People who’ve worked with our Dimensional Model of management behavior have either asked this question or heard others ask it: Is Q4 behavior really tough enough?

They may agree that Q4 behavior provides real skills for leading, involving, and motivating others. Yet they worry that Q4 is too soft for them or for the culture where they work.

Before examining Q4’s "toughness," we need to look at its origin: the Dimensional® Model of Behavior™.

As you may already know, the Dimensional Model categorizes behavior using two dimensions. The vertical dimension shows dominance-submissiveness; the horizontal dimension shows hostility-warmth. When we combine the two dimensions, we get the Model with four quadrants -- Q1, Q2, Q3, and Q4 behavior (Fig. 1).

The Dimensional Model contributes to our training in a variety of ways -- it’s a tool for sizing up the behavior of individuals or groups, a key to identifying another person’s intangible needs, and a system to plan and structure communication for maximum effectiveness.

All of these aspects of the Dimensional Model are important for improving interpersonal interactions; however, the Model also sets a standard, an ideal, for behavior in the workplace. All behavior is not equally effective in producing day-to-day business results, or in creating what Richard Walton, Ed Lawler, and Tom Peters have called a "high-involvement, high-commitment culture."

It’s precisely this culture which is critical for any organization to compete in terms of productivity and quality in the global marketplace.