Is Your Personality Right For Your Job?

This is game Plan. Hi, I'm Rebecca Greenfield an E n t J. And I'm Francesca Levi E n f P. And this week we're talking about personality types and why they matter to your employer at all. The E N t J spell it out, Um, you should probably explain what it is. Yeah, So that is the Myers Briggs personality types. It's a personality test that I'm kind of obsessed with. I don't know about you, where they give

you four letters and there are sixteen different combinations. You're either an E or an I, so an extrovert or an introvert And then big surprise, we're both extroverts, both extroverts, and then you can be an END or an S and then E N. Yeah, it's just thinking, feeling, and then a PJ, which is perceiving, judging, and then your combination determines who you are as a person. Right, I'm not going to do the math right now, but a

bunch of different possible combinations. You're so good at math, and it's supposed to tell you something about I don't know, like how you approach problem solving or just move through life. And people get into Myers Briggs like you see it on people's Twitter bios, and you know, people describe people describe themselves that way, Like there's something about those binary choices in four different categories that people relate to when it comes to trying to understand like who they are.

But this is more than just a fun thing that I talked about with my friends all the time. It turns out that lots of employers use them to determine who they should hire. So they have you take a Myers Briggs personality test and then decide if you're the right fit for the job. Like I just saw some article on CNBC about the Myers Briggs, that's the most hirable. I think it's the E. S. T J, which neither

you nor I had. So Yeah, So companies use not just Myers Briggs, but other personality tests that staffing firms have provided or that they've created in the house. And there was a wave of companies starting to do this a few years ago where it was felt that there were things that you could tell about somebody that you can't really get at through a job interview, and to really understand where they're going to be good at a job,

you have to kind of go under the surface. And I think that's how these personality tests as part of the job application process kind of rosen prominence. Yeah. A friend of mine told me that his company made him take one that's put on by Gallup called strength Finder, And you take another one of these tests. It's a hundred seventy questions and it tells you your top five strengths.

And according to Gallup, they say it's valuable because when employees are doing things that played to their strengths, they claim that they're more productive, happier, more engaged. So you should take your strength Finder test and then you can figure out what you're best out and do that at work. Of course, the flip side is that if you don't have the strengths that they've decided you're looking for, they

can just not hire you. Yeah, they're definitely a lot of downsides to these personality tests, mainly that a lot of them are not exactly based on any science or psychology. There have been so many articles about how my Ris Brigg says completely based on no psychology or science and probably made up. There have also been criticisms that they're

kind of discriminatory. That basically, whenever you're evaluating somebody on your personality or looking for a good personality fit, you're looking for somebody who just slots easily into the corporate culture that you already have set up or that you most desire. As the employer. The personality type is basically a proxy for being like the people who already work there. Okay, but I do think your personality matters in the job

that you do. I feel like I hear a lot about this from introverts and extroverts, like there are certain jobs that are just better for introverts and certain jobs that are better for extrots. And that seems to make sense to me. Yeah, you often hear I mean, you and I are in communications oriented roles, so being an extrovert is helpful. We have to talk to a lot

of people all the time in our jobs. Um, but I've heard about coders being introverts and needing in quiet spaces and like even low ceilings and confined rooms to feel most comfortable. So there's definitely different types of jobs that draw different types of personalities. Um, the question is

how you identify those people and whether you're doing it right. Yeah, I mean a test is not exactly the right way to be measuring the type of people who should be working at the type of places, right, But if you know maybe more about yourself and who you are, then you can kind of figure out how that matches up with your skills and what job you might be best to go into. I think you get into trouble when it's employers making the decision about what your personality is.

