Who Do You Think You Are?

by Mark S. Fulton

One of the great mysteries of a man’s existence is figuring out what women want from men. In truth, this mystery is never completely solved.

Speaking from personal experience, I can assure our female readers that your admirers are better at setting up a home sound system than they are at connecting what you say with what you really mean. Of course, men have their own equally confusing communication customs when relating to the opposite sex. But we won’t go there.

This communication challenge is especially perplexing during courting, when men and women perform a culturally determined mating dance until they decide to either pursue a serious relationship or stop the music. When the latter happens, it’s not unusual to hear the woman or man say, “He (She) just isn’t my type.”

We go through a similar “courting ritual” in all of our relationships, including those with our subordinates, peers and superiors at work. When we first meet an employee, colleague or boss, we try to understand the other individual’s personality type and then figure out how to interact with that person successfully.

Successful relationships at work generate mutually satisfying and productive experiences, which benefit both the participants and the company for which they work. Like a romance, a positive work relationship produces supportive and cooperative behaviors that create synergy and spark enthusiasm. The resulting positive attitudes benefit everyone.

When a work relationship doesn’t work, the breakdown if often blamed on a personality conflict. Typically, we identify one or more negative characteristics in the other person. We might say, “He’s so egotistical” or “She’s very overbearing.” Of course, the other person may be forming his or her own negative perceptions about us.

Ultimately, we may come to the conclusion that we just don’t like an employee, colleague or boss. However, unlike a romantic relationship, we don’t usually have the option of simply ending the affiliation. Instead, we have to find a way to work with that person.

How do you do that? You might choose to grin and bear it whenever you are around someone you don’t like. That may get you through the encounter, but it does nothing to change your feelings. So the next encounter will be equally unpleasant.

A better way of dealing with unlikable people is to think about their demeanor as an expression of a behavior style that is hard-wired into their nature. In fact, we all have a basic behavior style that influences how we interact with others. Personality conflicts can arise when one aspect of a person’s style bumps into an opposite characteristic in our own style. For example, if you are the quiet type, you might consider someone who is talkative and outgoing to be overbearing or insufferable.

The danger with such thinking is that it leads to labeling people simply because of your own behavioral preferences, rather than seeing others as merely different from yourself.

Socrates instructed his students to seek to understand themselves before trying to understand others. Later, Aristotle identified separate personality styles based on the four fluids of the body: blood, phlegm, choler, and black bile. Basically, Aristotle believed the relative proportions of these “humors” in each of us determine our personality.

Today, there are several behavior style assessment instruments based on Aristotle’s philosophy. These tools can be very useful in the workplace for helping managers understand their people better and for promoting better employee cooperation. Each assessment system categorizes behavior preferences differently. Some systems are more complex and meant to be used by psychologists and human behaviorists.

Some of the most popular personality assessment systems include: the DISC Behavior Style Analysis, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and the Littauer Personality Plus Profile

Here are some books that explain each of these and enable you to determine your own personality type:

“Who Do You Think You Are … Anyway?” by Robert Rohm
“What Type Am I?” by Renee Baron
“Personality Plus” by Florence Littauer

Once you have identified your dominant behavioral style and the unique blend of all the styles that make you who you are, you will understand why you are attracted to or repelled by certain behaviors in others. You’ll also understand how to interact with people who are different from you because you will know what they prefer and dislike in others. You can then choose whether or not to adjust your behavior to suit a situation or influence another person.

Managers find understanding behavior styles very useful for matching people with tasks. Outgoing, people-oriented individuals are likely to make great salespeople because they are naturally inclined to attract the attention of others. Those same people would probably be unhappy sitting in a cubicle working on a design project. The behavior style model is also valuable for building effective teams because it enables a manger to select team members with complementary personality traits.

British author Jane Austin once wrote, “One man’s way may be as good as another’s, but we all like our own best.” That’s true about both what we do and who we are.

Copyright 2002 © Mark S. Fulton