We live and work in partnerships. We form long term relationships with another person in order to improve the quality of both our work and our personal lives. Once we do so, we need to be able to communicate effectively with that person in all kinds of circumstances; joyous, stressful, day-to-day, or in crisis. We also need to be able to make decisions together.

Relating Styles is a Competency Styles® workbook intended to be used by the two people in a working or life partnership. It makes no assumptions about the health or state of the relationship. It does provide both partners with insight into their personal communication and decision making behavior patterns used in the relationship. It also provides both partners insight into how their behavior patterns interact with those of the other partner.

Relating Styles is based on one of the behavior areas from the Interacting with Others workbook:

• How you interact with others when in group situations,

and one of the behavior areas from the Making Decisions workbook:

• The standards you follow when working with others to make a decision.
  

These behaviors combine to form four different Relating Styles, as shown in the grid at the right. The result is a rich framework that allows you to see how you behave in your relationship, how your partner behaves, and how the two of you interact. The workbook is an effective way to deepen the conversation you have about your relationship patterns. It allows you both to broaden your behavior in productive ways.

The workbook is set up so that you need to order only one copy for the two of you. If you prefer to work separately, you can each order your own copy.

To explore the other Competency Styles® workbooks, click on the blue word in the titles below:

Interacting with Others - insight into how you interact with others; guidelines for expanding your one-on-one and one-in-group interactive skills .... ....

Gathering and Using Information - insight into how work with information at work; guidelines for expanding your skills at handling information both by yourself, and in the way you work with others ... ...

Making Decisions - insight into how you make decisions by yourself and with others; guidelines for expanding your decision making skills ... ...

Structuring Personal Activity -insight into how you structure your personal and team activities; guidelines for expanding the way you structure your personal activities, and the way that you behave when working with others ... ...

Development Styles - insight into the fit between your personal development style and professional development experiences; guidelines for expanding your ability to benefit from professional development activities that do not match your "learning" style ... ...