TRANSCRIPTION FOR PODCAST WITH LYNDA-ROSS VEGA AND GARY JORDAN
RUSSELL
Welcome back to Resilience Unravelled. Another episode. And this one I'm very much looking forward to because it's rare have the chance to have two guests and sitting in front of the resplendent in all their glory, two people. We have Lunda-Ross, Vega, who is sitting in a room with all sorts of pictures on the back, which is looking very exciting, and her colleague, Gary Jordan. So, first of all, good afternoon to you.
GARY
Good afternoon to you as well.
RUSSELL
Good. And where in the world are you?
GARY
We are in what's called north central Texas, the Dallas Fort Worth area in the suburbs. And we are not in the same location. We work together, but I am a little bit farther north than Linda Ross is.
RUSSELL
And so where are you in the same state? Lynda-Ross?
LYNDA-ROSS
Yes, we're both in the same area. We live about a half an hour away from each other.
RUSSELL
Very good. Excellent. Well, isn't that wonders of technology? Had we tried to do this 15 years ago, we'd have all been struggling just to get around this. COVID was a marvellous thing because a lot of us used to do this before COVID but now, of course, it's a matter of course. Fantastic. Well, you're both very welcome. And obviously with it being a podcast with two guests, we'll take our time to understand both of you and chat with both of you. So, who would like to go first? Tell us a little bit about yourselves, what it is that you do. And they're both, ladies, and gentlemen, pointing at each other. That's what I love as a choreographer. So, I'll choose Lynda-Ross. Why don't you go first? Tell us a little about yourself and what it is that you do.
LYNDA-ROSS
Sure. What do I do? So, what we do is we are involved in Perceptual Style Theory that we develop to basically help people understand what they do really well. We're strengths oriented. There are so many people in the world that want to tell you what you don't do well that it sometimes is important to stop and take note of what you do very well and then use that as your foundation for everything that you do. So, Gary and I met in 1983. I think were spring chickens in and through the course of working together with a business project came up with developing theory and we've just been having fun with it ever since.
RUSSELL
And I'm guessing it comes from type style theory. It must do because that's the very name of it. Can you give us a bit of an overview about what that is all about? Type and Style Theory well, I think.
GARY
We’re a fascinating business partnership. Lynda-Ross's background was in business and I'm a psychologist and I was always fascinated by different type theories that came out but none of them ever really hit the mark for me fully. There were always questions I had and I had a theory I’d created, an idea that different people had different strengths based on whatever their type was. This is before we started naming them and met Lynda- Ross when I started consulting to business organisations and she said I've always thought that if we put the right person, the right job, we'd have a better more success. So, the two of us came together as colleagues to see if that wasn't true or to show that it was true and created Perceptual Style Theory, which says that there are six different styles that people, based on how people perceive the world through their senses and make meaning of their sensation that they bring in through their perception.
RUSSELL
Right. And where did this theory come from? What's its sort of provenance?
GARY
That's a good question fellow psychologist.
RUSSELL
You see so you just got me interested already.
GARY
I think it was wandering through the different styles theories that are out there and being disappointed by all of them and sitting down and taking and saying well what is it that I'm seeing? What is it that Lynda-Ross is seeing? How do we make sense out of this? And so, I have a therapist background and I was trying to make sense out of why clients respond. Some clients responded in some ways, some clients responded in others and then Lynda-Ross, I'll let you talk about that Lynda-Ross, but her addition was how that worked in the business world. Lynda- Ross something about that sure.
LYNDA-ROSS
I'd always been fascinated with how to match people to the right tasks. I ended up in the technology arena quite by accident and in the financial arena, so banking systems and things like that. And I became sort of specialised in rescuing projects that were in trouble, so I wasn't the first one to start them. I would come in and help kind of write them and get them fixed through. And it was always amazing to me that when you could find what people really enjoyed doing and what they naturally were good at, the schedule suddenly snapped back into place. The quality improved and the stress level of the projects improved and so I had experimented with different tools that were out in the market to try and do that. And what happened with Gary, and I is that I inherited a really large project. There were 1800 people at one point on this one project.
LYNDA-ROSS
So that's kind of like running a mini city. You've got deaths and births and marriages and divorces, and then you're still trying to get the work done. And Gary was doing business consulting, and so I actually hired him to come in and help us figure out how to sort of revamp the project to take it over the finish line. And he came in with some of his ideas about theory, and then we started literally, it was like having our own research centre with that many people who were willing to participate and have fun with it. And so that's how we sort of evolved into the Perceptual Style Theory. I think the other piece for us was that there's one piece that's different. It's how you make meaning and take action now, but we also think that life experience plays a really big part in how you express your natural strengths, and that's what causes a lot of uniqueness between people.
