From strategic planning to change management, our customers are facing all kinds of complex challenges, and the team performance in their organizations is not satisfactory. But our research shows that the board can't be played on team members. The mistake is that leaders fail to adopt different working methods and viewpoints effectively, even the top leadership can't. Some managers don't realize that the differences between employees are so great; Others don't know how to deal with differences and contradictions, or don't realize the consequences of letting themselves go. As a result, many opinions are ignored or omitted, and performance is affected.
In order to help leaders find and fill the gaps, Deloitte developed a "business chemistry" system, which divided employees into four types of workplace personalities and found relevant strategies to achieve the same goal. The existing personality tests are not specially designed for the workplace, relying too much on introspection and failing to achieve our original intention. So we consulted Helen Fisher, a biological anthropologist at Rutgers University. Her research on the brain chemical reaction in love relationship is very enlightening to understand the working style and interaction in the workplace.
Based on this study, we observe and infer a series of business-related characteristics and preferences from workplace behavior. Then a test development company designed the test for us. We used three independent samples and invited more than 1000 professionals to test. Finally, we cooperated with Lee Silver, a molecular biologist at Princeton, and applied his demographic model to our commercial population data, and quantitatively deduced four types.
Up to now, more than 654.38+0.9 million people have completed our workplace personality test, and we have also conducted follow-up research to explore how each personality responds to stress, the most suitable development links for each personality, and other factors related to effective management of various personalities. We also organized more than 3,000 "laboratories" (90-minute to 3-day interactive meetings) to collect more data and explore strategies and skills to make full use of different workplace personalities.
We will explain the value of each workplace personality contribution, meet the challenge of different workplace personalities working together, and describe how to use cognitive diversity in the organization.
Understand the personality of the workplace
Each of us is composed of these four kinds of workplace personalities, but most people's behaviors and thoughts may be more in line with one or two of them. Whether it's enlightening ideas, making decisions or solving problems, all professionals can bring valuable and unique perspectives. In short, these four main workplace personalities can be summarized as follows:
Pioneers pay attention to possibilities, and they can stimulate the energy and imagination in the team. They are willing to take risks, trust their instincts and look at the big picture. Bold ideas and innovative methods appeal to them.
Guardians pay attention to stability, they bring order and rigor. They are pragmatic and will hesitate in the face of risks. Data and facts are their bottom line, and details are also important to them. The Guardian believes that the past will never forget the future.
Promoters pay attention to challenges and generate motivation. The most important thing for them is the result and success. Promoters tend to look at things in black and white and hit the nail on the head with logic and data.
Integrators pay attention to contact and bring the team together. The most important thing for them is teamwork and sense of responsibility. Integrators tend to think that most things are closely related. They have strong communication skills and focus on how to reach an agreement.
Theoretically, a team that can make these four types of personalities work together has many advantages in cognitive diversity, such as creativity and innovation, and can make better decisions. However, diversified teams have repeatedly failed, sometimes stagnant, and sometimes burdened with serious contradictions. If a leader wants to turn things around, he must first determine the personalities of team members in the workplace, and then figure out how to motivate each personality.
In the course of the research, we classified thousands of subjects according to their workplace personality, and asked them to list the factors that motivate them and alienate them in the workplace. The results are quite different-the motivation factor of this personality may be the alienation factor of their personality (see chart "Portrait of Workplace Personality"). Some differences are related to interpersonal communication. For example, integrators hate conflicts of any nature, but promoters like to argue. Once, a CFO and his team were discussing an executive meeting. One integrator admitted that she was afraid to bring up some topics because "there will always be unpleasant arguments". The CFO himself is the initiator, which is surprising: "but this is how we discuss the problem!" " "
Different ideas and contribution methods of different workplace personalities will also bring problems. For example, it is meaningless for pioneers to go through detailed plans one by one for guardians; Pioneers want to skip details or describe completely different ideas. On the contrary, the pioneers just quickly sum up their views without mentioning any agenda or structure, which is too messy and unrealistic for the orderly guardian.
The four workplace personalities give leaders and teams the same language to discuss the similarities and differences of people's feelings and work preferences. The team began to understand why they felt quite challenging at certain moments (different viewpoints and methods), and they also began to realize the hidden power in differences.
For example, it is difficult for a management team to get its members to reach a strategic agreement, and there are constant conflicts between people in the process. The leader spent a lot of time and energy because everyone kept asking him to complain about others. Through consultation with the team, we found the law that makes people with different personalities uncomfortable: guardians feel that their due diligence stage has passed; Pioneers believe that innovation is suppressed by ruthlessness and stubbornness; The sponsor was frustrated by the indecision of the team; Integrators are troubled by disrespectful behaviors such as rolling their eyes.
