Don’t Put Yourself In A Box
I was trying my best to not eavesdrop on the couple’s conversation. But, if you’re anything like me, i.e. a human, not eavesdropping is one of the hardest things in the world to do, isn’t it? It’s especially hard when you’re sitting five metres away in a completely silent sauna. “I wonder where we should go in Bali?” she said to her boyfriend. I had been to Bali just a few weeks before, so I had a lot of answers to her question. She’s not talking to me. She’s talking to her boyfriend, I kept telling myself. As the timer ticked on the sauna wall, I had more of an urge to interrupt. Not because I wanted to give them advice, but because I wanted to socialise with someone. But for some reason I couldn’t. I had the words, but I couldn’t find the right time to interject.
And that is exactly what people get wrong about me. People assume that because I am often loud, chatty, making jokes that I am this crazy outgoing person that talks to people in elevators. But I’m not. I had it at a workshop this week in Malaysian Borneo. On Monday, I have this outward appearance of being the centre of attention, because I am, I am the workshop trainer. I have done it so many times that I know the moves my body and mouth need to make to have an excellent day with the participants. But on the inside, my Monday brain is thinking: I don’t know these people. What do they like? How do I make them work hard? How do I break the awkward silence? What does fun mean to them?
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My Monday brain is cagey. It is assessing exactly how I dance with this new group of people. It’s also something I get wrong about others. As I wrote this blog, I came across a note I wrote about a friend at Heinz. When we last caught up, I said to her, “you must love organising things because you did such a good job of organising our master’s program.” She looked at me weirdly and said, “I actually don’t like it at all.”
There’s nothing wrong with this judgement. People watch me and see an outgoing person, so they assume I am always outgoing. But it shows that we cannot read each other’s mind and that we are all pretty horrible judges of each other.
But it is dangerous when we don’t know who we are. When we aren’t able to sort through the noise of other’s opinions and focus on our own personality traits, we end up in trouble. We end up blowing in the wind of other people’s lives.
A quick, and I believe incorrect, fix that people try to take is through personality profiles such as DISC. Where it tells you that you are one of four things: yellow, red, blue, green. Since the dawn of humanity 117 billion people have been born – how mental is it that we have a model that categorises people into one or two of four quadrants? You’re either extroverted or introverted, rational or emotional. Insane.
There is so much more nuance to your personality than that. Personally, I am extroverted with people I know and introverted with people I don’t. It might sound strange, but it is entirely true – it’s me. Maybe you are logical when it comes to strategy and emotional when it comes to hiring and firing people.
Of all the psychometric tests out there, I prefer Gallup’s Clifton Strengths. You spend thirty minutes answering 177 different questions and it gives you 34 different personality types in rank order from 1 to 34. For any two people to have same order of 34 personality types you have to do the maths:
1/34! =3.387×10⁻³⁹ = infinitely small it may as well be zero.
Suddenly a throwaway comment that “no two humans are ever the same” sounds pretty accurate. Chances are the ‘real’ version of you isn’t readily explained with four colours. So please, stop taking quizzes that put you in one of four boxes, try something a bit more rigorous. Beyond idle chit chat, it’s not helpful to you to know these things. It is more limiting than helpful to say, “I am logical and not emotional.” All of us are both emotional and logical in different domains of our lives to different degrees.
Working on our Clifton Strengths in Malaysian Borneo this Tuesday, I had a wonderful comment from Kelvin, who said, “our individual strengths are like a fingerprint.” I was different that day, I joked back with Kelvin, “thanks for that, it’s a great comment, I will add that to my slide show for the next workshop. I’ll even give you 0.0001% of all future workshop profits.”
Me on Monday would never have made that joke. But on Tuesday, I am a different person. I am fun, energetic, making jokes, challenging people, interacting more with the group. I’ve just spent Monday assessing the team and now I feel like I know them. Suddenly I not only look extroverted, but I feel extroverted.
Someone looking through their lens of the world might say, “but Jack, why don’t you just do that from Monday?” I don’t have an answer for you other than, “it’s just who I am.”
We don’t always need to be put into boxes. Sometimes it’s much smarter to stay outside. How many interviews have you had when someone has asked you a version of, “tell me about a time that you have been… direct, hardworking, creative, logical.” We then come up with an answer that helps them see that we fit into their worldview.
To me, a much smarter interview question would be, “tell me about a time when you did something completely different to everyone else.” Or better still, “tell me how your personality might confuse me.”
However, we can’t wait for the world to ask us these smart questions. We have to become comfortable with controlling our own narrative. It means really understanding the complexity, the nuance and the controversy of your character. It means being able to then communicate it with the people around you, to say, “this is who I am.”
All good blogs finish where they started. You’ll be pleased to know that despite the sweat, I plucked up the courage to talk to that couple in the sauna about Bali. I even talked to an American and an Italian on the plane on my way to Shanghai about the Hyrox race we are all going to do. After all that strife, maybe I am extroverted?
Deepen Your Curiosity
If you have read all this way and you’re interested in strengths, do either take the Clifton strengths assessment or book a free coaching session with Pat. Or better yet, take the Clifton strengths assessment and then talk through it with Pat.