LYNDA-ROSS
So for me, theory answers the, well, that's cute and that's interesting, but what next?
RUSSELL
Okay, so let me ask you two questions. One pick up one and one pick up the other. So, one of you're talking a lot about perceptions, and I absolutely agree with that. It might be worth just saying a little bit more about what perceptions are and why it matters. And for the other one, it would be interesting because looking at the six styles, I've had the advantage of looking ahead. You seem to have three about who you are and three about how you do things. So, I'm interested to know how you is this an idea around perception, or is that a specific thing to do with theory? So, who could go first? Perceptions first.
GARY
I'll start with perception first, and then we'll go with the styles. So, the way we define perception is taking information through your five senses and making meaning of that. But it's sort of a three-step process. It's you take in the information. There's sort of a contextual message for your brain. Your brain applies a filter. We call it innate biases or perceptual style. It's basically your brain's way of saying, this is important, that's not important. Think of how overwhelmed we'd be if we didn't have some natural filtering mechanism because we're just bombarded with too much information. So Perceptual Style takes place, and then your life experience takes place. Your brain says, has this been true for me before, or is this brand-new information that I'll store and use for later? All of that happens in a blink of an eye, and from that gives your perspective about the world, the action you're taking, what's important, and it impacts your values, your actions.
RUSSELL
But we say your strengths are aligned with your perception because to me, it just is natural. It makes sense that what comes easily to you would be aligned with how you see the world.
GARY
Yes.
RUSSELL
That's interesting. Sorry to jump in. So, is this linked in any way to strength finder? Because obviously that's a big thing, isn't it? And marketing wise it sounds very similar to the way you're coming at things, but actually it’s a very different tool.
LYNDA-ROSS
It's a different tool. It's not the same thing. It's fascinating. We were doing our work at about the same time that we're doing theirs. So, they're both strengths oriented. I don't think it's as theory based, Gary. Correct. I think it was observational with Gartner group, but they're similar in the fact that they're both tools to help you get a little more self-awareness. And so, there's nothing wrong with using either one of them. I mean, any tool that will help you gain a little self-awareness is a good tool.
RUSSELL
And coming from the perspective of the sort of positive psychology strength yes, exactly. Yeah. That's got to be a different conversation. It takes you down a different philosophical path, isn't it? So why don't you unpack the styles for us a bit Gary, tell us a little bit more about them.
GARY
Well, there are six styles, and they have a theoretical relationship to each other. We call it the Wheel, so that it's divided into six little pie sections and doesn't matter where you start, you run around the first one. I always like to start with vision and going clockwise. We have goals and then methods, adjustments, flow, and activity. And I'll say a little bit about each of them. First of all, the relationship to each other is each one has a neighbour. So, for instance, activity has a neighbour flow one side and vision the other because they appear with your neighbours. You appear to share some of the same qualities, but you'll say the same word and mean slightly different things. But there's often much less overt conflict between neighbouring styles. Then each one has an opposite. So, for activity, for instance, the opposite is methods. And in that you get the age-old opposite to track, and opposites repel the very things that I find fascinating about a method over time will create the conflicts between us because it's like can you stop doing what you're doing for a little bit and see it the way I see it?
GARY
And then we have one off. So, for activity, the one offs would be goals and adjustments. And we say it's kind of like talking to a Martian. I hear the words you're saying, and I understand every word you said, but I have no idea what meaning you're trying to convey. And that's because they don't share anything in common. To go around the wheel. Would you like to go back and forth with me, Lynda-Ross, going around the wheel?
LYNDA-ROSS
Sure.
RUSSELL
Okay. So, activity, this would be interesting why.
RUSSELL
Why don’t we talk about your styles and what that means in the real-world sort of idea. Okay.
LYNDAROSS
My style is activity. That's why I always choose it as the example because it's a lot easier to respond from my natural strengths and to understand what activity does. Activities are starters. They are the people that you want at a cocktail party because they're the ones who are going to start talking to strangers and make sure that person standing over by themselves on the walls, they're going to go over and involve them, bring them in naturally curious. They know a little bit about a lot of things. They're fascinated by novelty, new things. They don't like repetition. They don't like doing things the same way twice. In some manifestations. Activities are your classic relational salespeople. They build a relationship with you so they can make continual sales with you. Have they built networks of people where they connect people to each other. Like oh wait, you're looking for somebody that does that.