Our discussion focuses on the advantages of the team, such as being willing to share ideas and express concerns, and being committed to generating innovative ideas and supporting the company. The team brainstormed and conceived strategies to accept different workplace personalities and learn from the advantages of many families. One month after we met with the team, the members said that they were actively inferring the personality of others in the workplace and had a deeper understanding of the team itself. More importantly, they said that they have a stronger sense of mission and improved their ability to accomplish their goals.
Managing personality in the workplace
Once you have determined the occupational character of team members and started to consider the advantages and disadvantages of their differences, you must actively deal with these differences. Otherwise, these differences may do more harm than good. There are three ways to deal with personality differences in the workplace.
Method 1: Close the opposite workplace personality. When diametrically opposed styles collide, the most painful pain points often exist in one-to-one relationships. Everyone in the workplace has a different personality from others, but the difference is different. For example, guardians are often more conservative than promoters, but both have the characteristics of being very focused, so as to find * * *. Defenders and pioneers are completely opposite, as are integrators and promoters.
As you might expect, when diametrically opposed personalities meet in the workplace, interpersonal problems that hinder cooperation often appear. In fact, among the people who participated in our survey, 40% said it was the most difficult to cooperate with the opposite workplace personality, and 50% said it was the most unhappy to cooperate with the opposite workplace personality. Each personality lists different reasons for getting along.
For example, a counselor explained why she didn't like working with such an integrator:
"In order to make everyone cooperate happily, I always have to say some pleasantries, which makes me feel very tired. I just want to finish my work, give you a frank and direct evaluation and move on. Taking care of sensitive emotions has affected my efficiency. "
An integrator who finds it difficult to cooperate with promoters said:
"In order to find out the ins and outs of the overall situation, I have to deal with many affairs. Promoters usually say some argots and some fragmented ideas that need us to decipher. "
The Guardian tells us:
"I am always thinking about how to achieve one thing. Although the pioneers have good ideas, they are often reluctant to discuss how to achieve it. If the results don't meet their expectations, they will be very depressed! "
The pioneers acknowledged that:
"In order to adapt to the guardian, I had a lot of trouble. I am decisive, and I conceive ideas without prejudice. Guardians sometimes think too much and it is easy to stifle creativity. "
Although the confusion caused by this difference may affect team performance, the opposite workplace personality can be balanced by time and effort. The combination of guardians and pioneers who worked with us didn't go well at first, but by openly discussing everyone's differences, their cooperative relationship finally became stronger. Pioneers used to talk about Kan Kan in front of many people, even if they spoke off the cuff. No matter how well prepared, The Guardian is afraid of public speaking. If the pioneer and the guardian make a report together, the pioneer will usually be impatient, while the guardian thinks he is unprepared and wary. As they spent more and more time together, they began to build trust and adapt to each other. Pioneer found that caretakers' carefulness can often get them out of trouble, and more preparation can also make her perform better at that time. Defenders have learned that the free play style of the vanguard is more infectious, which enables them to respond to the needs of the audience more flexibly and quickly. She found that working with pioneers made her more relaxed and adventurous.
By narrowing the distance with the opposite personality in the workplace-let them cooperate in small projects, and if successful, gradually expand the scale of cooperative projects, which can help your team establish complementary cooperation. In addition, it is important for managers to actively cooperate with the opposite workplace personality to balance their own tendencies-that is, to produce so-called "constructive friction." For example, Lennon and McCartney, Williams, Jobs and Wozniak. It is the differences that make these teams stronger.
Method 2: Emphasize the label of the team. If you lead a team of 10 people, 7 of whom are guardians, which leadership style should you choose? For the benefit of most people, it may seem practical to choose a way that suits the guardian. But according to our experience, it is more effective to adopt a way that conforms to the habits of minority members in the workplace, because only by paying attention to the ideas of these minorities can diversity be brought into play.
If the proportion of team personality in the workplace is unbalanced, it will easily lead to cognitive bias, which will lead to waterfall effect (for details of waterfall effect, see the article "Breaking the Group Myth" in February 20 14). You can imagine trying to change the direction of a waterfall, which is almost impossible without professional engineering technology. But the waterfall effect in the team often happens like this: once ideas, discussions and decisions start to flow in a certain direction, the power to converge in this direction will continue to grow. Once the mainstream view is formed, even if there are other views in the team, it can't shake the flow. Because when a point of view is clearly supported, people will hesitate to raise objections.
There are many reasons for the formation of power: the reputation waterfall effect is often because people are afraid of losing face or being punished for holding different opinions. The information waterfall effect arises because people always think that members who speak early know things that others don't. No matter what type it belongs to, the waterfall effect makes people start to set limits themselves and fall into the group myth, so the team can't make effective use of diversity.