There's probably some upside to knowing a little bit about who you are, what you like and don't like, and what characteristics you have, and like what would be the ideal office for you based on that, And that's what our guests is going to talk to us about today. Alissa Doll is the author of cringe Worthy, a Theory of Awkwardness. Her book is about figuring out what's behind those awkward moments you feel and how you can use

them to your advantage. So, Melissa, what would you say your personality type is so the small distinction that like, I'm obsessed with I'm kind of interested in understanding awkwardness more as a feeling than a personality trait, if that makes sense. It's something that like I think it can be both things, certainly, but sometimes I think that people who you know are quote awkward kind of like the Michael Scott's or like Larry David's of the world, maybe

don't always feel it themselves. So so that is one way to kind of like maybe bring it back to personality that there are people who are more likely to feel this way, and I certainly am like kind of the whole book was just like this query of like, why does this feeling drive me insane? And way longer go. When I started working on it was like me trying to like just construct these barriers between myself and this feeling that because it drives me insane. But it kind

of became like, Okay, maybe this is something useful. Maybe sometimes it sounds like you're saying you can have a feeling that doesn't necessarily translate to how other people perceive you, or you can be a person who makes other people feel uncomfortable all the time and not even notice it. What is that feeling? Can you say a little more

about it? Yeah? So, in psychological literature, they are these things called self conscious emotions, and it's kind of like shame and embarrassment, and that's kind of how I am understanding awkwardness. So it's kind of like the self conscious aspect of those things. But there's also this under a layer of uncertainty of just like what am I supposed to say or do now? You know? Um? And kind of like the distinction if this helps between that helps make it clear in my mind. Is a scene from

the Office from the American Office. It is the episode where Michael like burns his foot on a George form and yes, a good one to know that one well.

And so he thinks that pill in the office aren't like being adequately understanding of his impairments, and so he kind of calls this like this meeting about like let's talk about like impairments and disability and like how we just like shouldn't you know, stigmatize people who struggle with these things and Um, and he brings in Um, the building manager who uses a wheelchair, and he kind of like starts saying like, this is just I've used a wheelchair since I was a little kid, Like, it's not

even necessarily something I noticed at this point, and Michael breaks in and he says like, well, if you noticed it, didn't you, but it was the first thing you noticed when he walked in here. And so to me, that kind of makes the distinction between like, Michael is incredibly awkward and that was an incredibly awkward thing to say, but I don't think he feels it, you know, but everyone else in the room is like, oh my god, Like,

what what do we say now? I'm so uncomfortable. Yeah, it's like he's an awkward person, yes, but we all feel awkward, yes, And I think that there are people who are more bothered by that feeling, and you're one

of those people. I think. So I'm wondering when was when did you realize that this was something that really got to you, this awkward feeling, or that you even had it, So, I mean, if I can kind of like armchair psychologist myself, I think like when we're teenagers, everybody feels this to it a really extreme degree, like um, and we know that and there's there's researched on that as well, that teenagers are really like sensitive to moments

that kind of like deviate from the norm. How does like the work environment or just the working world in general exacerbate these these feelings or does it? I think definitely so, because work is like this atmosphere, and it's a coincidence that like there are two like giant hit shows about awkwardus in the office, right like and the Office of the office and the office, and like there's like international versions to this is like a very you know,

like a international thing. I think it's that there are spoken rules, but then there are so many like unspoken rules about you know, you definitely like have to be here at a certain time and you have to get this in at a certain time, but then there are all these like unwritten rules about like what is appropriate and like what should be communicated and what shouldn't be So it's kind of like navigating that like the gray areas.

