Drivers in Hell: How to Stop Killing Their Potential
Picture if you will a Driver, we'll call her Dana, who worked in a building filled with row after row of glass-fronted offices. The desk in her own fishbowl office was installed in such a way that she couldn't help but face the hallway. She hated that setup. People would casually walk by, and if they happened to make eye contact with her they seemed to see that as an open invitation to come in and interrupt her with small talk, even though she was clearly busy. She tried to keep her head down as people trolled outside, but sadly that didn't seem to be a sufficient deterrent.
Dana's work was complex, and she felt like every time she began to get traction on the challenge at hand, she'd be interrupted. Often it was someone from another business group who “just wanted to say hi” but who would then proceed to say far more, hoping Dana would join in the gossiping. Dana just wanted to get back to her work. She couldn't believe people didn't notice her total lack of interest in the topic, and in further conversation. Other times her direct reports might pop in to talk about some trouble or another. In these situations, Dana was happy to provide her opinion; the issue was that even after she gave them explicit advice, they often kept waffling between options and repeating the same litany of concerns. If they disagreed, why didn't they just come right out and say so? Or if they didn't really want a solution to their problems, why were they bothering to ask for her help?
Given this history of disruptions to her productivity, Dana was particularly irritated when she was asked to join an impromptu team meeting. Her group met all the time, ostensibly with an agenda though no one seemed to stick to it. They rarely had what Dana would consider to be a real discussion. Everyone was polite, and softened each message so that no one would have hurt feelings. When Dana, in contrast, said anything direct or even mildly confrontational, the group would look at her as if she'd just kicked a puppy. And it killed her that they'd talk and talk to the brink of a decision but never actually make one.
This particular meeting started out no differently. Late of course, because half the team didn't get there on time. And then even later because the first five minutes were spent oohing and ahhing over a colleagues' vacation photos. Dana had nothing against spectacular scenery, but she had other things she needed to be doing with her time. When they finally started the meeting though she perked up, because the topic was a meaty one: the rollout of a customer engagement system.
Unfortunately, her brief spark of interest quickly turned to disbelief, then disdain. The new system was intended to support each customer's unique needs; that meant that the teams supporting each customer would have no standard metrics or targets. Rather, each team would receive a high level “progress report” (a name Dana found euphemistic since without targets, how would they know if they were progressing?) based on a self-evaluation generated by the team members themselves. The new system had no rigorous process, no consideration of how the system might be gamed, no comparative scores to rank oneself by, and no logic for how the “progress reports” would translate into individual compensation and promotion decisions. Dana was appalled. Worse yet, her colleagues seemed delighted. They were talking about how refreshing it was to focus on customers as individuals rather than numbers, and on how this system provided so much flexibility for the team. When Dana pointed out some of the obvious flaws in the system, they accused her of not being a team player. Dana had had enough. She went back to her office, and wrote a scathing blog post about idiot leadership under her anonymized handle Domin8. Then she wrote an email to her team leader regarding the new customer system, saying her customer had a “unique need” to have her online and available at all times (after all, if you have to join them, beat them). She began multi-tasking in every meeting from then on.
Let's Talk About it
As we begin our conversation, remember that Kim is a Pioneer-Driver (specifically a Scientist) and Suzanne is a Guardian-Integrator (specifically a Dreamer).
KIM: Here's a woman who clearly just wants to get her work done, and who also clearly defines her work objectives as the specific tasks on her list to complete. As a Driver she's going to be put off by anything standing in the way of her objectives, but these interruptions she experiences are particularly annoying because, from Dana's perspective, they're pointless. She doesn't see the value in hobnobbing with officemates. She doesn't see the value in playing desk-chair therapist to her reports. She doesn't see the value in kumbaya-ing with the team. What she does see is an accumulation of wasted time that could have been put to better use.
SUZANNE: Yes I think you're right that Dana doesn't see the value of these things, but that doesn't mean they're not valuable. What Dana is missing is the fact that doing a little bit of hobnobbing and so on, could actually help her get her work done and meet her objectives—at least assuming she needs anyone else's participation in the process. Playing therapist and singing a bit of kumbaya with people builds connection, trust, and loyalty.