In the teams we have worked with, about half of the people have a balanced workplace personality, while the rest are dominated by one or two personalities. We also found that among most senior leaders, the highest proportion is the pioneer, followed by the promoter (see chart "Portrait of Leadership"). In many cases, most members of the management team share the same workplace personality as the leaders, which makes the team particularly vulnerable to the waterfall effect. Pioneers are often extroverted and like to improvise. They are quick-thinking and enthusiastic, and sometimes they don't think carefully before speaking. Similarly, promoters like leading groups. They are competitive and straightforward, and may not have the patience to listen to others and express their views directly. When pioneers or promoters dominate the mainstream or get the support of similar leaders, they can easily make comments early and dominate the waterfall effect.
A leader asked us to help analyze his team: although the team efficiency is good, it is often criticized by internal stakeholders for its lack of communication skills. We analyzed the structure of the team and found that decisive and outspoken promoters accounted for the majority. When we asked whether this personality would irritate others, these salesmen retorted that they knew exactly what to do and had no time to take care of others' emotions.
There are also a few integrators in the team-they are the people who can handle interpersonal relationships best in the workplace personality. But the integrator is marginalized, so he seldom speaks. They told us that they felt deprived of the right to speak and despised. Although they are willing to share their thoughts and opinions with us privately, they are unwilling to confront most of the promoters in the team. As a result, the team's ability to improve relations with stakeholders is weakened.
How can we highlight the minority views in the team, avoid waterfall effect and marginalization, and not offend others? You can refer to the following tips.
If you try to get guardians to share their opinions, you must give them time and details, and they need to be prepared to discuss or decide. Then, you should allow them to express themselves in a comfortable way (for example, in writing), and don't expect them to argue, because most of the time they won't. You should not make reading and preparation in advance a mandatory rule. It can be used as a reference for those members (such as pioneers) who don't want to waste time on it to reduce the burden.
In order to get the opinions of pioneers, you should leave enough room for discussion, provide them with whiteboards and encourage people to stand up and take out markers. You can estimate the length of the discussion in advance, so that people who want a more organized discussion (especially guardians) can speak freely.
For integrators, you need to spend some energy to build a real relationship with them and then ask them what they think. You also need to seek and give them the right to seek the opinions of other team members and stakeholders; Explore with them how discussions or decisions affect more people. Doing this homework well in advance can prevent the promoters from being anxious at the meeting and thinking that they have wasted a lot of time making polite remarks.
The host wants you to talk to them easily and explain the clear connection between the current discussion or decision and the big goal process. In order to arouse their interest and enthusiasm, you can add some elements of experiments or competitions, such as training programs in the form of games. Personality types such as integrators may not be so interested in competition, so they should also find ways to establish or consolidate relationships-for example, providing opportunities to socialize with rival teams.
In addition to these skills for different personality types in the workplace, there are some broader ways to strengthen the team's attention to minority views:
Encourage a few people to speak as soon as possible and give them a chance to influence the direction of the conversation before the waterfall effect forms. The classic experiment of Polish psychologist Solomon Ashe on obedience shows that even if only one person does not conform to the crowd, it will greatly increase the opportunities for others to express different opinions. You can use this phenomenon to encourage constructive dissent.
You can also ask team members to brainstorm in advance, and then let them take turns to share their views in the meeting. Research shows that this method is more effective than collective brainstorming. Similar to letting a few people speak first, personal brainstorming during voting can allow more different opinions to join the group before a particular opinion becomes mainstream. For those who prefer to be in a quiet atmosphere or are used to thinking and expressing their opinions more carefully, polls give them more right to speak. If there is a lack of members of a certain personality in the team, you can try to make other members think like a minority personality-be sure to let them do so before the mainstream view is formed. Many of us may be used to saying, "Please play the role of naysayer"; Now we can say: "Please play the role of guardian", or "If you look at this problem from the perspective of promoters?" . We find that once the team understands these four kinds of workplace personalities, it will be easier to put themselves in others' shoes when necessary, thus making the one-dimensional discussion full and comprehensive.
Method 3: Pay close attention to sensitive introverts. Although the team affected by the waterfall effect may lose all the opinions put forward by a few personalities, those members who are very introverted or sensitive are most likely to be ignored. We found the most introverted and sensitive people among guardians, but we also found a small group of people who can be classified as "quiet integrators" among integrators. Because introverted and sensitive people are often not in the majority in the team, unless the leaders deliberately approach them, they are rarely heard.