RUSSELL
I have a friend. Let me put the two of you together. And that's an activity thing to do. They focus very much on people, but they're focused on the network, the individual relational network as opposed to a community which belongs to Flow, which is a next-door neighbour, Lynda-Ross that's Flow. With a W on the end by the way.
LYNDA-ROSS
Right, exactly. The other thing I would say about activity people is they make meaning by experience, their own personal experience. So, they're great storytellers, but everything is about the experience. So, they know the world. They're engaged at almost all times.
RUSSELL
So where would something like Extravision fit in there? Would that be part of it or irrelevant because it's a different frame that doesn't sit inside of this.
LYNDA-ROSS
It doesn't sit inside of this. That's comparing apples and oranges there. We find people of a style that are both social extroverts or social introverts. So, it doesn't seem to play let's go alphabetically because it's easy for me. So, the next style would be adjustments. Adjustments. People make meaning of the world around them by observation. They, of all the styles, see the most complexity in things. They see how people and systems and organizations all function together. They see ripple effects. They value knowledge. They are great information seekers and tend to know an incredible depth about the things that interest them. But they are naturally observant. First natural diplomats, very naturally geared towards protocols. Interesting, usually a very high level of usage of language, nuance, dry wit, and they are incredibly good at taking processes or situations and seeing what the total when they say big picture, they are literally seeing the totality, including all the pieces and how they fit together.
GARY
So they see a very rich and complex world. They've usually learned over time that the average friend that's not also adjustments can't take the level of information they have and so they're sometimes mislabelled as quiet but they're just waiting to be asked in order to share because they know people get into overwhelm with the amount of information that they have.
RUSSELL
Okay, excellent. And so that's your primary oh, no, I'm sorry.
GARY
My style is vision. I forgot where were going. My style is vision. And vision people are pretty future oriented, very optimistic. They see opportunities and possibilities. So, they tend to be situational, deal with things in an ad hoc manner, have lots of opinions, waiting to be decisions. But things are always moving forward. So, they tend to use the past as that was an interesting life lesson and moving forward, they tend to not look for cause and effect as much of what was the end result so that I can use that information next. They tend to be, I would say motivational, inspirational, those types of characteristics only because they'll paint a picture of what could be. Wouldn't it be great if we did this?
RUSSELL
What's interesting is that these obviously not mutually exclusive because someone could easily be all three of these things, couldn't they? So far. I mean, you might have preferences or innate capabilities or preferences to what? Perceptions. I'm trying to work your perceptions thing back in it. I suppose the perceptions and experience decide what they prefer in the real world. But it is possible to have the skill sets of each of these?
GARY
Yes, it is possible to have similar skill sets, without a doubt. So, the way you perceive the world is only one way according to our theory and it stays with you for life. It's innate. But you learn the skills that are natural for you and you also in real life pick up acquired skills. These are skills that might be, let's say, natural for another style. But you need them in your life for some reason. There's no one else to do them or you were told you should do them. What we would tell you is that different styles may do a similar thing but how they go about it will be significantly different. So, once you get across below the surface and you get into the detail of how things are happening and honestly that's where we see a lot of conflict between styles is they'll agree on the what and then they'll be totally at odds about the how.
RUSSELL
And that's where the flavour of their style really comes to play. And I'm guessing these are styles which are human by nature and therefore you've talked about using a business but definitely you could use these in personal relationships, conflicts, any aspect, whether or one or more human beings in their room together.
GARY
Exactly.
RUSSELL
Do they have an application around neurodiverse sort of people or is that, again, not their intent?
GARY
Neurodiverse. God. Okay, it took me a moment to understand what you're saying. That's not their intent. But it does help people to feel. One of our goals is to help people it's. What we call our book, Celebrate You is to help people feel good about the way they see the world. The way I like to describe it is that if you're one of six then there's only about 17% of the world that sees the people that sees the world the way you do. So that most of the people you encounter see it differently. And as human beings our human nature is to think well, if everyone's seeing it differently, I must be wrong. So, our first goal is for people to identify what they naturally are and to feel good about who they are. So that in that sense it would touch on the neurodiversity in feeling good about who they are and how they see the world even though it's different from other people around them.
RUSSELL
Yes. It explains the definition of common sense, isn't it? If you're in segment, everybody in that segment has common sense because they literally have the same sense of the commonality of the perception and the style. Interesting. Where do we get it? I think that's Ford and let's have a quick whistle stop. Two of the others which are left.