But putting that aside for a minute, it still makes Dana feel like she's not able to accomplish what she needs to and this obviously frustrates her tremendously. When there's a Driver on a team it becomes particularly important for a leader to be thoughtful about how time is spent when people are brought together. That doesn't mean there should never be time for socializing or a bit of water-cooler talk, but maybe the first 10 minutes of a 2:00 meeting could be used for gathering and optional catching up, with the official business at hand commencing promptly at 2:10. Alternatively, a leader could discuss with a Driver the objectives being addressed during that socializing time, such as “building connection, trust, and loyalty so that our team works together more efficiently and effectively.”
KIM: Your point is a good one. Often people (of all types) feel like the benefits of certain activities are so obvious that they should go without saying, but the fact is those benefits might not be obvious to people of differing Business Chemistry types. It helps to explicitly state the intent, ideally in a way to which the other types can relate. A direct mapping of “we're going to do x” to the desired outcome of “y” creates a sort of Rosetta Stone for people. In this case it's being explicit with the Driver about the importance of bonding to create more integrated teams. In another situation, it could be telling a Pioneer that it's important to have a quantifiable business case in order to secure stakeholder support for the big idea, or telling a Guardian that it's essential to change course in order to mitigate greater risk in the future, or telling an Integrator that tough decisions have to be made in the near term to support desirable long-term outcomes.
SUZANNE: I think this is a perfect example of how a leader can sometimes respond to the diverse needs of various types with one universal strategy—in this case, communicating about why things are happening, with a specific focus on the kinds of outcomes that type is likely to care most about.
KIM: Exactly. For Drivers this translation can be particularly important because the ability to walk in someone else's shoes and see things from another's point of view may not come naturally. Dana herself doesn't need to talk things out when she has a problem, and so she doesn't recognize that need when it's in front of her with her direct reports, for instance. She assumes people are looking for answers to their problems (which is what she would want), versus desiring to dissect the situation itself. She's probably not picking up on some of the subtle signals, both verbal and non-verbal, that would help clue her in. Her direct report could have been more explicit and said, “I'd really like to talk through this with you to better understand the situation. I'm not looking for a solution yet, I just want to use you as a sounding board for my thinking.” Dana still might not have enjoyed that type of dialogue, but at least she wouldn't have had the added frustration of not understanding the purpose of the conversation.
SUZANNE: That's a really helpful suggestion. Dana is clearly a bit baffled by what her people want and need, and she's not alone in that. As you suggest, Kim, taking a walk in someone else's shoes isn't always natural for Drivers. In fact, the criticisms of this type go so far as to accuse them of having a touch of mindblindness (an inability to understand the thoughts and feelings of others). While Drivers typically don't like to think there's anything they're not good at, those who work with them might find the Drivers' style more palatable if they chalk it up to not understanding others, as opposed to not caring about others. By all means, if there's something that might be helpful for a Driver to know about what you think or feel, go ahead and tell them. Just keep it short, because Drivers appreciate brevity.
KIM: We've been discussing the importance of being clear with Drivers in the context of understanding other people's needs, but clarity is important to Drivers in general. You see with Dana's situation the frustration she feels about having a new customer engagement system that doesn't have explicit goals and metrics. It's a subjective, qualitative solution for a situation she clearly feels needs to be more cut and dry. She finds this particularly problematic in part because it seems illogical to her. But more importantly, it's not clear to her how the system will relate to her individual goals and performance.
Drivers in particular need to have clear goals to shoot for. As we shared in Chapter 10, Drivers, more than any other type, aspire to be high performers. For a Driver being in that category either means: 1) hitting all the criteria laid out for what it takes to be in the category labeled high performing, or 2) performing better than others on a relative scale, thus ending up in the high portion of the curve. From a Driver's perspective, if you don't have either of these things, how do you know you're doing well? Further more, having explicit goals to strive for, and a field in which to compete, is motivating for Drivers. It spurs them to push for their best. It's not surprising therefore that when there was ambiguity and squishiness inherent in the new system, it not only drove Dana crazy, but also compelled her to establish her own metric for success: being able to game the system.
