Do you know your interaction style?

As most of our long-time readers know, J.T. O'Donnell is one of our favorite career coaches. She first showed up on Employee Evolution when we had about 50 subscribers, little direction and a terribly ugly design. She gave Ryan Paugh and me a ton of great insight about our careers, transitioning from college to the real world and, of course, the generation gap.

Two months ago, I asked JT to help out my friend Eric. Eric graduated Penn State with a degree in Hotel, Restaurant and Institutional Management in 2006, and spent the next year traveling the Middle East and attempting to figure out what to do with his life. Like many people our age, a year after graduation he was still a little lost.

No more than two weeks after taking JT's Interactive Style Assessment Tool, speaking with JT, and getting his head on straight, Eric was hired as the manager of an upscale restaurant in Manhattan. He loves his job, and to this day, he credits JT for "getting his ass in gear."

Well, lucky for us, JT just made her Interactive Style Assessment Tool open to anyone who would like to take the test. The other day, JT told me,

"We are finding that generational differences intensify in the workplace even more when opposing Interaction Styles are in play. (ie. Baby Boomers with a 'Commander' Interaction Style are struggling to connect with Millenials who find the style particularly insufferable on-the-job.)"

Regardless of generation, we all need to know our working style and our co-workers styles. Before Ryan and I took the test, we each guessed both our own and each others style. Turns out, Ryan has an Empathy style, and I have a Commander style (I guess it's not just the baby boomers!).

The cool part is, we both guessed exactly right. Apparently we have learned something from working together for the past nine months!

Give the tool a try with your co-workers. At the very least, take five minutes and do it yourself. You may be surprised what you learn.

Click here to take the test for free.