I suppose is where this can come up for me certainly so, and you also mentioned it's a lot about a self consciousness, and we're so often in situations that work with people were definitely not comfortable with and wouldn't necessarily be around. I wonder if that has something to do with it. Oh, definitely, Yeah, that's that's actually a really interesting point. Yeah, So it's kind of like figuring out how to relate to other people or like how

they're kind of seeing you. Um. But for for me, kind of one of the aspects of self consciousness at work is um. Some something I reade about in the book is like part of awkwardness is like when the version of yourself that like you kind of keep this little version of yourself in your mind. And I think sometimes awkwardness can be the result of seeing that maybe

you don't look that way to other people. So sometimes this can be extremely dark in the workplace, Like if you just kind of google like awkward workplace situations, when that comes up a lot is like salary negotiations or something, you know, Yeah, and that's like literally you have to say, like I think I am worth this much, I think that I have X experience to get this job, and and it's kind of I think it's awkward because you're putting yourself out there to have people say to you like, well,

actually I think you're worth this much. So yeah, and it takes you right out of your comfort zone of like what is a normal interaction that's such a rare conversation that you have a salary negotiation that there aren't you don't automatically know the rules for it. Again, it's it's something where they're there are sort of rules, but there aren't really. I mean like sometimes it's even like in a job interview. Sometimes it's brought up right away.

Sometimes you have to ask about it. It's uh, yeah, there's a lot of there's a lot of grayness there. So we talked about the awkward job negotiations and salaries, But do you have any specific examples of awkward moments that you've experienced at the office or seen your coworkers experience that you want to share. They're like big ways in small ways, this can come up, you know, Like just recently, we kind of had like a bit of a restructure at work, and I didn't like literally didn't

know who my boss was for a minute. Which was weird and uncomfortable to admit. Um, But by that point I was finishing up the book, so I knew not to be afraid of the awkwardness, and I just had to kind of have the conversation and say I'm sorry. Who was my supervisor at this point or this was a long time ago, but I got a promotion and nobody knew about it, like my boss didn't tell anybody about it. So I had to just bring up, like, hey,

this is making things weird for me. It was extremely award to tell people like I'm more senior than you now yeah. Yeah, So I had to be the one who kept having to be like, well, I actually remember this specifically, like, um, I was talking with somebody in like a different department who hadn't heard it about any of this, and they kept saying like, oh, should we run this by X person? And I just kept having to say like like no, no, we don't need to, like no, I'm I can give you okay on this

or yeah. So that was that was That was awkward. Um. So you have some techniques or ideas in your book of how to kind of overcome some of these awkward situations. Do you want to kind of give us a taste of those. Okay, Well, to me, like the big the biggest kind of thing to kind of get your head around is like, can you maybe start to see these moments as as funny rather than rather than horrible, rather than scary? You know. I mean it's it's not always possible,

but that can kind of help these things be less scary. Um, And you know, the uncertainty aspect of it's just like human nature to be to be kind of apprehensive about uncertain situations. Um, but just to kind of learn how to like withstand that is comfort of uncertainty. Um. This is in the book, but this of a friend who told me about um, their boss who this was like

a notorious story around their office. I guess where people would like come in and um like ask for a raise or ask for a promotion, and the boss would just like like sit there and just like let like awkward moments of silence, just like tick By. And the story I guess was that people just would end up being like never mind, like you know what, I'll take

a pay cut, I'll take into motion, you know. So so if you can kind of like figure out how to just be comfortable in awkward silences and awkward moments and just realize it's it's uncomfortable, but it's not going to kill you. Sort of feels high risk, but maybe

the reward is higher. So, um, you know, just for an uncomfortable situation where that I mentioned before that you know, I had gotten this like weird secret promotion, Like I just kind of that was really weird for a while, and I was really afraid of talking to my boss and being like, I'm can you can you like send a note about this? Can you tell people about this? But I finally did it and then he was like, oh, yeah, of course, no, I see, I see how that would help.

And so then, um, you know that did help. People are so clueless and really well if you didn't think to do that, yeah, exactly exactly. It's kind of just like, I don't know, kind of a motto for me has sort of been like you have to either face the awkwardness or just like accept the situation, like and and maybe maybe sometimes you can with withstand the situation, but I think it's usually worth trying to just say something

and have the awkward conversation. You also argue that maybe we shouldn't try to get over awkwardness and that it's good. How can that be possible? What I mean more by that is that if you are a person who is like sensitive to these moments, that's not necessarily a bad thing. Like that means that you're picking up on discomfort and you're picking up on these on these moments where there is some kind of like gray areas, and that's not a bad thing. It's good to be like aware of that.

