CASE STUDY: Dependent, Spontaneous, Less Rational and Less Intuitive Decision-Making Styles | Project Manager | Human Behavior and Handwriting Analysis | HR and Management Series Book by S.Sulianah

Author: S.Sulianah (Graphologist and Founder of Grapholistic International)
Your Handwritings and Characters Analyst
www.grapholistic.com

INTRODUCTION TO CASE STUDY

Having a highly effective project manager in your company is an asset. It will determine the success of not only your company’s business but also the environment and relationship between your employees in your workplace. As simple as when a project manager refused to listen and analyse your operational staff’s feedback or findings. Not letting the team members know the project manager is there when they need to talk, which could gradually build frustrations. Like a domino effect, the progressive feelings of abandonment and non-inclusive will develop in your employees.

​CASE STUDY OBJECTIVE

​This case study is an excerpt from my soon to be published book under the HR and Management Series. This study is focused on human behavior and how a character trait could influence individual’s decision-making, thinking pattern, observation, communication with colleagues, perspectives, the way they speak, the way they think, outlook towards their personal goals and their reliability in a business setting. In addition to that, this study had also used the science of handwriting analysis to study their personality, characters, behaviors and possible cause and effect, if any, during the course of my observation and analysis.
 
The case analysis is a comprehensive long-term account with evidence in a corporate business organisation setting. It was an analysis of one of the senior project managers for a period of 13 years, which is significant in the connection with the other case studies in this series. 

Profile

Project Manager, Scott (Not real name)
About 20 years of work experience
In his mid-30s

​Scott has been working in the engineering field for over 20 years with experiences as an engineer and as of this present day, a project manager.
 
The first impression I had of Scott is his sweet smile, approachable and reliable. As a human resource manager during my years in the company, one of the suggestions I would recommend to my former director was to bring him to any of the meetings with clients if there is a need to. Not only because he has years of experience with the company and exposure to deal with clients in that industry, but Scott could also adapt to the surrounding, respectful and know what to say and what not to in a formal setting. 

EXPRESSING FEELINGS AND THOUGHTS

​If you have read the first case study of the senior project manager, Lewis, who tend to keep his feelings and opinions to himself, Scott is the complete opposite of his senior. This is to the extent of his facial expression. Even if the message that he is going to tell you is not bad news or something to be bitter about, he will still express his feelings with a scowl. In the earlier years when we were working together, whenever he came to my room or when he approached me to tell me something, he will look like as if he wanted to start a confrontation, disagreeing with whatever he had in mind. 

How did I dealt with this?

​Since I knew I will be working with him for a long time, and would not prefer to be annoyed everytime, I had told him frankly what I think about the way he presented himself. And added that his behaviour was encouraging me to vent my displeasure at him, which is not a good practice for both of us. So, as for with me, he did change the way he spoke to me, but with the others he still continued the same.

How about when he is giving instruction to the technicians or junior engineers in his team?

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The volume of his voice will be higher than the standard way we talked to each other, with a tone of voice that shows authority. In addition to that, the comments used were unpleasant including bad words, and sarcasms.
 
When we are insecure about ourselves and unhappy with something in our life, sarcasms are usually used as a defensive mechanism. As for Scott’s case, there are two main handwriting traits that matched with his personality. The sharp abrupt end strokes of the last letters of the words and his sharp t-bar, consistent throughout his handwriting. 

The sharp end strokes also signifies his frustrations towards others, be it in his personal life or in the professional settings. In terms of expressing himself, Scott usually never hides these feelings. And he will let it out and the one who is unlucky during that moment will meet with his wrath. 

