Yesterday I spent just under eight hours undergoing corporate training on how to manage remote teams effectively. This might sound tedious to most but what the training actually boiled down to in my opinion was one big personality test, which actually proved to be quite enlightening.
Love them or hate them, I think that personality tests can often provide useful insights into human behaviour and I thought it relevant to share with you some of the learning I took from yesterday’s exercise.
Love them or hate them
Now I’m a self-confessed fan of personality tests even though I often struggle to easily pick which box to tick. My love of them probably stems from my passion for personal development, in that any further insight I can gain into my behaviours or those of other people is invaluable to me as I seek to work effectively with people and improve my relationships with others.
Yesterday’s test in the main looked at individual key strengths and the ways in which different people are motivated to play to those strengths. There were a few things that I really liked about the test including the concepts that underpinned it:
- Everyone wants to feel worthwhile about themselves as human beings.
- Self-respect is being valued by others for the things you wish to be valued for.
- Self-esteem is being valued by yourself for the things you wish to be valued for.
- There is no such thing as weaknesses. There are only strengths that we turn up or turn down, depending on our personality type or the circumstances we find ourselves in.
There is no such thing as weakness
This last one had the greatest impact on me. At first, as I listed my own weaknesses in my head, I dismissed the statement as simply not true but as the day progressed I started to think that maybe there was actually something in it.
Take the example of confidence as a desired behaviour. If we turn confidence up we might get arrogance or cockiness as a result and if we turn it down we might get meekness or shyness. So the premise is that we all have the same strength within us, but our personality types mean that it’s either turned up or down depending on how we are being treated by others. So in working with or managing others, how we tap into other people’s motivations determines how turned up or down their strengths are.
What’s in a type?
The test identified a number of ‘personality types’ – altruistic and nurturing blues, asserting and directing reds, analytic and autonomising greens and flexible and cohering hubs (a combination of the red, green and blue) to name but a few. I came out as a hub with red tendencies when things are going well and green tendencies when I was under stress or conflict.
This in a very small nutshell means that in the main I’m pretty flexible and consultative. When I feel great I am more likely to be persuasive, creative, forceful, ambitious and results driven and under attack or during times of stress I’m more likely to retreat, analyse my position and become more cautious, reserved and logical.
I felt that this assessment (and it was more detailed than I can possibly convey in this post) was in the main pretty accurate and having my personality reflected back to me in that way was useful in a number of ways.
- Sometimes we don’t know how we behave unless it’s reflected back to us and although when I read the results of the test I was able to go – ‘oh yes that is what I do.’ I’m not sure I would have noticed that pattern as clearly, had I not done the test.
- Through doing the exercises, I was also able to identify other personality types of colleagues and friends and this led to a few ‘aha’ moments as I began to understand the motivations behind their behaviours.
- Through the training I learnt of several ways in which I could modify my behaviour as a manager of people to get the best out of my colleagues by playing to their strengths and understanding their motivations.
Avoiding conflict through understanding
What this analysis also means is that I am more likely to clash with others whose motivations are very different to mine. To give a very quick and dirty example: If I am feeling great and I’m in ‘red’ state of being results-driven and feeling a sense of urgency to get the job done, encountering a strong ‘green’ personality is likely to result in conflict unless I take the time to understand and acknowledge their personality and what motivates them. Strong greens are likely to want to take time to analyse the information, consider all the options and then provide a detailed response to the situation.
Looking at this objectively with the training under my belt, I can see that both these ways of operating can be seen as strengths and combining them effectively could produce great results, but in the moment, without this knowledge, a strong red and a strong green sat in a meeting, are likely to drive each other mad.
The moral of the story
What I took from yesterday was not that we should pigeonhole all people into a type and then treat them accordingly. What I took from the exercise is that we all have very different personalities and different motivations, which in turn affect how we behave.
I think it’s very easy to get caught up in our own beliefs, motivations and values and forget that other people might have different but equally valid ones to our own, which will result in different behaviours being displayed.
In analysing the various personality types as we did, I came to realise that there is real strength in our differences and that when a group of people come together, if we can pause for a moment and try to understand each other’s motivations, then we will gain great insight into how to get the best from one another.
If you are interested in the tool it’s called the Strength Deployment Inventory (SDI) and the people behind it can be found at www.personalstrengths.com.
Have you clashed with someone lately? Do you think that looking at motivations might help you work out why the clash occurred? I’d love to hear your comments below and please don’t forget to share with others if you like the post.
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Hi there, I'm Caroline. Welcome to Life is Limitless, my blog about personal development with a focus on facing fears and living a life without limits. Check out my about page to find out more and pop your email in the box below to subscribe for regular updates.
I always used to hate doing personality tests, I hated a piece of paper trying to tell me who I was. This was however before I actually did a couple. I had to fill them in due to the management part of my University degree and after taking them I saw they were actually quite relevant, and as you said help in personal development.
