or live feedback sessions
Skip-level interviews or focus groups
Internal mobility or promotion readiness within teams whose leaders have been developed
Before and after performance trends or business KPIs linked to a comparison of trained vs. untrained leaders

Part of our instructional design process is creating measures of impact, either while we are developing a program, or after-the-fact. PPS International Limited would love to collaborate and idea-share on finding meaningful and easy-to-implement ways of measuring outcomes for learning.

Reach out for a measurement conversation

Create a Learning Culture That Drives Performance | PPS

PPS International Limited — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 12:00:00 GMT

Talent professionals know they must create a learning culture before their organizations will be poised for the future. With the rapid advancement of knowledge and technology, if employees don’t operate in a learning culture, their organizations risk becoming outdated and irrelevant.

It’s a fine balance when implementing learning in cultures that are less than eager for training, though. Make training a requirement and participants and their managers can feel micromanaged. Leave it optional and those who need it may never participate. The reality is that sales professionals and frontline teams often prioritize customer commitments over training. And, in most cases, rightly so. It’s difficult to argue that revenue and service priorities should take a backseat to much else in the business.

To create a learning culture and improve participation rates, training needs to feel mandatory, even when it’s optional. “Feeling mandatory” isn’t about creating a culture of compliance or being punitive. Instead, participants should experience learning as an essential tool that undeniably supports them in achieving their goals. They should regret not participating in learning because they know that NOT attending means they’ve missed out. This only happens when their learning has a direct connection to their work. It must increase their ability to increase sales, better service customers, manufacture to high quality, and problem solve and interact with their peers and others.

Create a Learning Culture, Reap Benefits

Talent development leaders know the benefits when they take action to create a learning culture and advance the priority of development. Bridging the gap from the current learning culture to a new learning culture can be a struggle. Where to start?

Design every learning asset around behaviors that will drive performance metrics. Better to have a few meaningful assets that are wildly relevant than complex learning journeys filled with ‘nice to have’ knowledge.
Build examples, cases and practices around real-world scenarios for all representative participant roles, even if that means you need many options for different scenarios. It’s additional work up front, but it fast-forwards participants’ ability to apply what they are learning. It’s also a stress test for your content. If you cannot find examples that are meaningful and demonstrate a ‘better way,’ your learning isn’t relevant enough.
Wherever possible, use learning in the flow of work as your primary means of learning. This isn’t to say that learning events are not key to success. But, when you’re faced with a low drive-for-learning-culture, you eliminate objections to attendance by building training into work that is already happening.

These and other strategies can help create a learning culture where participation isn’t forced and reactionary, but desired and demanded by our teams. Learn more about how we design and implement learning that is ‘must have.’

Reach out for instructional design support

How to Improve Communication Skills in the Workplace | PPS

PPS International Limited — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 12:00:00 GMT

To improve communication skills in the workplace, we need to recognize that many people have preferences different from our own. If we tailor our speech, body language and information-sharing approach to others’ preferences, they are more open to accept ideas. This is especially important during the sales process, problem solving, working on a team or providing customer service. Improve communication skills in the workplace and you will improve the results you achieve.

Improved Communication Skills in the Workplace Equals Improved Results

When you can spot subtle differences in the way people behave, you can effectively work with teams, peers and customers. Here are some tips on things we have found effective to improve communication skills in the workplace.

Recognize your own preferences and behaviors and use them to play on your strengths. It can be hard to evaluate the way in which we use communication skills in the workplace. Once you know your own style you can adjust or strategically think how you can optimally communicate in a situation. Do you tend to provide a high level of detail, when key points would be enough for your audience? Do you ask many questions rather than making recommendations? Sometimes our approaches are appropriate to the situations we find ourselves in. Other times, we need to adjust our approach to meet goals. Consider your strengths in using communication skills in the workplace and use these to your advantage.
Plan critical business situations before they occur. Before you start an important conversation, think about the people you will be interacting with. If you have worked with them before, think of their preferences and how they like to receive information. Some conversations benefit from planning and practicing, such as delivering a difficult message or asking senior leaders for support. Take the time to set goals, an agenda and plan for how to share information in the best ways.
Increase your chance at successful influencing by tailoring your approach to the preferences of others. How do you know the ways people like to use communication skills in the workplace? You can observe people in action and pick up on subtle cues. For instance, do they speak quickly? Talk more about facts or feelings? Use gestures more than other people? These give you cues to how they may like to receive information as well. For those you will work closely with, consider facilitating a discussion about individual preferences before jumping into crucial conversations.
Manage interpersonal tension by behaviorally flexing. By temporarily adjusting your behavior to the preferences of others, you manage tension and encourage others to work with you. Even subtly matching the behaviors you uncovered through observation or conversations helps reduce tension and improve communication in the workplace.

These four adjustments can go far to improve communication in the workplace—and ultimately the ability to work well with others.

If you’d like to better use your communication skills in the workplace, our Interaction Styles in Action microcourse is a great primer in knowing your own style, planning critical conversations and tailoring your approach to others’ preferences. Learn more and enroll in our course.

For groups who would benefit from improving their communication skills in the workplace, a program such as our Interaction Styles in Action can provide important insights about ways of working.

How to Be More Flexible with Communication Styles in the Workplace | PPS

PPS International Limited — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 12:00:00 GMT

Leaders who aren’t adaptable to communication styles in the workplace often struggle to maintain relationships and manage organizational dynamics. Like emotional intelligence, flexing to others’ communication styles in the workplace is a crucial skill for success. Leaders who are skillful in delivering messages and being flexible in their approaches pay attention to the subtle needs of others. They match their communication styles to others. These leaders know there is no one-size fits all or best approach. Because of the variety of communication styles in the workplace, no approach works well in all situations with all people.

Different communication styles in the workplace means a need for different approaches

Effective leaders have the ability to tailor their speech and approach so that others more readily accept their ideas. These leaders capitalize on interactions with others, especially in critical business situations such as when implementing change, selling ideas, delivering performance feedback and working with peers. These are crucial times to pay attention to communication styles in the workplace.

You’ll know your leaders need to be more flexible in how they approach others if you see these five things:

Individual differences keep derailing teams being efficient and productive.
Rapport is strained between leaders and their direct reports, peers, customers and senior leaders.
Change messages are being delivered in ways that create additional upset and angst.
Leaders spending very little time preparing for important interactions.
Leaders miss opportunities to use the strengths of their direct reports because they may not recognize them.

Improving Leaders’ Flexibility in Adapting to Others

Many things contribute to poor flexibility and adaptability to communication styles in the workplace, including lack of skills. Leaders who learn about influence styles know that knowledge of communication styles in the workplace is a useful framework. They are able to make small but meaningful adjustments.

One way to address lack of flexibility to communication styles in the workplace is to develop leaders’ knowledge of behavior preferences. Many of these tools exist, including Insights Discovery, DiSC and Interaction Styles.

Knowledge of Interaction Styles in particular is a simple, but robust tool for increased influence and flexibility to others. The Interaction Style Profile and Guidebooks have been implemented by thousands of talent development teams across the globe, in multiple languages, as stand-alone training and embedded into existing training and development programs. The inventory and a beginner’s program are also available for those who want to learn without attending a group program.

Take the Interaction Style profile or complete our microcourse in influence to build your flexibility and adapting skills.