Who are you, exactly?
Don't you ever get annoyed just a little bit when someone asks you "What do you do?". Some of us (yes, I'm definitely included) have even practiced saying and writing what we do, with variations of course, for far longer than we would like to admit.
Yes it gets tiresome, because most of us "do" all sorts of stuff. And although we can offer up a job title or a clever "I help people conquer the world one bit at a time" or maybe something cheeky like "I do as little as possible, don't you?", the question can draw quite a lot of energy out of the room, can't it?
In any case, what's of interest to you? When you meet someone what do you actually want to know? You may end up working with them or at least meeting them again so isn't that more useful than just asking what they do as a job?
Now this newsletter isn't here to jive on about how annoying this-and-that is - specifically, I'm asking you to consider the following question
"Who are you?"
or, if you prefer a groovier approach,
"Who are you and where are you at?"
OK, so it might seem a little forward to some and you could mask it a little with some humorous foreplay but isn't that much more important to you than "What do you do?"
For me, as it happens, it's a crucial question. It's the first step to satisfying my curiosity and as asking questions is important to me that's "a good thing".
Not only that, this stuff layers up, so I can either discover more about the individual or, as is the case fairly frequently in my line of work, ask exactly the same question to every leader in the room in which I'm facilitating.
Because "Who are you?" is the front doorbell of your personality.
There's so much I can glean from asking that question.
Like how different are you from one another, for example.
Our personalities define us
They can change over the course of time, dependent on circumstance (largely) but, essentially, research shows that our personalities, after some change between dot and early twenties* doesn't really change substantially.
That means that we could back our career success based on our personality alone, though sadly that isn't guaranteed because most of us don't truly know ourselves, do we?
Or at least we often don't take time to become more self-aware.
In the workplace at least, there's still so much emphasis on results, often to tight deadlines, that we often literally forget ourselves. And if we're not aware of our own personal strengths, motivations, de-motivations and risks then that can cause confusion and, at worst, considerable lack of confidence in ours and others' abilities.
Worse still, we may be in the wrong career pathway altogether.
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Why?
Because it just isn't us.
Who am I not?
Believe it or not, I happen to know about the effects of personality on career more than most. When I was younger, I thought I ought to learn a few new skills because
So I tried coding (unsuccessful - though I became a handy-hacker) and video production (better, though I wasn't hugely motivated by it).
It turns out that "Producer" rates the 2nd lowest on the career motivation part of my Facet5 personality profile.
Thank goodness I didn't make it as a barrister after my law degree - I did try - that's covered by "Classic Career", which is the lowest of my career motivators.
If I'd have had access to that degree of foresight 30 years ago then I may have made better calls on my career at that stage.
And I'm far more motivated now doing what I do, which happens to match my career motivators pretty well.
Know thyself (and thy colleagues)
In my world of Leadership Development, there's often an emphasis on embracing emotional intelligence and one significant factor in EI is self-awareness.
What's more, it helps to be aware of others and that's what another factor of EI - empathy - is all about. And personality is at the heart of that too.
So if you want seriously to double-down on your understanding of your team dynamic because performance or morale is down, consider personality profiling as the starting point for a significant improvement in your team's fortunes.
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