Putting Your Personality to Work

Companies spend a fortune putting people through Myers-Briggs, 360-degree feedback and predictive indexing — in the hope of finding the silver bullet that will alleviate the inevitable clashes that arise in work.

Web workers who are telecommuters have to try even harder to reach out to co-workers and clients. Without that on-going on-site “face and feel,” we can become as ephemeral as avatars to those we most deal with in work. Add to that personality conflict, and reaching out can become a truly loathsome chore.

The book The Personality Code is meant for people like us. It includes access via a sign-in code to an online version of a personality test to teach you what kind of person you are. The test, named IDISC, is based on a 1928 volume, Emotions of Normal People, by William Marston (the same guy who invented Wonder Woman). By asking you to pick the adjectives that most describe and least describe your behavior from among 112 choices, the service instantly — well, after 15 minutes of test-taking — reveals which one of 14 personality types best describes you.

How can knowing your personality type help you? As author Travis Bradberry, president of TalentSmart, writes, “We found that as self-awareness increases, people’s satisfaction with life skyrockets, and they are far more likely to reach their goals at work and at home.”

Bradberry’s book provides plenty of readable anecdotes about how personality can help and hinder us. Two points to remember:

  • We all have a little of each type of personality — architect, coach, diplomat, entrepreneur, researcher and so on — within us, and no type is more attractive than another.
  • According to the author, one personality type rules in each of us, and the characteristics of that type determine how we respond to what happens in our lives. Having insight into our “type” can help us prepare for the changes that happen, even as our personalities remain static.

The chapter, “Managing the Fourteen Types,” will come in handy if you’re leading others. The strategies can help you relate to your team members better and help you figure out how to exploit each person’s strength to best advantage.

The section on personality clashes explains why there’s always somebody we’re tiptoeing around to avoid conflicts — it may be because our personality types are such poor mismatches.

The next time your personality clashes become distractingly clangorous, or your co-worker isn’t your best friend, it could be time to bid adieu. Or it may simply be time for a refresher on who we are at the core and what drives us — and drives us nuts.

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