To let your understand what I am going to talk about this and other blogs we have to do a quick introduction of esports personalities.

Just like the MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator) or 16personalities-test. There are 16 esports personality profiles. Each of these profiles have different tendencies, but some profiles share a lot of the same tendencies. These profiles that share a lot of tendencies are called temperaments.

For this blog we only stick to one of the four temperaments to have it as practical as possible for you to extract value to take your esports team to the next level. This blog is about the Strategists.

I can’t physically test you while you are reading this blog from somewhere. So how do you know what your temperament is for this and future blogs, where I will be talking more about esports personalities and temperaments? You can just read the blog and see what fits you the best, often times you can quickly see what temperament fits you. Or you can go to www.16personalities.com and take the free test. This takes about 5 to 10 minutes. When you get the end results, you have to look at certain letters for your temperament/communication style which are listed below.

The 4 temperaments:

• Strategists       (NT)

• Planners         (SJ)

• Impulsives         (SP)

• Idealists             (NF)

Communication within a team is important, inside and outside the game. Below you can read all about the communication of the Strategist. In this blog you will learn how strategists prefer to communicate, what to avoid in communication with strategists, how you can motivate them and how they communicate while stressed.

Preferred communication for Strategists

• Sharing knowledge in things he is good at or knows something about

When you have a strategist in your team and he is good at something, activate him to tell and teach others in the team about that subject. The Strategist can often logically tell why it is best to do certain things and why he does certain things. If others don’t agree with a strategist, that is alright. Strategists love to discuss as long as you make sure that you also logically build up your perspective as well, so the rationalists can make the best decision to learn and adapt accordingly

When you have interesting facts or a new intelligent perspective, be sure to share it with the strategists on the team. They love to learn new things. Don’t be surprised if you get a lot of questions and after that to get belittled if they think your intelligence is flawed. On the other hand, they will honestly compliment you and say it was very interesting indeed and want to learn more.

• Strategists want to have logical conversations with as little emotions possible involved.

When Strategists communicate they tend to communicate in a logical manner. They will build up their arguments with facts and proven methods. They will engage you on facts and that are true for them. If you disagree with them, that is alright as long as you can back your statements up with facts and logic as well, else they will have a hard time to listen to you and get frustrated most of the times and call you out on flawed statements.

• Questions almost everything, is skeptical, need to know the “why” a lot

Strategists always want to know “why” they have to do certain things or “why” things go as they are going. If you can’t explain the why, don’t expect strategist to change their behavior. When you logically explain the why, they can change behavior almost instantly and follow you anywhere. Strategists truly want to seek out the truth and therefore ask a lot of questions to unravel the underlying thoughts. This can be exhausting for other esports temperaments sometimes. It is good to invest in explaining the why to strategist, because once they fully understand the subject, they are very fast in making decisions and often making the best choice.

• Precise language – every word that comes out of their mouths are carefully picked.

Strategists have a big word vocabulary, and they will use it. This can confuse other esports temperaments. Because they want to explain precisely what they mean, they often need more time to explain certain things than other temperaments. A good thing is to set a given time to explain something, so they won’t keep talking while the other party already understood the strategists in the first or second sentence. An example of precise language:

Strategist: “It’s stuffy here in my room, it is harder for me to concentrate on the game”

Person X: “Yeah, it’s hot today.”

Strategist: “No not hot just hot, it’s stuffy. Because of the dense air, it’s harder to breath. I’d wish it was only hot”

Person X: “Yeah, I know what you meant by that….”

• Strategists are natural strategic talents and analysts

Strategists are natural analysts. They quickly see what can happen, the good or the bad. They can have a more difficult time to express this analysis in words. But when they have the time to explain what happened or can happen together with the consequences, there is something to be learned and improved from. To activate this talent inside a game, you can call upon the strategist in the team to tell the possible options in quiet moments or between games/rounds and make strategy adjustments accordingly.

What to avoid when communicating with Strategists:

• Avoid small talk

Strategists don’t care about the weather or what you ate 1 hour ago or what you are about to do in the weekend, just get to the core and talk about things that are interesting or useful for a strategist. When you want to have a conversation to improve or discuss something or have a coach call, get right into it. When strategists talk small talk with others, it is only to be polite to them.

• Avoid talking trough your emotions when you want to reach a strategist.

Strategist think emotions are clumsy to have and get in the way of making the best decisions. “I feel that this is the best way to do it.” “Trust me, I have a good feeling about this.” Isn’t going to cut it for strategists. Explain why it is the best way to do a certain thing. This way they can check if your logic is good or flawed.

When you bring up emotions, don’t expect strategists to instantly understand what you mean. Explain where the emotions are coming from. What caused these emotions and what the effect of the emotions are. Don’t expect strategists to give perfect emotional comfort. It feels awkward for them and they have a hard time doing it.

• Avoid getting into to much detail, rather work from the big picture to details

Strategists like to talk about the big picture and the grand scheme of things. When you talk about a tactic in detail it will cost a lot of mental energy to focus on it for strategists. Strategists know they can’t avoid focusing on details, but don’t get into details to long or start with the details. Strategists gather information and will make it conceivable for themselves. An example how strategists will respond after a 15 minute conversation of details:

“So basically you are saying that you want me to play more defensively and communicate more on where the enemy is? You could’ve said that 15 minutes ago”

When explaining something, start with the big picture and then work down to sub-levels and details of the thing you want to explain, this works better for a strategist to logically follow the explanation.

How to motivate Strategists with communication

• You make them excited by talking about concepts, ideas and let them execute it.

When you want to see a strategist in their best behavior, make sure you talk and imply exciting concepts and ideas to execute. Strategist like to come up with new strategies and out-smart the opponents. Strategists are "obviously" natural strategists, so make sure to always involve them into at least some part of the strategy making of upcoming matches.

• Talk about things to achieve in the future, then work your way back to the present moment

Strategists tend to spend a lot of times thinking about the future and the next things that are coming up. They often have a clear vision on how they would like things to unfold and want to work for it to make their vision a reality. Talk about strategists about what they want to achieve in the long term and what they will need to get there. Start with the big picture and then work your way day to details into the here and now.

• Natural problem solvers

Strategists like to solve puzzles in any form. They have a clinical look on things in life and always see things that can be improved or solved. When there are problems in the team on any level, it is often a good idea to include the strategist into the conversation to fully speak his thoughts about it. Often they will need a bit of time to work out the problem or puzzle in their head before they logically can explain what they are going to say. When you want to involve them to solve something, give them at least some time to let them think about it and work the problem out for themselves.

Strategists under stress

• Will come across as calm, but it can storm with tensions when stressed.

Because strategists find emotions clumsy, you don’t really see clearly what their state of mind is. When strategists start talking from their emotions, you know they are stressed. When you hear them talk about how they feel, often times something is wrong and you should keep an eye on them. Make them aware of their state and let them focus on the things they can control. To put them in a better mental communication state, make them do analyses about the situation and let them figure out the best possible ways, bring in logic.

Source: ActionType®

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