SUZANNE: I think it's a very interesting question to ponder—how do you know you're the best if you don't have a measurement or an objective way to compare your performance to others? Some of the other types care less, but for Drivers, with their competitive natures, this kind of thing matters. So, in this kind of environment, what's a leader to do to keep a Driver engaged? For one thing, there's no reason there can't still be very clear (and challenging) goals set and progress against them explicitly measured. Furthermore, there might still be some element of competition or comparative metrics of a kind integrated into particular tasks and processes, even if it's not part of the overall performance management system. Small contests over time could give Drivers even more opportunities to best each other and everyone else.
KIM: This reminds me of a team I worked with, comprised largely of Drivers. The top-level managers were siloed by geography and had a history of competing with one another, each trying to maximize their individual territories. Unfortunately, this was suboptimal for the group as a whole. In order to try to get them to work together more effectively, their leader had implemented a new performance system that emphasized collaboration and shared goals. At first it was chaos; the managers didn't understand what they were shooting for and how to show that they were “the best”. To address this, the leader and I established a way to harness their competitive spirit but re-orient it in a productive direction. For the things the managers directly controlled, we set Goldilocks-style ranges; they needed to hit right in the middle, not too much, not too little, but just right. For these we measured them against their personal best, so the competition was with themselves versus against other people in the group. For the group-level metrics to which they contributed, we set an industry benchmark, so as a team they were striving to beat the external competition rather than undermining one another.
SUZANNE: The other beautiful thing about this kind of solution is that the variety in it increases that chance that it will work for more of the other types as well, not only the Drivers. Guardians and Integrators, particularly Dreamers, tend to be more intrinsically motivated, so the measurement against a personal best may work even better for them. This directly hits the target for our definition of a great solution—one that meets the needs of several types without turning any of the others off.
KIM: Yes, the consistent problem we see is that leaders optimize for one type, either inadvertently (usually doing whatever suits themselves best), or explicitly (catering to a narrow set of traits that have been labeled valuable). Neither approach really unlocks the full potential of a leader's human resources, however. As you say, the best approach is one that can draw in all the styles and position them to their best advantage.
We should also come back to the point about the office setup since, as we've mentioned, poorly designed work spaces can be a problem for all types. For one reason, what's considered essential in a space will vary dramatically by type. And since people's working style preferences can be a mix of introversion and extroversion, designing space to suit one or the other is an over simplification. Drivers, for instance, tend to care less about the aesthetics of a space and more about its practicality. I worked with one Driver CTO whose favorite place to work at home was a nook he had carved out under the stairs (his wife teasingly called it his hobbit hole). It was cramped and cluttered, but he didn't care. It was perfect for him because it allowed him to immerse himself fully in the challenge at hand, free of interruption.
SUZANNE: In any office with either an open-space setup or the glass-fishbowl situation, interruptions are a pretty common occurrence, so a leader might want to check in to understand how people (of any type) are being impacted by them. Interruptions clearly bother Dana, not because she's antisocial (okay maybe she is a little bit, at least in the office 
), but because it keeps her from focusing on her complex work. Must Dana have this particular office, or might there be one better suited for her working style and the type of work she's doing? Might a system be put in place where a red sign on the door means “busy—please walk right on by” and a green one means “still busy, but stop in if you must”? Maybe Dana could agree to keep the green sign up for at least one or two hours a day so people feel she's available? Alternatively, Dana might enjoy the gift of a giant fern, which could be strategically placed as to screen her a bit from the outside world.
KIM: I don't know if I would go so far as to recommend hiding behind plants, but I do agree that a clear signal like the red and green signs could help. Obviously, having a signal has the direct benefit of indicating a person's state and giving them some control over interruptions and interactions. The additional benefit is that it validates the need. If Dana were hiding behind a fern to avoid talking to people, it would be easy for others to start thinking of her as unfriendly, antisocial, and not a team player. People will label the behavior as undesirable and unproductive, whereas the contrary is true in Dana's case!
If instead you establish a system of some sort (like the red and green indicators), you publicly acknowledge that people have different needs. People know that when Dana has the red signal on, it's because she's really cranking on something. It's a sign of productivity, not reclusiveness.
SUZANNE: Not that there's anything wrong with reclusiveness some of the time (said the Guardian-Dreamer who works almost exclusively from home), but I get your point. Now I want to steer us toward another aspect of the Driver's style that people often misinterpret—their directness. We once asked people for a list of words that describe this aspect of the Driver's style and people didn't hold back (which seems fair, since Drivers rarely do). Among the many descriptors were these: rude, abrasive, harsh, brusque, cutting, cold, and mean. People who are hurt or offended by a Driver's behavior often interpret their approach through this lens. Drivers, however, often explain their direct style by saying they're just trying to be clear and efficient.