LYNDA-ROSS
Okay, well, let me take on flow. Flow is between activity, who is what I am and adjustments and flow are we always say they're the people. They are all about community. They see how human systems and human beings interact and how they all fit together. They are as complex in their view of the world as adjustments are. But they don't see the systems the way adjustments do. They see it. They see the complexity in people systems. They know how when we deal with change and talk about change it is the adjustment. Excuse me. It's the flow people who say you can't do that because that's going to affect this and this and this and this and everybody else missing it and only looking at the immediate impact or how this change is going to be helpful. The flow people see the impact on the people and how it's going to change and disrupt lives and how it's going to change the community around them.
LYNDA-ROSS
So they're very much when I talk about they will do anything for people within their community. They see the people who are outside of their community as people that don't belong. If that makes sense.
RUSSELL
Yeah. It's very pragmatic, isn't it?
LYNDA-ROSS
Practical. Yes, they're very subtle. They don't like to be in the spotlight. They like to influence things through nuance and through indirect communication, indirect impact. They are, however, the style that holds organizations together without people even realizing that's what they're doing. They focus on the past. They focus on traditions the way we've always done things here. They're the people that will arrange to make sure that everybody's birthday is remembered that everybody is recognized for what they do but they won't take credit for them making sure all that's taken care of. They don't want to be seen for what they do.
RUSSELL
Go ahead. This is the last one now, isn't it? I think the last one is coming up now.
LYNDA-ROSS
So we have goals and methods. So, goals, people are they see the world as problems to be solved, obstacles and challenges to be handled. They are forward thinking because they're clearing the path for what needs to happen next. They're very decisive. These are the folks that in crisis situations, they can bring stability to chaos quite quickly because for them it's clearly something is important or not important. It's included or not, it's a problem. We solve it now. No time like the present to get it solved. So natural leaders, they will step in and take over really quickly. Opinionated because things tend to have black and white, not a lot of gray, but very decisive, very action oriented. And like I said, they see problems and challenges and opportunities of things to happen now. So, they're a short-term focus, future focus.
RUSSELL
Yeah, it makes sense to me. And in terms of people's resilience, for example, which is what we're all about here, now I can see your point about people can be resilient and they can be sitting in each of these one of these pies and that's where the resilience is coming from because.
RUSSELL
That makes sense to me. Okay, what was the last one, Gary? We look itching to say the last one is methods.
GARY
That's right. The methods are the people who see things, they see the rules, they create steps, they look for the facts. We always say unemotional, it's not they don't have emotions. Their response is that's what I feel. But what has that got to do with the facts? It's not relevant here. So, these are the people that create situations where we go from A to B to C to end up at D. And we want to make sure that we want you to know that's always what happens. When we do A, B and C, we get D, and we want that process to be able to continue and be repetitive. So, they are methods, they create methodology. They see the world fairly black and white, not simplistically, but straightforward. They're very rational oriented people. They don't speculate. You think, well, let's talk about what might happen. And they're saying, well, there's no point talking about what might happen.
We need to talk about what is happening right now. So very present oriented, very matter of fact.
RUSSELL
Interesting. Okay, so on your website I noticed there's the opportunity for a free assessment. So obviously the idea of this is you look at your own styles, you build your self-development plan, you understand your sorry. You build yourself a self-development plan. Other people in your team can do that or in your family or whatever it might be. Is that sort of purpose? Is it the. Value of the conversation. It's a tool to inspire what comes next rather than being a tune in itself. It's not a recruitment tool, for example. No.
GARY
You’re 100% right. It's a tool for self-awareness. It's also a tool for, as you said, communication. It's great. I think self-awareness is the place to start and if you go no further with it than to understand your own strengths and how to use them more intentionally, that's brilliant. But sometimes I think the real gold is also in understanding there's five other ways to see the world in the way you do. And it is a tremendous tool in relationships and teamwork and communication because it helps you understand that the difference in perspective isn't because the other person is being difficult, isn't because the other person is trying to push your button, it's that they literally do not see it the same way you do. So where can you start the conversation to bridge the information gap? So, it kind of depersonalizes some levels of disconnect in communication.
LYNDA-ROSS
Our goal is for people to use the tool in their lives for work, from home.
RUSSELL
Yeah. So, you talked about you could buy it for yourself, the tool, you could look at your own styles, but you might have a problem, you might have a co-worker, you have poor relationship, or you might be leader planning a change and you just want to know what buttons to press and such like. So, is that right? Because I think a lot of people are sometimes mystified to know how to use these tools and why. Now, on your website I see this sort of personal and business applications. So that's fascinating. Like you say, it's a tool that has applicability across the two sides. Is there anything that you wouldn't recommend it for? Recruitment is one, we talked about that earlier.
LYNDA-ROSS
Recruitment is not a good use of the tool. Also, we have found that sometimes people can try to take it and use it, decide that one style is better than another, so it becomes kind of a weapon. And when it becomes weaponised in that regard, it becomes destructive rather than constructive. We have seen that happen, yes, but.
