Personality and personal growth
One thing we did at this BGI intensive was to take the Meyers-Briggs (Kiersey) personality test. I have done it several times before, and enjoyed seeing the experience in a new light. I found that it solidified some more general thoughts bouncing around my mind on personality tests.
These tests can be addictive. We can spend many hours learning and analyzing our MBTI, our Enneagram, and so many other types, classifications, and psychological proclivities. Indeed, there are more personality tests than any of us have time to take. I was into this kind of thing for a couple years about a decade ago. It plays on our deep desire to understand “who we are.”
I would suggest that this information (like any) can be used wisely or unwisely. It is unwise when we begin to limit ourselves or others, either by hindering/holding back or by allowing poor behaviors to continue. Sometimes people declare their own failure in advance: “I’m such an emotional type, I’m sure I would be a disaster in an engineering class.” Or they eliminate entire swathes of options from their career goals: “Since I’m an introvert, I’m not going to consider anything that requires lots of communication with people.”
Or we can excuse behaviors based on personality type. “Oh, he’s just like that—he has such a strong need to talk, we have to condone his domination of all our meetings. He can’t help his loquacious personality, you know.” Or, perhaps: “You’ll just have to forgive the fact that I seem to insult you all the time. I have an aggressive personality, and it’s the only way I can express my views.”
Pretty unwise.
Here is a better option. We can use this information to treat ourselves or others kindly, and to play to our strengths in order to find happiness and peace in whatever situation we find ourselves in. For instance, knowing that I tend to get tired out talking to many strangers means that I can just smile and take my leave of parties, even if my more extroverted friends are still going strong. And if the circumstances do not allow that, I can still smile inside and hold my own tiredness with understanding.
Even wiser is to use our personality “type” and other known psychological tendencies to devise challenges for ourselves. Our personalities have formed partly through the habit of doing what is easiest, but we can teach ourselves to think more expansively. I read of someone who thought of herself as shy and uncertain, so she decided to get trained as an EMT. It was a huge step in personal growth for her. I found that I was not very spontaneous when interacting with children, nor was I comfortable with seeing children in pain, so I signed up to be a volunteer at Stanford Children’s Hospital. I just finished a 1-year tenure there, and found it to be an important growth experience.
Of course, such challenges must take place within an overall context of ethics. It is not positive personal growth to discover that you can find a way to fit into a group of liars, thieves, or drug dealers!
This is part of the reason I am at BGI also (there are many reasons, but this is one). BGI is not especially attuned to my personality habits — and indeed, neither is management. So it offers personal challenge. Each time I learn that I can adapt to something that seems “not me” — and make it just one more aspect of me — I become a little freer of the constraints of my self view.
We are not our personality. We are so much more than that.
[Relating this to management, I would suggest that as managers, we can actually do people a favor by assigning them tasks that might not fit their own image of themselves. This must be done cautiously and kindly, of course, but it is a great gift to help people realize how much more they can actually do than they think they can do.]
These tests can be addictive. We can spend many hours learning and analyzing our MBTI, our Enneagram, and so many other types, classifications, and psychological proclivities. Indeed, there are more personality tests than any of us have time to take. I was into this kind of thing for a couple years about a decade ago. It plays on our deep desire to understand “who we are.”
I would suggest that this information (like any) can be used wisely or unwisely. It is unwise when we begin to limit ourselves or others, either by hindering/holding back or by allowing poor behaviors to continue. Sometimes people declare their own failure in advance: “I’m such an emotional type, I’m sure I would be a disaster in an engineering class.” Or they eliminate entire swathes of options from their career goals: “Since I’m an introvert, I’m not going to consider anything that requires lots of communication with people.”
Or we can excuse behaviors based on personality type. “Oh, he’s just like that—he has such a strong need to talk, we have to condone his domination of all our meetings. He can’t help his loquacious personality, you know.” Or, perhaps: “You’ll just have to forgive the fact that I seem to insult you all the time. I have an aggressive personality, and it’s the only way I can express my views.”
Pretty unwise.
Here is a better option. We can use this information to treat ourselves or others kindly, and to play to our strengths in order to find happiness and peace in whatever situation we find ourselves in. For instance, knowing that I tend to get tired out talking to many strangers means that I can just smile and take my leave of parties, even if my more extroverted friends are still going strong. And if the circumstances do not allow that, I can still smile inside and hold my own tiredness with understanding.
Even wiser is to use our personality “type” and other known psychological tendencies to devise challenges for ourselves. Our personalities have formed partly through the habit of doing what is easiest, but we can teach ourselves to think more expansively. I read of someone who thought of herself as shy and uncertain, so she decided to get trained as an EMT. It was a huge step in personal growth for her. I found that I was not very spontaneous when interacting with children, nor was I comfortable with seeing children in pain, so I signed up to be a volunteer at Stanford Children’s Hospital. I just finished a 1-year tenure there, and found it to be an important growth experience.
Of course, such challenges must take place within an overall context of ethics. It is not positive personal growth to discover that you can find a way to fit into a group of liars, thieves, or drug dealers!
This is part of the reason I am at BGI also (there are many reasons, but this is one). BGI is not especially attuned to my personality habits — and indeed, neither is management. So it offers personal challenge. Each time I learn that I can adapt to something that seems “not me” — and make it just one more aspect of me — I become a little freer of the constraints of my self view.
We are not our personality. We are so much more than that.
[Relating this to management, I would suggest that as managers, we can actually do people a favor by assigning them tasks that might not fit their own image of themselves. This must be done cautiously and kindly, of course, but it is a great gift to help people realize how much more they can actually do than they think they can do.]
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