How Your Personality Impacts Your Decision-Making
In last week’s post, I contended that personality tests are poor predictors of on-the-job performance, but valuable for assessing flexibility, cultural fit, teamwork, and communication skills. One big point of the post was the idea that interviewers should be tested before testing candidates to increase their objectivity. The other point was that only finalists should be tested, not all applicants, since personality styles change based on circumstances, and you don’t want to inadvertently exclude good candidates. The Mini-DISC process presented in the original post offers a simple way to visualize these changes in personality. Here's how.
First, determine your dominant personality style using the Mini-DISC graphic. People who prefer to make decisions with limited information are on the right side, and those who would rather have more information and consider all of the options are on the left. Those who are more results focused are on the top half, and those who are more sensitive to the needs of the people are in the bottom half. With just this limited information, you can categorize yourself into one of the four dominant personality types. (Here’s a link to the four definitions and all of the caveats.)
Since I’ve been using, taking, and evaluating people using these personality tests for more than 30 years, I’ve noticed some interesting trends.
- Personality styles are fluid. The best people can adapt their style to meet the needs of the situation.
- As people mature and mellow, they move to the center of the grid adopting the traits of each of the styles. This is the blended, balanced or coaching style. Good managers have the ability to hire and develop people who are strong in each of the styles and create great teams.
- Inflexible people tend to be less fluid. While they can communicate effectively with people just like them and their adjacent styles, they have great difficulty communicating diagonally. This is why demanding leaders have difficulty relating to the more diplomatic HR-types, and techies have trouble working with outgoing sales types.
- Under stress, most people revert to their natural style. However, in these same situations, great leaders show their true colors and move towards the center balanced point, and the least flexible people move away from the center. Those people moving away from the center take on the negative characteristics of their dominant style, specifically:
- An extreme Director becomes insensitive and dictatorial.
- An extreme Influencer becomes conniving and political.
- An extreme Supporter becomes condescending and manipulative.
- An extreme Controller becomes self-absorbed and defiant.
While bordering on pop psychology, I believe using the Mini-DISC to observe how people change their style under stress is useful for staff selection, team building, and improving communications. In the earlier post, I suggested that interviewers should take on their diagonally opposite style to increase their objectivity. With this more open-minded perspective and using the Most Important Interview Question of All Time as a starting point, here are some ideas on how to use the Mini-DISC grid to gauge a person’s flexibility and ability to handle stress.
- Find out the person’s dominant style. Dig into the person’s most significant accomplishments to determine how the person made decisions, achieved results, handled conflict and collaborated on different teams. The person’s natural style will quickly emerge.
- Determine the person’s flexibility. Ask about situations where the person faced different pressures, like managing a critical project under tight time restraints, had limited resources or faced significant team challenges. As you dig into the process used to address the situation, observe if the person modified his or her style to get the results, or was more the “one size fits all situations” type.
- Figure out if the person is developing a balanced style. Ask the most significant accomplishment question for different time periods to determine if the person’s dominant style is becoming more refined and more balanced. This is the sign of a maturing leader and manager.
- Find out how the person handles extreme stress. As you dig into the person’s most challenging assignments, raise the caution flag if the person didn’t get some significant recognition, wasn’t subsequently assigned to a bigger project, made excuses why the project was less successful than planned, or left the company. Of course, lower the flag if none of these problems are evident.
As part of the interview, seek out information where the candidate has shown flexibility and an ability to adapt their style to suit the situation. Few interviewers evaluate fit this way, yet it can help improve performance and job satisfaction. Job-seekers should self-evaluate themselves the same way. They should then seek out those situations where their natural style enhances their performance, rather than detracts from it. While the Mini-DISC only measures preferences, not competencies, it has significant value when used as a means to assess how time and circumstances have affected the candidate's natural business style. As for me, I’m still the same pain in the neck I’ve always been.
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Lou Adler (@LouA) is the CEO of The Adler Group, a consulting firm helping companies implement Performance-based Hiring. His latest book, The Essential Guide for Hiring & Getting Hired (Workbench, 2013), covers the performance-based process described in this article in more depth. For more hiring advice join Lou's LinkedIn group and follow his Wisdom About Work series on Facebook.
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9yPersonality and control of your personality surely effects your work life. But it takes concious effort to change your personality over time. I went from am overly aggressive fast acting person to a non aggressive deep thinker focused on my internal thoughts and emotions before releasing them. Only you can recognize your problems before you can change them. If other people avoid you it might be a sign there is one.
Social Justice | HR & Recruitment | Advocate for Inclusive Recruitment Practices
10yManagers need to be good at constructive criticism. It is important for people to understand what they have done wrong and how to fix it. Employees should not be coddled too much, otherwise all authority is lost. I think the most important aspect in management is in balance in managing style. I think this article does a good job of describing balance.
Production Manager at Adient, Torslanda Plant
10yTrue
If I'm not learning, I'm helping someone who is –– Business English for Professionals.
10yUseful post, in the contact of hiring. I discovered DISC thanks to Manager Tools, and it's brought rapid real results. (And, no, I'm not paid to say that!). However, regarding decision making – it's important to recognize that some people make fast decisions after a lot of slow thinking. I.e. they've identified those contexts and know what to do. So a balance of fast and slow thinking is achievable, whatever your DISC style.
Registered Psychologist at Creative Consulting Services
10yI like this. I like it alot. It totally explains the office environment that I currently work in. There was no time spent hiring and consequently we have an office with administrative support people who scurry to the outside of the square rather than more into the middle. As a therapist, I am definitely going to think about this approach more and more as I build my practice as well as hire staff to promote and carry on my business while I am indisposed. I agree with others as well though that at times one needs people who know themselves and can get the job done - but again, without creating chaos and disharmony. I know they are out there. I have had the honor of working with them.