Appreciating Different Personalities at Work

Perhaps you've noticed that certain personality styles at work complement yours, while
others rub you the wrong way. Research shows that dominant parts of one’s personality don’t change and are genetic, not learned or attributable to environment. This is good news because you can be confident that changing others’ personalities is out of the question. A better approach is recognizing their strengths and using these strengths in areas where you fall short. At work, three dominant categories appear when you’re trying to solve a problem—employees who are imaginative (the idea people), those who are analytical and ask effective questions that impartially challenge the idea people, and those who are inherently critical, driven to find the rub, the catch, why something won’t work, and the risk. Accepting each of these personalities as resources takes real guts because you must appreciate and value a style unlike your own—one you may usually avoid. This week, practice this resource approach with the benefit of your employer’s goal or mission in mind, and see if the end result isn't better solutions, found more quickly, that improve productivity.