I’ve done quite a few personality tests over the years, either as part of a job or out of interest when I’ve come across a new one. It’s always interesting to read the findings and the suggestions that come with them. It’s a good structured way of understanding yourself better and in the context of other people that you know too. Annoyingly, knowing you are as you are doesn’t magically make you better, in fact sometimes a personality test can feel quite frustrating as it points out the things you find challenging, and doesn’t give you a way to solve those challenges. But understanding yourself and others better is useful. It shows us we’re not all the same and have different motivators and values, so if you’re finding someone difficult to deal with it can be helpful when you reflect on your approach and consider different or more appropriate options. Knowing what works for you can help you achieve your goals too, and setting them in that context will make you more likely to achieve them. I’ll share an example on this later.
There are lots of different personality test options but two that I really like are Insights, and the Four Tendencies. Insights is a good one to do in a corporate setting, and ultimately there are four colours, red yellow blue and green, and everyone fits broadly into one colour and then has a second, third, fourth, in order of their personality. I’m oversimplifying on purpose but if you want more information go and have a look https://www.insights.com.
There are sub categories depending on your responses and a wheel that has all of these on, which you can put on the floor and can physically stand behind your colour and particular bit of pie with everyone else on theirs, and see clearly what colour everyone else is; and most importantly who your opposites are. The last time I did this, the person I was finding most difficult to work with was exactly opposite me. My colour in insights is sunshine yellow, I’m upbeat and optimistic and sociable and enthusiastic. Also scatty and hasty, apparently! What I’m not is considered and thoughtful and logical with attention to detail and a data focus. That was the cool blue that was my opposite and my fourth colour, I had barely any blue at all in my assessment and only then because I can do those things if I really need to.
What I love about doing something like insights is that whilst you might know you’re struggling to get on someone’s wavelength, actually doing an exercise like this means it really resonates when you better understand yourself and them, and you can work out how to adapt your style to meet them where they’re at. You don’t even need the other person to know you’ve done the exercise: whenever I do personality tests and the different descriptions come up, I can usually think of someone that’s exactly like that!
The other personality test I like is the four tendencies. This was created by Gretchen Rubin and you can do it for free, you just need to use your email address to get your results. And it only takes a couple of minutes which is an added bonus. This is a good one to do on your own, and once you know your tendency you can then look at the others and see who you think would be in those categories. There’s an upholder, obliger, questioner, and rebel. Bonus points for guessing which one I am!
I’ve taken this from the website as I think it’s worded in a really clear way and I don’t think it’s possible to simplify it!
Upholders respond readily to outer and inner expectations—“Discipline is my freedom”
Questioners question all expectations; they’ll meet an expectation if they think it makes sense; essentially, they make all expectations into inner expectations—“I’ll comply—if you convince me why”
Obligers meet outer expectations, but struggle to meet expectations they impose on themselves—“You can count on me; and I’m counting on you to count on me”
Rebels resist all expectations, outer and inner alike—“You can’t make me, and neither can I”
If you’re interested, I’m a Rebel. Which is a bit frustrating (!) if you look at the description you’ll see that accountability to either myself or others doesn’t help me get things done! Fortunately I know myself well enough now to know how to get things done but it’s taken a long time to get to this point.
The great thing about the different personality tests is that whilst there may be some overlap, ultimately they’re all quite nuanced and pick out different areas of focus, so doing more than one arms you with extra information. It’s helpful if it’s memorable too, so I find the names like cool blue or obliger really illustrative when I’m thinking about where someone sits in terms of their personality.
Having a toolkit that includes knowledge of the different personality types can help you be more resilient because it increases your self awareness so you can reflect on a situation in the context of different frameworks, and think about your strengths and weaknesses. If you want to go a step further I’d suggest a strengths finder, the one I’ve used is called Clifton Strengths and you can access from the Gallup book Strengths Finder 2.0. which currently costs £27 on Amazon. The quiz can take up to an hour (and it’s more questions to answer!), but the results focus on your strengths (it’s much broader than personality types) and how to maximise them. It’s a really positive way to assess what you’re good at and think about how this can help you.
Getting on with people and being able to work with others are key skills in life, and problems with other people are often a factor in reduced resilience, so it’s worth taking the time to know yourself and others better and build your toolkit for both work and life.