[morjanoff]

Clare Graves work on the different levels we operate from is really interesting and useful when dealing with different types of people and organisations.

This has been popularised into Spiral Dynamics. A search on this will get you a great base to start from.

Best book I've found on it is called Igniting Inspiration. Skip the first chapter to get to the good stuff.

Basic overview is that we each operate from a primary motivation. Eg power, universal truth and rules, material gain, harmony etc.

When you can see the signals for each type, you can speak their language and also understand yourself better in the process and why we do the (often irrational) things we do.