RUSSELL
That's not a problem, that's not a feature of the tool. No, those people are going to always use that, weren't they, as a weapon isolation thing. Yeah. All right, that's brilliant. So now I know you've written so I've been on your website, which for those interested, is your talentadvantage.com, and I see two books and also the words get a free assessment. So, you better unpack the free assessment of it because I'm very excited and already putting those details in. What happens when I go for a free assessment? What happens?
GARY
Well, the free assessment is actually a subset of our perceptual style assessment, and the reason is the perceptual style assessment is a little long because its reliability and validity numbers are good. So, we have sort of a taste test in the free assessment. So, it's a subset of the larger assessment and as a result you'll get about a twelve-page document download that says this is what your style might be. Okay? Now, with the full assessment, we've got reliability in the zero point 85 to point 92. So, we will say this is your style. With the free one, we'll say we're in the zero-point 75 reliability, so we think it is, but take the full one. So that document will give you a taste of what it might be, and it gives you some information about that style that you can relate to and say, does this feel right for me or not?
RUSSELL
The full assessment, when you take it and you get your results, you get the Celebrate Your book actually is the result package and action guide. And that's a lot more depth and detail about the style, about different skill sets in different areas like time, orientation, persuasion, community, leadership, a bunch of stuff. I think there's like twelve or 14 areas that we explore skills for that style. Yes. And so, what about the new book, Unlock the Power of Your Perception?
GARY
Well, we train this theory in group settings. So, we've had many times people say, well, this is fascinating, I want to know more. Do you have a book? And we've always had to say no. And during the pandemic we finally had enough time to sit down and say, okay, we'll write the book. And so, we wrote the book. And that is it is unlock the power of your perception. It's available on Amazon and at a very reasonable price. And it goes into a lot of detail about theory in general and then talks about what you can do with theory. It talks about the natural skills that go with each set, with each style. Doesn't describe them, but it talks about that there are natural skills to go to each style and there are acquired skills to go to style. What does that mean? How do you use that? How do you use that to develop yourself and become more effective in your style and more effective by being able to recognise the styles of others?
RUSSELL
Makes sense. I'm not checking out your claim, but I just have always like to just jump onto Amazon and have a look. And it is in the UK market, UK thing. It was very interesting. So, it's there, it's freely available, it's something you should look at buying. So, if people want to know one thing, I have to say, and give you real kudos for this. It's lovely to see the evidential stats that sit behind theory sitting on your site as well. I think that's really laudable. There are so many of these tools which just after a little while sound like they've been pinched from the pages of a magazine. I was going to say, a woman's magazine but do forget that.
LYNDA-ROSS
I do understand.
RUSSELL
Yeah. But I love the fact that you've evidenced this and so an academic geek like me can have a look and make sense of this. So, this sounds absolutely fascinating. So, if people would like to find out more information, how would they do that and how they might use the tool, where would they start?
LYNDA-ROSS
I would say the best place to start is to check out the website. There's a really easy way to contact us and we have a team that will answer questions and point you in the right direction for something if you need something. The book is an eBook and paperback, so that's also a great place to start. One of these days we'll get around to doing the audio. I've been having people ask for that, so we'll make that happen. But it's not available currently. But you can contact us through our website and just take a look. That's what we think.
RUSSELL
Now, I can't remember which style it is that says you're being very humble and forgetting to tell us the names of the website and the name of the book. We have to do that practical bit.
LYNDA-ROSS
Yes, we have to do that practical bit. Okay. The website is yourtalentadvantage.com and the book on Amazon about theory is Unlock the Power of Your Perception.
RUSSELL
Fantastic. And I love the way the reviews are working because you've got people who is really good reviews, but you've got the marmite thing going on, which I find is fascinating. Some people love it and some people really don't. And I think that's always the sign of something interesting where you've got people on either side of the equation. That's great. I love that. I think that gets people thinking when you have different views.
LYNDA-ROSS
I think it's important.
RUSSELL
Yeah, me too. Me too. I love it. I love the idea. I love the concept. And it's just sort of refreshing to hear something that's not just the same old trotted out malarkey, as I was going to say. But I love it. Thank you so much. And thank you for spending time with us today. I really do value it. And as I say in the show notes, we will connect to those websites and such like, and hopefully we'll be in touch again when you're writing your third book. There's no excuse for COVID next time now. Exactly. Thanks for spending time with us today and I wish you well.
GARY
Thank you, Russell. We appreciate being here.
RUSSELL
No problem. You take care.