Metaprogram: Work Organization

Work organization describes whether someone focuses primarily on feelings or on getting tasks done. In this category, there are two patterns:

Person-oriented:

Individuals with a person orientation pay attention to feelings and thoughts, their own and those of others. Feelings gain such significance that they become tasks themselves. These individuals will organize their work to focus on people and their feelings. They easily succeed, rapport producing.

Object-oriented:

People with an object orientation focus on products, ideas, tools, tasks, and systems. They treat people and ideas as objects and believe that feelings have no place in the work world. They want to get their work done and are strongly task-oriented.

Questions:

Tell me about an experience in your work that was (criterion of the person). Wait for response: "What did you like about it?"

Person-oriented:

• talks about people, emotions, feelings
• names people, uses personal pronouns
• people appear in their sentences

Object-oriented:

• talks about processes, systems, tools, ideas, tasks, goals
• will not often mention people, except in the form of impersonal pronouns like "they" or "one"
• people become objects, parts of processes

Examples:

• person-oriented: "Mr. Richler was thrilled with my report. I was quite pleased with it too."
• predominantly person-oriented: "Mr. Richler was thrilled with my report. I was also pleased because it represented quite a breakthrough for the entire company."
• equally person- and object-oriented: "Mr. Richler was thrilled with my report. It was quite a breakthrough for the company."
• predominantly object-oriented: "My report represented quite a breakthrough for the company. My boss liked it too."
• object-oriented: "My report represents quite a breakthrough for the company."

Language patterns:

Person-oriented: uses personal pronouns; names of people; feelings; thoughts; experiences; "for you"; "for others"; "the people"; "our team"; "our group"

Object-oriented: uses impersonal pronouns; things, systems; objects; tasks; goals; processes; getting tasks done; focusing on the task at hand; the goal; the company.