If we're going to expect Drivers to try harder to understand how others think and feel, then we should all be doing the same. It might help to think of your typical Driver as a porcupine—cute right? But also sometimes a bit frightening. The next time you feel the sting of a Driver-launched barb, take a minute to ask yourself about their intent. While injuring you may have been the outcome, was it really the goal? While the Drivers can work on trying to launch fewer barbs, others should realize that they're working against their porcupine nature. So can you maybe also work on growing a slightly thicker skin? Or perhaps don a suit of armor?
KIM: Absolutely. In order to tap into the full power of Business Chemistry, there needs to be movement on both sides. An individual can only flex so far, for so long. As a visual (for you Pioneers and Integrators in particular), imagine a small table with a post at either end. You're trying to bridge the distance between them using a rubber band wrapped around each post. It's really hard to pull one rubber band all the way across to the other post. Even if you managed to get there, you'd be putting such strain on the band that it would easily snap. If instead you pulled each rubber band to the middle and connected them, you'd still achieve the desired result, but with less of a burden on each of the rubber bands. To your point, the Driver needs to be careful about the barbs, but that can only get us halfway there. The other parties need to meet them in the middle.
SUZANNE: Getting back to those spiky porcupines, have you ever read one of those articles about how to survive an attack from various wild animals? With some you should curl into a ball, with others you should make yourself big and yell, and with still others you just don't have a shot at all. (I just read one such article which suggested you have “zero options” if a crocodile ambushes you from a riverbank.) Incidentally, it turns out that porcupines are actually herbivores and unlikely to attack humans unless they feel threatened, whew. But when it comes to the species we call the Driver, there are some useful survival techniques you can try. And really I don't mean to suggest that Drivers are always on the attack—but flexing to their style and communicating a bit differently is likely to make your working relationship with them more effective in any kind of situation. The magic strategies of which I speak are essentially to be clear, concise, and confident. Drivers don't want to wade through a bunch of convoluted or indirect statements; they like to move fast, and they can smell fear a mile away.
KIM: Since I'm married to a Driver, and that's my secondary style, I'm entertained by your idea of treating them like wild animals, and plan to apply that philosophy in our household immediately . But in all seriousness, the survival strategies you suggest can each be effective with Drivers, but the different approaches will yield different results. If you're just trying to survive and not be mauled, curling into a ball is definitely the safest path forward. I've seen plenty of senior executives placating difficult Drivers, just to avoid a battle. And they live to fight (or curl up), another day. Indeed, if you're an innocuous enough ball, you might even trigger the protective instinct of a Driver and become part of their territory. They'll move on to other prey and leave you more or less alone, but you're definitely considered a notch below them on the power structure at that point.
If instead you want respect, the best strategy in my experience is the hold-your-ground-and-be-fierce path. You can be fierce through strong a commitment to your fact-based position, by the way, it's not just sound and fury, signifying nothing. Be like a honey badger. Just remember, honey badgers can take as well as they give, so be prepared to earn some scars. The good news is, those zero-options situations are rare. If you do end up in one, go out fighting. A Driver will respect you for that.
That's a Wrap
We just offered a number of ideas for creating an environment where Drivers excel, and we thought a summary might be useful. But be careful not to turn off others while focusing on the needs of Drivers. Surely you want all the types to thrive. Our summary includes some ideas for how to keep things palatable for Integrators, the Driver's opposite.
| To meet the needs of Drivers | To make it palatable for Integrators |
| Timebox socializing time, make it optional, or explain why it's valuable. | Do provide time for socializing! |
| Explain what you and others want and why you want it. (Drivers may miss subtleties.) | Coach Drivers in how to ask empathetic questions. |
| Provide ways for Drivers to measure their success. | Make systems flexible, not all about competing with others. |
| Offer practical workspaces where Drivers won't be disturbed more than necessary. | Create systems and signals that indicate the best times to disturb a Driver. |
| Don't overact to the Driver's brusque style. | Encourage Integrators to focus on likely intent rather than style. |
| Be clear, concise, and confident. | Ask Integrators to consider how they can be clear and concise while also being diplomatic, to display confidence without bravado. |
© 2018. Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited
Be Nice
If you're really a Driver, chances are your eyes might roll a bit at that advice. We'd wager that being nice is probably not at the top of your list of goals, but just stick with us for a moment. Have you ever gotten feedback that people think you're overly direct, too brusque, or even kind of mean? Perhaps no one's been brave enough to give you that feedback, but you've noticed that people scatter when they sense your approach? Drivers aren't always aware of how their style impacts people, or they don't understand why others respond in a particular way. They sometimes think others are overly sensitive and should grow a thicker skin.