I would much rather be the kind of person who's aware of that than the kind of person who just like causes discomfort and Michael Scott and Michael Scott, Yeah, I don't. I would rather be the kind of person who is aware of these moments and you know, you could learn to use them, like my friend's boss, who like you know, is able to just like have some uncomfortable moments take by It sounds like also you have, as you described earlier, sometimes you have these feelings that

aren't necessarily perceived by others. So maybe just knowing how how common it is allows you to let yourself off the hook a little bit for those those moments. Yeah, definitely, I mean this is this is something in the book actually ah, it's called the spotlight effect. This is something in this psychological literature, and it's kind of this idea that like your flaws are much more, they stand out more in your mind just because you're paying more attention

to yourself, you know. But like there was a there was a question actually, um, kind of in your guys email to me that was like, you know, or maybe maybe we talked about this, maybe someone said this during our conversation, but like, you know, a time when someone else caused an awkward moment. I've been like trying to think about that all morning, Like I'm sure, of course that's happened, but like, why can't I think of anything?

You know. It's just like your own moments stand out more in your mind just because you're paying more attention to yourself. And it's not to say that other people aren't noticing, because they certainly do. But but maybe they notice and then they immediately forget about it, or like they noticed there just who cares? You know, I that was weird, but like, you know, like I said something

weird two hours ago. So that's a lesson. We've definitely talked about here on game Plan that people don't really care about you know, what's really thinking about you as much as you're thinking, oh my god, it's such a like freeing thing when you realize that actually just like yeah, no one, no one really cares that much. Like it's it's great. Are there ways though, that you do think we can use our awkwardness to our advantage at work?

One thing, like maybe like if you say something, um, and it was taken in the wrong way and so you kind of caused an awkward moment um, you could kind of think of that as an opportunity to grow a little bit or to learn a little bit, you know, if someone didn't perceive you in the way that you think you're coming off, like, oh, I didn't mean it that way, but that's that's how they saw that. And maybe I should take that in and consider that and consider how I can say things better or I can

do things better so people are understanding me. Um. But I don't know, I really think just like part of it is just like keeping a sense of humor about it too, Just like if if you if you are attuned to these moments, just like just letting yourself off the hook a little bit for him, if you see other people if if you're more attuned to this in yourself, you probably notice it more in others too, and kind

of just like helping them out of situations. Um. So, yeah, I liked what you said about if you're awkward or if you have a lot of these moments, it's probably a sign that you're more tuned in and the average person to the social dynamics of a situation. So may be being aware of that can actually give you a slight advantage, even if in the moment it feels terrible. Yeah,

I do think so. Yeah, it's like you're you're paying attention to these like these nuances of human interaction, and so it means you're maybe like noticing people's moods or people's reactions to you, which can certainly be to your benefit. I wouldn't really want this feeling to totally go away, you know, because like when it comes up, it like it means like, oh, something went wrong, why you know, And that's that's useful. Well, thank you so much for

coming and talking to us about awkward. Thanks. Thanks guys. We think of personality types as these fixed things like you are an E. N T J. But I like how Melissa makes a distinction where awkwardness is a feeling like you are you feel awkward and therefore you can

overcome it. It's not like something that you're stuck in. Yeah, I think it's probably a lot more helpful to think about, you know, areas where you might have strengths and weaknesses than it is to just try and classify yourself and leave it there forever, because you can probably close off a lot of opportunities. Like even when I take that Myers Briggs test, like I've taken it a few times

and I always get a slightly different result. I'm always an extrovert, but you know, the P and the T and the J like that gets mixed around a little because you're always shifting and changing. So I think that's probably part of the danger of using it to screen people too, But it can probably give you some clues into the areas that maybe you could work on a little bit more if it's right for your job thoughts. Right, you don't always have to be an E N T. J if you don't want to be. Yeah, you can

