Ever had a colleague who you just clashed with? Try as you might, you simply can’t get to grips with their personality: They make decisions you don’t understand, they react in ways you wouldn’t dream of, or their personality plain stinks.
The fact is, it might not be them; it might be you. You might dismiss and avoid these colleagues altogether, but if you want to progress within the business, become a more valuable team member or get glowing referrals when you move jobs, you need to learn to work with, and enjoy working with, different personality types. Easy to say, but not necessarily easy to do, especially as Pamela can’t see common sense.
So what type of personalities do you with? And how can you resolve clashes to work together effectively and harmoniously? Here’s everything you need to know…
Who are you?
No, really, who are you? If you don’t know your own personality type, you won’t be able to determine where potential clashes or problems could lie. Therefore, step one has to be about looking in the mirror.
Although tests like Myers-Briggs are well known, they offer limited, binary results which aren’t always helpful in terms of the workplace. Some, like 16Personalities, are more comprehensive and illuminating, but still fairly broad and not necessarily the most suitable for recruitment purposes. However, for understanding your own drivers and personality tics, they’re quite useful.
“The final reports look at elements as detailed as strategic thinking, humour and rationality.”
Best and most detailed of all are psychometric tests like our own Psycruit, detailed, nuanced profiles used to assess candidate’s motivations, talents and behaviour. These recruitment-specific tests don’t test candidates against ‘out-the-box’ profiles like 16Personalities; they evaluate each person on their own merits. The final reports look at elements as detailed as strategic thinking, humour and rationality, which not only helps to determine strengths but also how well a candidate will fit within an existing team.
By taking a test to understand your personality better, you’ll gain a clearer perspective of your role within a team dynamic, and where any potential clashes may arise.
Working out personalities
To get a rough impression of which ‘types’ your colleagues fit into and what their key drivers are, 16Personalities, despite its limitations, is still a good place to start. From a personal standpoint, understanding the traits of ‘analysts’ or ‘explorers’ might just put some of your colleagues’ decisions or reactions into perspective.
Once you understand common traits, you may get that ‘a-ha’ moment to explain why you click with some, and why not others. You may well even find new ways of approaching problems or suggesting ideas better aligned to the people you’re talking to. It’s easy to get set in your ways, and we’re all creatures of habit, but quite often the people you find irritating and simply ones that clash with your personality. Working with people, particularly if you’re looking to progress in the business, requires diplomacy. The more you understand psychological drivers, the better equipped you’ll be to handle people working under you, and senior management.
If you’re in a senior position already, you could even turn this into a team activity, getting everyone thinking about how and why they’re motivated. Your team will likely have their own eureka moments.
That’s one way to understand existing colleagues. The most effective way to use psychometric testing, however, is before people even sign their contracts, which is why you may want to explore the idea of your HR department building a tool like Psycruit into the recruitment process.
Some companies believe so wholeheartedly in the power of personality profiling that they use multiple tests to gain a nuanced, granular understanding of the person they’re considering employing. Bridgewater Associates (the world’s biggest hedge fund), have built their company on principles, which they believe, not everyone can withstand or thrive under. Underpinning their corporate culture is the concept of ‘radical transparency’.
The brainchild of the company’s founder, Ray Dalio, radical transparency encourages employees to scrutinise each others’ ideas and decision-making and asks them to rate each other’s performance via an app. It’s easy to see why some people would not perform well or feel happy in this type of environment, so Bridgewater has developed a process which increases the chances of getting the right person for the job.
To work at Bridgewater Associates, candidates must take four tests online and one over the phone. Although this may seem like overkill, they’ve simply identified which personality types work well in their organisation. Without detailed profiling, they could end up employing the wrong people, which in turn would cost them time and money, as well as disrupting the team.
All about soft skills
We often talk about getting on with people as though it’s something that happens because you ‘click’ or you find them fun, or you have shared interests. These are the easy relationships, they don’t take effort, they just happen. Working well with all people and side-stepping conflict are skills you can work on.
Understanding personality types is a good start, but honing your communication, empathy and diplomacy can help you find common ground with someone and alleviate tension.
If you’re working on a particular project with a colleague, do the parameters suit both of your styles of working? If not, can you make changes to accommodate your individual strengths and weaknesses? Understanding that everyone works in different ways and is motivated by different drivers will help to develop soft skills like effective teamwork and empathy
“The best place to start is always communication.”
The best place to start is always communication. Simply by reaching out and asking if a colleague is happy with a situation or project can start to build a relationship based on mutual respect and empathy.
While we can’t always choose who we work with, we can choose to better understand the people we work with – as well as ourselves. When you know why someone behaves the way they do, what motivates them or how they work best, you can learn how to react and communicate in a way that facilitates, rather than hinders, both your needs and theirs. So, do you know your colleagues’ personality types? Do you know yours?
Step one is to understand yourself. If you want to find out your personality type, get in touch and we’ll give you access to our free personality profile test.