If you work with people who aren't Drivers (and who doesn't?) a little bit of nice can go a long way toward getting what you need from them. We're not saying that you should avoid telling the truth. Rather, spend a moment thinking about how what you're about to say might make someone else feel, and whether there's a way to say it that would make it easier for that person to receive. Maybe take a note from Isaac Newton, who once said, “Tact is the art of making a point without making an enemy.”
Try adopting some small habits to start and then branch out from there. For example, before pressing send on an email, go back up to the top and add a more personal greeting or question. Something like, “I hope you had a great weekend” or “How was your fishing trip?” at the beginning of a message can shift the tone quite a bit. Then, go to the end of the email and do the same; add a thank you or maybe something slightly more, like “I really appreciate the effort” or “Thanks in advance. Your contribution always makes our work better.” It doesn't take much to have a significant effect.
Get a Second Opinion
We've worked with a number of Drivers who've been surprised when they got negative feedback about their style. They just weren't tuned in to how they were impacting people (in spite of several occasions when another person ended up in tears), and they weren't aware that how they were actually coming across was different from what they thought they were projecting. If you're baffled by how people respond to you, it might be a good idea to ask someone for help.
We suggested one CIO work with an executive coach after receiving poor reviews from his team. While the CIO believed that he was providing clear direction and feedback, his reports felt that he was criticizing them and undermining their credibility. The coach asked the CIO to re-enact a typical interaction on film. When he watched himself, the CIO was shocked. “I'm making such an angry face,” he said, “I had no idea.” The coach also pointed out that the specific words he used made him sound accusatory and judgmental. They practiced communicating the same message substituting different words.
Perhaps you don't have the benefit of an executive coach, and you probably don't want someone following you around all the time filming what you do and say, but it can help to occasionally ask someone (who is not a Driver) for their perception of a specific interaction, or their suggestions for how to adapt. Just remember: If you're going to ask, do not immediately argue with what someone tells you!
Walk in Their Shoes
Now we're going to take this “be nice” thing to a whole new level. We're talking about empathy. Empathy is a powerful tool to engage more effectively. It may not come as naturally to Drivers, but it can be learned. The first step is to figure out where someone else is coming from. As a Driver, you probably aren't as prone to introspection as some of the other types. Since you're not spending time evaluating your own feelings, you're even less likely to spend time evaluating others', which means you might need to dig deeper to really understand what's going on with them. If you're struggling to understand people's feelings and motivations, try what we call “The Toddler Challenge.” Ask the question “Why?” five times in a row. RULES OF ENGAGEMENT: you cannot respond to the why question with anything in the vein of, “Because it/they are stupid.” Instead you need to play the sleuth and assume there is a logical explanation for what's happening; you just need to discover it.
For example, using Dana's situation:
DANA: “ I'm annoyed.”
Why? #1
DANA: “ I keep getting interrupted and it's not even for anything useful.”
Why? #2
DANA: “ Because people are always complaining to me about their problems but they don't seem to want solutions.”
Why? #3
DANA: “ Because they want to waste my time.” [BUZZER – violates rules of engagement. TRY AGAIN]
Why? #3 redo
DANA: “ I suppose they get something out of the complaining itself.”
Why? #4
DANA: “ Maybe it helps them reach a solution on their own.”
Why? #5
DANA: “ Probably because in the course of complaining, they end up talking through the details of the problem and laying out the various perspectives, and that helps them work it out.”
Now we're getting somewhere. Instead of feeling frustrated that people are wasting her time, Dana has now deduced that people are simply trying to work out the problem on their own by talking it through with her. That actually sounds like a pretty good use of her time!