Good points about weakness as well. Everyone’s weakness, is another ones strength. You can always use a trait, even if you see it as a bad one, for a good purpose.
Thanks,
Simon Duck
Hey Simon thanks for your comments! Yeah I can totally see why some people would hate personality tests as I think they can feel quite restrictive sometimes, but like you say they can also give some useful insights
Seems like these personality tests/experiments would really have a great impact in a lot of businesses.
Great point Simon, we know better than anyone else which red flags to look out for within our own thought processes. It’s not easy, but once you no longer allow your thoughts to flow down their typical path, you can really start to reflect and analyze yourself from a new perspective. Like mediating the conversation between your subconscious and conscious mind. Does that make sense or am I just going crazy?
Hi Rick – i thought I’d responded to your comment here but it doesn’t seem to be showing up! I love what you say about mediating the conversation between your subconscious and conscious mind – doesn’t sound crazy at all
I LOVE PERSONALITY TESTS. <3
They're so fantastically awesome and utterly amazing. I love getting new insight that way because it feels more objective.
I agree that we each have a philosophy about life that tends to clash with others'. I had this happen to me yesterday when I got into an argument with someone who was upset that I didn't think he was right. And that his opinion was his own. But he felt adamant about it – and was unwilling to listen or understand my own position.
This mentality far outweighs the idea that we need to respect each other's ideas. Very few people are good listeners, and even fewer are able to understand that our life histories directly influence what we can and will believe.
Also – at first I didn't agree with the assessment of "no weakness" because I do believe in weakness. I believe that many personality traits are unacceptable and act as weaknesses in the sense that can make being associated with a specific person difficult. If someone is mean spirited, for example, that's a weakness. Or if someone is irritable – that's a weakness. Strengths make life easier or better in some ways while weaknesses can and do hold people back. But I think people don't want to be perceived as weak, so the concept becomes reframed. However, I don't agree with that (the reframing).
Great post!
Hi Tatiana thanks for your comments – I agree that getting new insights is pretty awesome and I think you are right that our life histories can directly influence what we can and will believe but on that point, I also think we can learn not to be limited by our family histories and being aware of them or the behaviours that spring from them is a great first step to change.
I hear you on the weakness front – that was my initial reaction too but I’m coming round to the idea because I like that it’s such a positive way to approach people
I love personality tests. The good ones are like pulling back some veil and getting a glimpse of the normally hidden causes of your own behavior.
There used to be this site called Emode.com, which became Tickle.com, and then went out of business (I think). Their thing was personality tests. So, you could take personality tests to figure out your ideal vacation, job, city, etc. They took it a step further and had tests to determine things like your super power if you were a super hero. I took that test, and it told me my super power is invisibility. I cringed when I saw that. Invisible is how I feel in social situations. How did they get this from a series of stupid questions?
Anyway, since then I’ve tried to make a point to not be “invisible.” However, invisibility has its advantages (when shooting travel photos, for example) so it’s good to be able to turn it on every now and then.
Thanks for your comment Jasper! I agree that a well designed test can give you a glimpse of the normally hidden causes of your own behaviour and I’m glad to hear that you’re making efforts to be less invisible but also making good use of your super power when it serves you to!
I used to like those personality tests in school that were so obviously leaning towards a particular answer on each question.
EG. Out of the following, who would be your closest role model – Adolf Hitler, or Nelson Mandela?
It was always fun to fill in a couple of curve-ball answers to witness your teacher giving you worried looks for the remainder of the year.
Ben it doesn’t surprise me one bit that you used to like to worry your teachers
Thanks for the comment!
Hi.
I think personality tests are lame, to be honest. Just another attempt by the academic psychology brigade to pin down something that’s indescribable and has deeper processes that can only be glimpsed at.
I did one when applying or a job I didn’t want a long time ago. It was a joke! I knew what result they wanted and answered the questions accordingly, taking care not to give them TOO much of what they wanted. I scored right in the sweet spot. The whole thing was so predictable.
I’ve been thinking about this “self-esteem” term for quite awhile now and wrote a post that was designed to give one plausible but also PRACTICAL way of looking at it. See if you think it was successful, I’d like to get some input. If you’d like, use my email. I blocked comments on my blog. I’m trying to find a way to stop spammers, in the meantime. The post:
http://life-sucks.org/low-self-esteem/
Hi Dean thanks for your comment. I think like with most things that some tests can be predictable but for me sometimes having something about my personality presented back to me can be really helpful even when it might seem obvious or predictable. I’ll check out your post now!
I absolutely love personality tests … whenever I read the results, I think, “yep, thats me!” It’s almost odd how well some of those tests describe me, and knowing the results helps me better understand my own behaviors, thoughts and feelings. My favorite is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, which has taught me a lot about myself.
Hi Paula – thanks for your comment! Me too – I think at the very least they can be really fun and at best they can provide real insight. I haven’t done the Myers-Briggs so I might just check it out! Thanks for reading