TRUSTING OTHERS

Scott is in the level of 10 out of 10 in the spectrum when trusting others. To begin with, since he makes his selections based on how he feels about someone, his choices are more towards who he favors. I was a witness to his real life examples a handful of times over the 13 years how he got cheated by others for his 'generosity' and anything similar to that. And there were no way he will listened to anyone's advice to not trust that person. I clearly remembered one day after lunch, he told me that he had informed one of the technicians about a case which is supposedly to be a confidential between the two of us. I told him that “I don’t trust that guy at all and are you sure he will not share with anyone?” My analysis of that person was a compendium of my observation of his character, personality, body language and behaviour over 5 years, which includes my instincts. It was also the reason I never agreed in recruiting him in the first place. At that time, Scott responded to me with “You are overthinking”. Guess what happened three weeks after that conversation? This technician who was supposed to return after visiting his hometown did not come back to the office at all. And the worst part was that Scott had lent him about $20,000 before he left the country with a reason that he needed the money for his dad’s operation. Later that week, Scott found out that the staff’s dad was fine and never was hospitalized. 

I had written more in-depth about lending and borrowing money in my book Be Brave: Uncensored Motivational Quotes. Highlighted in the book are the possible reasons why you tend to let yourself lent your hard-earned money to others. One of the root causes is the need for acceptance by others. In Scott’s case, this is not his first time trusting someone. I had the chance to ask him the reasons he tend to commit himself into others’ misery. Most of his responses were related to how he sympathized with their conditions. But because I was quite concerned with Scott’s ignorance, I asked him again “Do they really need it? If they do need it for to survive, they will not be able to spend their hard-earned salary on beers enjoying themselves during happy hours and weekends every week.” As a human resource manager during that time, I was also concerned about how Scott viewed this situation. He also mentioned about their relationships. If he did not lend them the money, they will not listen to his instructions. A wrong equation and perception on Scott’s part.
 
So, what I noticed over the years was how Scott’s insecurity gradually impacted his final decisions and the way he treated himself and others. He will put in effort to exert his authority without even caring whether the other person is a technician, his senior or someone who does not even report to him. 

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The low t-bar on his handwriting not only signifies his low self-esteem and eventually wanting people to accept him. It also affects the way he compares himself to his other colleagues such as the level of his and their qualifications, intelligence and success stories.

These are some of the common phrases he will say whenever we were in discussions; “Yes I know you are smarter than me”, “Of course, you now have a Masters already”. 

The low t-bar is supported with a striking off signature that added to the intensity of this trait. Out of concern, I had advised him a number of times to get rid of the strike off on his signature because the intensity of the way he treated himself and the kind of words he speaks to himself were becoming more evident.

DECISION-MAKING

​One of Scott’s decision-making styles that I used to respect was how he could decide instantly when clients requested for off-the-hand consultancy fees or enquiries related to the scope of works. He usually has the tendency to decide without taking time to think through which could be pros or sometimes a cons in projects management. This trait is also shown on his handwriting with the sharp abrupt end strokes.

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​As for making and accepting changes and new ideas, he tends to stay in the glorious days. Changing the way we think and improve on the company’s system and policy will take him time to adapt and accept that is after months of debates and complains. This is specifically clear on where he ended the last word on every line of sentences, leaving large spaces on the right margin. Right margin in handwriting analysis signifies the future, while the left is the past. In addition to that is how he end his last stroke of his signature. Instead of concluding his last letter on where it should have been, he wrote it backwards to the left before ending it at the right side. The good side of this is that he will finish it at the right which means he will eventually learn to accept the present. 

There were many occasions that I had to not rely on his views and appraisals of the staff who were working in projects with him. Usually, project managers will be asked to appraise their team members’ performances in which their feedback will affect the staff’s yearend bonus, and salary increments. However, for the staff under Scott’s teams, I had to do my own personal observation and analysis. Why is that so? Scott evaluation changes at an extensive degree that his feedback became an unreliable source of information. For instance, today he will comment about the technician working with him in Project A as someone who will not listen to his instructions, on another day when his mood is fine, he will say that the technician does listens to him. Because similar situations had happened numerous times over the years, I had learned to not rely on his point of views a hundred percent. Observe how he had slanted his handwriting. Extreme right. 

DECISION-MAKING STYLES: LESS RATIONAL, DEPENDENT, SPONTANEOUS, LESS INTUITIVE

​With reference to a study on decision-making styles by El Othman, R., El Othman, R., Hallit, R. et al.,  it is observed that Scott follows a more dependent decision-making, with being spontaneous and less rational.
 