Once you get in the habit of asking “Why?” you probably won't need the formality of the Toddler Challenge. You'll have trained yourself to seek more insightful motives rather than jumping to conclusions.
Understanding where someone is coming from is the start of empathy. Next you need to show that person that you understand. You can begin by asking them questions: How did that work out? Were you worried? What were you hoping would happen? Then you can make statements that don't try to solve a problem but that simply demonstrate that you are listening and recognize the underlying feelings. Try sentences like: “It sounds like you were really frustrated,” “That must have been really disconcerting”, or “I imagine that felt great.”
All Aboard!?
Once a Driver gets focused on a goal they tend to move quickly toward it, putting all their energy into its pursuit. But as we mentioned earlier, one danger for a Driver is that they can end up driving a bus with no one on it. In other words, they might be barreling ahead in the pursuit of a goal without realizing that somewhere along the way they've lost some people. It's a good idea to check in with the team along the way, to make sure everyone else is still moving along as well. One idea is to schedule a regular check-in with the team. To make that meeting more palatable to you, have it be a quick stand-up meeting, or a focused scrum. Come prepared with some standard questions like, “Is the goal still clear?” “Have any new roadblocks popped up?” “Have any new concerns arisen?”
The disconnect can often come at the individual rather than team level though. As a Driver, you're probably likely to ask for what you need in order to get a job done, but not everyone is so direct. Take some time to ask what people need. A Guardian may need clear expectations. An Integrator may need context. A Pioneer may need some room for creativity. People won't necessarily tell you these things unless you ask directly, and since directness is a strong Driver trait, go ahead and ask!
Get a Sidekick
At the end of the day, you may not be able, or willing, to bend beyond a certain point. Luckily, you might not need to. Just look at the leadership ranks of many Fortune 500 companies to see examples of leaders of all types teaming with others who complement their skills. For Drivers this can be particularly powerful. Not only because they can rely on that individual to round out their edges and fill in their gaps, but also because that person is optimally placed to provide the second opinion we mentioned earlier.
Take the classic example of Sherlock Holmes and his sidekick Dr. Watson. Holmes has the ultimate Driver mind—analytical, unemotional, and rational. As Watson describes him, “He was, I take it, the most perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world has seen.” Watson, on the other hand, while intelligent, was the humanizing balance to Holmes' aloofness. He served as the whetstone upon which Holmes sharpened his thinking. Watson is also the reason that Holmes was not just brilliant, but beloved. He gave voice to Holmes' genius, literally, and literarily, as his biographer. Without Watson, Holmes might have remained an unknown recluse shooting up and playing the violin in the shadows of his Baker Street apartment.
A distinction important to the success of this model is that a sidekick is not a lackey. Watson was not Holmes' servant; he was a partner in crime-solving. Drivers, in seeking a sidekick, you're not just looking for someone to do your bidding. You want someone who is, if not on equal standing hierarchically, at least someone for whom you feel a lot of respect. After all, you're looking for someone who rounds you out, a true better half, as perhaps non-Drivers might argue. Matching cape and tights optional.
Red Flag: When Titans Clash
We've highlighted how Drivers delight in debate, thrive on competition, and don't shy away from confrontation. All these traits can be productive, helping contribute to Drivers' hard-earned reputations for getting things done. But they can also be detrimental if two or more Drivers go head to head on a course of mutually assured destruction.
If you're a Driver in a Driver-heavy culture, or if your boss is a Driver (particularly the Commander variety), you might engage in a fair share of minor scuffles or outright skirmishes to determine who has the best or the biggest…well, anything really. These are matches designed first and foremost to establish superiority. If the fights are fair, that's probably not a big deal and might even be a lot of fun, but here are some things that should give you pause:
Competitions escalate to the point where it becomes all about winning, regardless of the cost.- You notice the system seems to be engineered to stack the odds against you Vegas-style; the house always wins.
- Your boss believes there should only be one top dog and likes to make examples of people who challenge his or her alpha position.
If you see these patterns emerging, we're not saying you should turn tail and head for the hills, but you should factor them into your calculus. After all, it could be possible to shift things to your advantage if you bide your time. History is rife with examples of leaders who have emerged after two powerful rivals went head to head and destroyed one another. But history is also full of examples of those who decided to go their own way and set a different path to success. Either way, as a Driver knows well, only to the victors go the spoils.