 The Help
Desk
Personality Versus
Process
When new teams form, the members often have little
or no knowledge of each other. It’s fairly
common for team leaders and/or facilitators to use
assessment instruments to help members start the
“forming” stage of team development.
Once teams are under way, they may find it
difficult to reach consensus on some issues or they
may even encounter significant conflict. Once again,
assessment instruments are often used to move through
these jams.
The Instruments
A closer
examination of the available instruments used in
these situations shows that many of them rely on
identifying individual team members’
personality types. Then, team members are asked to
share their findings and use that information to
build relationships and understand the sources of
conflict.
Some of these instruments, such as the most
commonly used Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI),
provide a direct categorization of personality. The
MBTI inventory is based on Carl Jung’s theory
of types, outlined in his 1921 work Psychological
Types. Jung’s theory holds that human
beings are either introverts or extroverts, and their
behavior follows from these inborn psychological
types. He also believed that people take in and
process information in different ways, based on their
personality traits.
The MBTI evaluates personality type and preference
based on the four Jungian psychological types:
extroversion (E) or introversion (I), sensing (S) or
intuition (N), thinking (T) or feeling (F), and
judging (J) or perceiving (P).
Other tools, such as the Thomas Kilmann Conflict
Mode Instrument, are subtler, naming the categories
in terms of styles, such as competing, avoiding,
compromising, collaborating, and accommodating.
The Problems
On the surface, all of these instruments seem useful
and provide a basis for discussion and to recognize
diversity. On the other hand, they also may create
uncomfortable experiences for some team members, and
they may have some workplace implications that are
troublesome.
Fundamentally, concerns arise when people are
asked to publicly share something as deeply personal
as their personalities. Yes, this phraseology seems
awkward, but it does make an obvious point that
personalities are a very personal matter. For many
people, personality discussions infringe on their
sense of privacy and seem inappropriate in the
workplace. This factor alone may be sufficient to
encourage the use of different tools for team
building and conflict resolution.
A second concern, however, involves the tendency
of people to label each other according to these
personality assessments. Statements such as
“Oh, I knew you’d do that because
you’re an INTJ,” are heard frequently
after team members reveal their assessment results.
In some cases, instead of encouraging mutual
understanding, these labels actually can polarize
team members’ relationships permanently. After
all, should an INTJ expect to have anything in common
with an ESFP?
If these concerns haven’t convinced you that
these instruments need to be used cautiously, think
about what happens when a team member is
dysfunctional—either occasionally or on a
regular basis. Once a team member’s personality
has been revealed, others may expect him/her to
change personalities to build relationships, improve
team productivity, and resolve conflicts. This is not
only an unreasonable expectation, but it also is
virtually impossible to accomplish in a short time
period.
Psychologists have debated the flexibility of
personality for years; in fact, there is an enormous
amount of research that presents theories on our
natural tendencies to resist personality change and
the factors that are necessary to induce personality
change. Although there are no definitive answers to
the questions, “What does it take to change a
person’s personality and how long does it
take?” it’s clear that the process
doesn’t occur at the mere suggestion that a
change is required or in an instant of intense
concentration.
An Alternative Approach
When all of these issues are taken into account, the
use of personality-oriented assessment instruments
seems to present more risks than benefits. There is
still a need, however, for assessing the differences
among team members in a way that fits the workplace
environment.
Step back for a moment and think about the word
“work.” Dictionaries usually define work
as “carrying on an operation or performing a
job.” In other words, work is about processes.
So why not identify members’ preferred
processes when forming a new team or introducing a
new team member? Why not search for differences in
personal processes to solve conflicts?
There are instruments available for this type of
analysis, but just an open discussion of each team
member’s typical approaches to work is
enlightening. Here are a few questions that can show
the variety of ways in which people accomplish their
work:
- What information do you like to have before you
make a decision? How do you use that information to
reach your decision?
- When you are trying to learn something new,
what do you do to get the basic concepts? To master
the required skills?
- If you need someone else’s assistance to
get your work done, how do you enlist that
person’s aid?
Although team members may approach these processes
differently, discussions of this nature don’t
feel like an invasion of privacy and don’t
generate lifelong labels. Instead, they clarify when
team members’ processes fall into the following
categories:
- Complimentary Processes: Two
or more processes that fit together to create
synergistic outcomes. They are mutually beneficial
and don’t generate ineffectiveness,
inefficiency, or conflict.
- Disconnected Processes: Two or
more processes that peacefully coexist but do not
create synergistic outcomes. They are mutually
beneficial and don’t generate
ineffectiveness, inefficiency, or conflict.
- Interfering Processes: Two or
more processes that do not create synergistic
outcomes and that generate ineffectiveness and/or
inefficiency. Although they may peacefully coexist
without generating conflict, they undermine the
productivity of team members and the
organization.
- Colliding Processes: Two or
more processes that do not create synergistic
outcomes. In fact, they generate conflict,
undermining effectiveness and efficiency, and
occasionally damaging relationships.
Here’s a simple example of different
personal processes that can fall into these
categories. Suppose a team was asked to design a new
recognition program, and the members are trying to
decide what rewards to offer. Each team member was
asked to bring his/her suggestions to the
meeting.
- Mary took a quick poll of the members of her
work group.
- Jim conducted an Internet search to learn the
most common rewards offered by other similar
organizations.
- Martha used to work for another company that
had a program of this nature, and she liked the
rewards offered there.
- Harold grabbed a catalog from the company store
and rank-ordered the available items according to
their prices.
Although all of these are legitimate processes for
gathering and assessing potential rewards, they are
unlikely to generate identical lists. By
understanding the diversity of processes used, the
team members are more likely to give each suggestion
a fair hearing and to gain enormous benefit from
considering the decision from such a broad-based
perspective.
In times of conflict, an analysis of personal
processes can quickly identify how to improve
integration and eliminate collisions. Instead of
asking one person to change his/her approach, all
approaches are examined and shifted slightly to make
them work together successfully. Resolution of the
conflict focuses on the work, not the people, making
it a far more comfortable process.
In a way, this is like putting the pieces of a
puzzle together so that they become a beautiful
picture; team members’ individual processes are
combined to become an integrated workflow that relies
on collaboration and builds interconnectedness.
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