For guardians, the waterfall effect formed by pioneers or promoters is greater than Niagara Falls; Because the guardian is conservative and cautious in decision-making, avoiding conflicts. Especially when the number of guardians is small, if others express their opinions loudly, they may be reluctant to speak. Similarly, quiet integrators are particularly reluctant to confront others, and they value knowledge. So if the team seems to have tilted in one direction, they are reluctant to put forward other views. Neither the guardian nor the quiet integrator wants to take risks, nor do they want to be "early birds" and question the wisdom of most people.
Let's take a look at several situations in which guardians and integrators are affected by pressure. In a study of more than 20,000 professionals inside and outside Deloitte, guardians and integrators are more likely to feel stressed than pioneers and promoters (see chart "Pressure Mountain"). Moreover, in all the situations we investigated, such as face-to-face communication, conflict, sense of urgency, heavy workload and facing mistakes, their stress level is higher. In the second sample of more than 654.38+700,000 respondents, guardians and integrators are inefficient under pressure. These results verify the works of writer Susan Kane and psychologist Elaine Allen on highly sensitive people. Both of them found that today's dangerous, open space and highly cooperative working environment pose special challenges to the above-mentioned personnel.
Since most executives are pioneers and promoters, you may wish to consider the above situation in this context. The most introverted, stressed and adaptable people are often led by the most extroverted, stressed and adaptable people. So you can see clearly where everyone's work is difficult.
You may ask, why cater to sensitive introverts? Shouldn't they learn to adapt to and manage pressure and speak out when they encounter difficulties? People who may not be able to do this will not become your employees at all.
We suggest that we should pay attention to them. Kane and Allen's research shows that more sensitive and introverted people have unique advantages, which are beneficial to teams and organizations. For example, they are cautious and meticulous-they are very good at finding mistakes and potential risks. They can stay highly focused for a long time. They are also excellent listeners, and they are more willing to cooperate with other people's good ideas than steal the limelight themselves. They are usually better at solving detail-oriented work that others can't or don't want to do. Therefore, you deserve to put your energy into sensitive introverts.
In order to maximize the strength of the guardians and quiet integrators in the team, you can ask yourself how to limit their stress level to a controllable level. You may need to find ways to slow down, reduce information overload, provide a quiet or private office environment, or protect them from interference so that they can concentrate and not be distracted.
Secondly, we can borrow a sentence about the advantages of introverts from Susan Kane's famous TED talk: "Please stop the crazy group work! Stop it! " If guardians and quiet integrators can be given some time to act alone, more introspection is needed, and their participation will be higher. Ask them if some work is better done alone.
Sensitive introverts may be unwilling to lead others, not willing to participate in competition, and even not good at words, but don't think this means indifference. They have been observing and following up. If you want to know their opinion, please ask them directly in a relaxed way. When they are unprepared, it may be counterproductive to ask the guardian or the quiet integrator unexpectedly. If you give them a chance to prepare and then set aside time for them to speak at the meeting, they will be happy to share their views. A leader who works with us is very good at this. Before meeting with introverts, she will tell introverts what the focus of the meeting is, and put forward specific requirements for them to speak, so as to promote their participation, such as: "What do you think of the X problem in Y link during the meeting?"
Defenders and quiet integrators spend a lot of time and energy summing up their mistakes, so it is very important to create a relaxed environment and encourage employees to work hard while allowing employees to make mistakes. Because the team with psychological security performs better than the team with low security, it can benefit all members of the workplace personality.
Practical theory
We have seen the influence of workplace personality theory on executives and teamwork. Moreover, the two co-authors of this paper are also diametrically opposite workplace personalities, and we have personally felt the role of theory. Jin, one of the authors of this paper, is a pioneer and has some characteristics of promoter. She pays attention to broad thinking and rapid progress. Most members of her team are also extroverted and casual pioneers. Susanna is a guardian and a quiet integrator-she has a dual personality of introversion and sensitivity, which makes her different from most team members. Susanna's handling of problems is profound and rigorous, and she doesn't like to do it overnight. When working with Kim and other members, Susanna sometimes feels that she is threading a needle in a storm. For Kim, working with Susanna is like running in deep water.
At first, our cooperation was not smooth sailing, but as time went on, we found that the effect of cooperation was getting better and better. Susanna understands that there is always a big picture in Kim's heart; Kim trusts Susanna because she controls all the details. As the captain, Kim left Suzanne a free space to give full play to her best field. Our cooperation has become better as a result, and so has the team. (Liu Yizheng | Translation? Liu Xiaowei | School Li Quanwei | Editor)
Susanna Vickberg is a social personality psychologist and the chief researcher of Deloitte's business chemistry system. Kim Crisford is the national executive director of Deloitte's greenhouse project, and she is also one of the founding designers of commercial chemical reactions.