According to the study, higher extroversion and neuroticism scores were significantly associated with lower rational style scores. Higher agreeableness and conscientiousness were associated with higher dependent style scores. Higher agreeableness, conscientiousness and neuroticism scores were significantly associated with lower intuitive style scores.

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In the beginning, Scott will make his decisions on his own. And most of the time, he will start to exert his frustrations when the other party like his boss has different perspectives than his. Eventually, he will end up being influenced by the other person’s opinions while still displeased even though his ideas were supported by solid facts.

​On his handwriting, the low t-bar which signifies his unhealthy perception of his self-worth supports the way he perceived his ideas. While the left margin that becomes wider as it moves down the paragraph signifies his fears and anxiety on taking into anything that is foreign to him. If he were to complete the length of his t-bar instead of stopping halfway, his enthusiasm will be more evident over time. 

​Intuition is definitely not in Scott’s How to Stay Alive guidebook. It is not that he does not have the intuition to rely on before making decisions like trusting people, he ignored to stop and think through before making his first step. For him, he associated that with overthinking and therefore he will react spontaneously. In addition to that is the way he usually will get easily irritated with inappropriate coping responses when he is trying to overcome his personal challenges. 

CHARACTER LIMITATION AND ITS IMPACT

Scott might not understand the importance of how his behaviour had impacted his relationship with the people he is working with. Not prioritizing to stop and think before expressing his opinions and annoyance will and had a ripple effect to his relationship with the individuals in the company. They started to distant themselves from him, more and more individuals leaving the organisation especially those who had direct communication with him, less respect towards him as a person and his position in the company, distrusting his credibility, high level of miscommunication between him and the staff, team members refusing to listen to his instructions and with him misusing his authority as a manager these had and would impact the company’s personnel management in the years ahead.  

SOLUTIONS

The following were a number of ways that I managed to implement when I was in the organisation. Just between Scott and myself, when I was the company’s human resource and operational manager, and him as the project manager of the teams. ​

1. Be frank that I did not like the way he behaved towards me. Venting his personal frustrations when I had nothing to do with his displeased towards himself or someone else.
2. I did not stay quiet and timid when speaking to him. Just so you know this not only applies to your actual self within but also how you portray yourself to him. Which means that if we would like to compare his signature and mine, in terms of size and a look of it, mine shows confidence, boldness and forward thinking. Also, what I noticed was that those of his co-workers with smaller signature than his, or smaller to compare with their own main handwriting texts, tend to not have the courage to speak out to him. There were two engineers, and Lewis who had signatures similar to mine. We were the only ones who Scott usually had no courage to increase his voice and will be watchful on the way he talked to us.
3. Keep questioning his decision. This definitely will annoy him which I did but who cares? A teamwork is when you have to question a decision if you find that there is something inaccurate with it.
4. He will tend to cut you off halfway before you finished your sentences. So, don’t let him. Be honest and tell him off the bat to stop and listen.
5. In discussions that could turned to arguments, be ready with examples of previous cases that were similar and had already gone awry. Also be prepared that he will insist. Bring him back to reality.  
6. When he is being sarcastic, be prepared to respond back. You can keep it quiet if you do not bother anymore, but for me I enjoyed returning the favour.
7. Seniority will not make any difference to his decision unless it is from the boss. So, use the correct words and divert his attention so he will follow your instructions.
8. When he is being insecure and starts to compare himself with you, you can either agree by saying “You are right” or you can do the opposite by replying with, “Ah then you can do better too if you want to. No one is stopping you.”
9. With reference to his emotional tendency, it is expected that he will be emotionally attached to the decisions that he made such as worrying if he leaves the place, he is being ungrateful, accepting opinions with no limits between the rights and the wrongs and anything similar to these. Usually, I would remind him but for these situations, I do have my personal limits to the extent of it is up to him to decide what is best for himself.
10. As mentioned earlier, Scott seems to ignore his ability to judge characters and often chose the wrong person to trust. The only way I had influenced him was to remind him to be cautious but of all the above solutions, I could not do much with this. Sometimes, people have to learn from their own mistakes, if ever he does. 

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