Personality at Work

I came across this very abbreviated article I wrote and was published in the 'letters' section of Business Review Weekly. Here it is again as I think its relevancy is even greater in these economic times.

Two recent articles in BRW (the culture of leaving, March 30, 2006 and half-way to nowhere, April 6, 2006) allude to a common blunder of business - inadequate human capital management. The first highlighted recruitment/people strategy problems and how Coles Myer has frequently struggled to hire "outstanding" people. I have seen created positions for work-life balance, diversity management, culture change ... blah, blah, blah. Yet it is still a culture of leaving. It seems some recruiters and/or executives lack the awareness of who an outstanding person is, but continue to create positions to solve a culture problem without actually getting to the root of the problem, which is probably an ineffective people strategy. People strategy was also part of half- way to nowhere in terms of personality and managers. I am amazed how recruitment agencies make incredulous claims about personality classifications. They are generally based on loose extensions of outdated Jungian typologies. At the very least, these claims are behavioural descriptors, not personality classifications. Three tips for job seekers: (1) get the job description; (2) list the behaviours required to meet the performance criteria; (3) tailor responses to the personality questions accordingly. Simple, but be able to back it up. Mark Busine of DDI, in half-way to nowhere, mentioned 11 personality types; but the Myers-Briggs personality test claims 16 and the NEO Personality Inventory claims 10. Current personality theory after 50 years of research cannot even agree on the number of personality types, yet some HR people and managers are overlooking potential quality individuals, based sometimes on very relaxed ideologies of personality. It is time for some people to realise that humans are multi- determined and greater than the sum of personality parts. At least Busine contends that self- awareness is a key for managers to make sound decisions. That leads into EI (emotional intelligence) ... another time.