REALLY? Personalities Matter at Work?

Conflicts with people? Not sure the cause? Do you even care to learn or is your tendency to just drive through....or around the problem?

Conflicts are going to happen. Period-the-end. How you handle them are driven in part by your personality and temperament. Characteristics of our personality/temperament can be a major cause of disruption and bad results in the workplace.

This is the first time in American history where four generations of workers have been employed side-by-side and this factor adds to the personality/temperament problems. Most of us don't know, some don't care, why we are the way we are. Yet our core personality was developed at an early age and has gone through transformations since. If you are a baby boomer, you saw the creation of television, the liberation of women and a huge shift in the workplace - away from the traditional workforce. A Boomer's bent is to define himself by his job.

Gen-Xers experienced the creation of the personal computer, fax machines, mom going to work and tend to define themselves by their hobbies.

The big development during the Millenial's (Ys) upbringing has been the creation of the information highway. Your tolerance for many things is hard to understand by traditionalists, boomers and many Xers. You define yourself by your inner peace and self-talk.

Accepting and understanding our differences can make a big difference in the workplace. A profile assessement, such as the DISC is used in many workplace settings.

The following chart gives a simplistic relationship to how DISC temperaments are in Meetings (notice the word "want") -
 


Again, simplistic but strategically think about these factors as you interact with your co-workers today.

What challenges are you having? What is your biggest challenge? What are you doing about it?

Go back to a recent article in this blog on Strategic Thinking and Building Elite Workforces and think about those articles in relation to these temperaments.

To that end....

Danny

Category	Their Role in The Meeting
Dominant	D’s want to be the leader in the meeting.  They will tend to take charge, whether that is appropriate or not.  They want to walk away with results and a delegated list for others.
Influential	I’s want attention.  They will volunteer to be in charge but will tend to be disorganized and focused primarily on the social aspects of the meeting.
Steady	S’s do not want to go to meetings.  They will tend to sit in the back and hope to not have to talk.
Conscientious	C’s will bring an agenda to the meeting, even if that is not their role.  They want to stay on task and walk away with a plan.