Personality Exercise
We had a presentation to our Senior Managers and Directors on Personality Types. We all took a test ahead of time and it rated us via the DiSC profiles. That's one where you fall into one of four quadrants with the axes of Active vs Passive and People vs Task oriented. There are other ratings similar to it and we had done one a few years back. My results were consistent between both tests.
To help illustrate the types, the presenter showed movie clips. This clip was to provide an example of a "D" (sometimes called a Driver or Dominant). They can come across as a "give me what I want and give it to me yesterday" type.
I thought it was a perfect illustration. And, I'm glad I'm not a D. BTW, J. Jonah Jameson always makes me laugh.
The "C" is also called Conscientious or Analytical. Just the facts, man.
We hadn't declared what we were but I got outed pretty quickly when she started talking about the I (Influencer, Expressive) and stated "The Expressive is usually the one scheduling Happy Hour." I haven't seen that many heads swivel my way since I turned off the jukebox at the Best Western in Janesville, WI.
Later that night, I engaged in a text conversation with a colleague.
Her: We are NOT the Shrek donkey.
Me: :D If I had $1 for every time I've asked if we're there yet, I could retire.
In all sincerity, I've been working on trying to enjoy the "now" instead of always anticipating the "future". It's not easy to keep myself in the moment when there's so much ahead to look forward to (or dread). Even though I've been trying to change this focus for years now, I'm rarely successful.
She didn't bother showing us the S (Steady, Amiable) because we didn't have any in our group. Not so surprising in a group of upper management. The real surprise is that we haven't had any cage matches yet amongst our very Dominant crew.
What was quite helpful was learning what triggers negative and extreme responses for each type. For years, I thought people who responded with volatility must be Expressives but I was confusing the emotion with the type. The triggers for my type are rejection, criticism and being ignored. Yes, yes and yes.
My test results this time said I was 83% Expressive and gave the following description:
Let's do it the fun way. Desire to have fun. Needs attention affection approval acceptance. Can talk about anything at any time at any place with or without information. has a bubbling personality, optimism, sense of humor, storytelling ability, likes people.
It's like they knew me.
You can find some sites to take the test on your own for free but most of them make you give up your name and email. This one didn't make me login and it matched the results from my other test.
I definitely got a lot of food for thought out of this exercise and I keep my handout with the descriptions and details on how to relate to each type in my laptop bag so I can refer to it whenever I want. It's come in handy more than once.
To help illustrate the types, the presenter showed movie clips. This clip was to provide an example of a "D" (sometimes called a Driver or Dominant). They can come across as a "give me what I want and give it to me yesterday" type.
I thought it was a perfect illustration. And, I'm glad I'm not a D. BTW, J. Jonah Jameson always makes me laugh.
The "C" is also called Conscientious or Analytical. Just the facts, man.
We hadn't declared what we were but I got outed pretty quickly when she started talking about the I (Influencer, Expressive) and stated "The Expressive is usually the one scheduling Happy Hour." I haven't seen that many heads swivel my way since I turned off the jukebox at the Best Western in Janesville, WI.
Later that night, I engaged in a text conversation with a colleague.
Her: We are NOT the Shrek donkey.
Me: :D If I had $1 for every time I've asked if we're there yet, I could retire.
In all sincerity, I've been working on trying to enjoy the "now" instead of always anticipating the "future". It's not easy to keep myself in the moment when there's so much ahead to look forward to (or dread). Even though I've been trying to change this focus for years now, I'm rarely successful.
She didn't bother showing us the S (Steady, Amiable) because we didn't have any in our group. Not so surprising in a group of upper management. The real surprise is that we haven't had any cage matches yet amongst our very Dominant crew.
What was quite helpful was learning what triggers negative and extreme responses for each type. For years, I thought people who responded with volatility must be Expressives but I was confusing the emotion with the type. The triggers for my type are rejection, criticism and being ignored. Yes, yes and yes.
My test results this time said I was 83% Expressive and gave the following description:
Let's do it the fun way. Desire to have fun. Needs attention affection approval acceptance. Can talk about anything at any time at any place with or without information. has a bubbling personality, optimism, sense of humor, storytelling ability, likes people.
It's like they knew me.
You can find some sites to take the test on your own for free but most of them make you give up your name and email. This one didn't make me login and it matched the results from my other test.
I definitely got a lot of food for thought out of this exercise and I keep my handout with the descriptions and details on how to relate to each type in my laptop bag so I can refer to it whenever I want. It's come in handy more than once.
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