Understanding People Through Personalities
It's not shocking to learn that certain personalities get along well while others tend to clash. As you can see from the cheeky comic above (credit to one of my favorite cartoonists, The Awkward Yeti), often times we can even find clashing within ourselves. It is a natural occurrence for individuals to have certain tendencies and to disagree, vocally sometimes, when one is pushed to work in ways that contrast those ingrained tendencies.
How do we know what our own personal tendencies are though? Self-awareness is something that many people don't come to naturally and also don't want to put effort into discovering. Yet, when we know ourselves, we can understand what might be a trigger of our not so great qualities. If we know our triggers, we may be able to lessen their effects or even react differently to them.
Lately, we've been dealing with an unprecedented time where face-to-face interactions are likely to be virtual. It is already known that somewhere between 70-93% of all communication is nonverbal. Things like hand gestures, head movements, fidgeting and vocal tone are some examples of nonverbal communication that could be easily missed in virtual interactions. Heck, these subtle nonverbal gestures are often misunderstood even in person. Unfortunately, many individuals may not even know that they have specific tendencies. I would urge those individuals to explore some of these tests that I'm about to discuss, so that they can better understand themselves first. Even just learning about oneself can help a person understand how to work better with others.
Many businesses already acknowledge that understanding the personality types of employees could be beneficial to their business goals. They acknowledge that clashing personalities can lead to stalled projects, fighting or workplace tension. Basically, these interpersonal issues can slow down business and make for very unhappy employees. Businesses also acknowledge that there is a nuanced way that these personality tests should be used that can make them more likely to positively influence the outcome.
Companies shouldn't just randomly throw personality tests out to their employees, especially without any explanation. Some tips for how to utilize them appropriately include:
- Use science-based tests: Don't assume that every Buzzfeed quiz you see has been backed by science. Instead, try to use one of the top five that businesses have already validated for use in the workplace.
- Encourage Honesty: Make sure employees don't feel pressured to answer in a certain manner. If employees can't be honest, then their true personality traits won't be highlighted, rendering the personality tests useless.
- Play to Strengths: It is important that an employer tries to pay more attention to what strengths an individual has, rather than their weaknesses. For instance, an extrovert can be encouraged to take on more presentation responsibilities as this might play to their strength of public speaking. An introvert, on the other hand, should not be forced to do more presentations to 'work on' what is considered a weakness. Instead, an introvert might prefer being given more opportunity to dive into the analytical work behind a presentation. (This is just one example of a somewhat stereotypical description of extroverts/introverts.)
- Use in Onboarding (and for everyone): If all employees are taking the same test, there is a comradery surrounding the company's goal to utilize results to positively impact teams. These results might also be useful in onboarding as they help an individual understand their own working style and where they might have opportunities for development.
The top five tests utilized by workplace are as follows:
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