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The Sinha Intensive/Expansive Framework (SIEF) is a new way of looking at how you and your employees think, make decisions, and interact with the world. It’s intrapersonal, it’s leadership, it’s organizational, and for many people, it’s revolutionary.
How does it work?
The SIEF is based on a ten point scale.
Expansives are at one end. Intensives are at the other.
The lower your number, the more expansive you are. The higher your number, the more intensive you are.
Expansives like things well-regulated, moderated, planned. Expansives tend to be less comfortable with high emotion, and very comfortable with schedules, rules, and systems. Expansives don’t tend to work from gut feelings, may not have a driving purpose in life, and tend to be very sensible. Expansives do spreadsheets, accounting, and other meticulous tasks very well.
Intensives like things exciting. Intensives have a high risk and chaos tolerance, make gut decisions and then figure out how to explain them, and hate feeling like there’s anyone in control of them. Intensives like to be in control, tend to think they’re always right, have a phasic work cycle (work like hell, rest like you’re dead), and tend to have big emotions. Intensives do crises, sales, and development cycles really well.
It’s simple: one axis, one continuum, one set of characteristics to work with. Unlike the MBTI or the Enneagram, it doesn’t undertake to explain everything–just one thing. But it’s a thing that’s been frustrating co-workers and supervisors for generations.
It’s intuitive: once you learn it, you get it. And it’s easy to remember.
It’s sticky: once you get it, you see it everywhere. People all around you are clearly one thing or the other, and it becomes part of how you understand the world and the personalities you encounter.
It’s useful: when you know who the intensives are and who the expansives are, you know who is likely to be methodical and who is likely to be inspired; who is likely to follow their gut and who is likely to plan things out; who is likely to handle chaos well and who is likely to need advance warning; who is likely to succeed in which jobs, and why. You can guess who is likely to work well together. You can see what mix you need to get a complex project from start to done and dusted. You also know who you’re going to need extra time with and who will understand your ideas and plans right away.
Who can use it? Everyone. If you hire people, run a company, make any kind of management decisions, or work with anyone else, the SIEF is for you.
When expansives and intensives try to work together, it’s helpful if they know who they’re dealing with. Intensives can slow down and make time; expansives can allow intensives to take vast swaths of down time, knowing that when they start working they go at the speed of light. This almost always reduces stress and conflict and increases productivity. This starts at the hiring process (do you need to hire an intensive or an expansive?) and continues into assignments, project management, leadership style and development, and promotions and advancement. As we all know, a good fit increases retention and increased retention of good fit employees is money in the bank.
There are a number of ways to learn to use the SIEF concepts. If you need a custom designed training program to address a specific issue, you can hire me for consulting with your organization or team. If you’d like a more general workshop on a specific topic like leadership or anti-racism where everyone gets to work on the issues, book a workshop. If you’d like everyone to learn more about how SIEF can work in your workplace, book me to speak, or get a bulk order of books and contact me below for advice or additional resources.