change and grow as a person. And the other thing I think is important to remember is that if you are doing a job and you feel like your personality isn't perfect for that job. Like, let's say you're an introvert, but you're in a job that requires a lot of communication. It's not totally out of the question to try and move toward work that you are better at because you

are more suited to it personality wise. I think we can tend to think like, oh, there's jobs that just need to be done here, and that's what my boss hired me for, so they'll never consider me doing this other thing. But actually, like, if you're not very good at your current job or very productive in your current job, because you're not super well suited to it and there's something you could be better at, like good manager will

be able to identify that. It's better to have you being productive and engaged at work at something you're good at than kind of checked out at something you're not that good at because it's just not your personality. So what you're saying is I'm still allowed to be weirdly into taking my mayor's brace. Yeah, just have fun with it, don't take it too seriously. And now it's time for

half bake takes half fake takes. If you have your own half fake take you can call into our hotline at two and two six seven zero one six six. If you called it recently and it didn't work, we are so sorry. There were technical difficulties on our end, but we promised to get it up and running again, and it's our last chance. So Colin Francesca, what is

your half pick? Take? Well, Melissa got me thinking about awkward moments, and I have a virtual one that I just want to get off my chest because I feel like a lot of people probably feel this as well. It's that special mortification that you get when you open up your workplace group chat software of your preference and you see a message from a colleague and you like reply really excitedly, like oh my god, yes, I totally

agree or whatever. You have some urgent response, and then a line break appears and you realize they actually sent that message, like on a Friday, and it's Monday morning or even late last night, and you just completely missed the conversation. But now you're weighing it is a You're in the middle of the conversation. Do you know what I'm talking about? Am I talking to the wind here? No? I get it, um, I get less. I'm more upset that um people aren't going to be as excited about

my response because it's been such a long time. It's like less a feeling of mortification and I don't know, I guess that's really messed up. I mean, it's never like it's never work related, because if it were something that was relevant to work, like, it wouldn't matter when you responded if somebody's like, oh, you know, this thing needs to be done by this deadline, and then two days later you're like, okay, Roger that it's fine. It's

not embarrassing. It's more embarrassing when someone's like, L O L can you believe this thing happened? And you're like, I know, right, I don't know. I always feel I feel like a tech dummy, Like really, I couldn't just read the time stamp. No, you just have really good work life balance. You shut that sock off or whatever, And that's how I should follow up each mortifying response. Oh maybe you noticed I sent this three days later.

It's because of my good work life fell exactly, Becca, What is or have big take minus about open office? No at all? You know who you are if you if you take a zi cam. Sorry, go ahead, which, for those of you don't know, is a zinc tablet meant to combat the common cold if taken early enough. My husband is a big zy cam evangelist, So yeah, if you take a zi cam in the open office, no less than three people will tell you that it

doesn't work out loud to your face. And I feel like this happens with other things too, like yeah, or like just feeling the need to tell you what should be they think common knowledge about your habits. It's like, you know what, I want to do this, I understand. I've seen the blog posts. I know when it's about something like a cold remedy and people are like people are basically saying like, oh, it's just the placebo effect.

You're not getting any better from that. Like what do they want for you to like spit it out and be like, oh my god, thank you so much. I'm just going to stay yeah, like sorry, not sorry. And by the way, the placebo effect is still an effect. So if that's all it is and you feel better and you feel better haters, Yeah, I don't know. Mostly I'm annoyed about the know it all is um not not like dying on a hell of herz I cam mostly just don't need to be a know it all

on my face while my habits. Yeah, it's like it's like if somebody were eating a turkey sandwich and you were like, you know, turkey actually doesn't taste very good. Like your opinion is totally not relevant to what someone else is doing with their own personal health and safety. I think it's just another like pitfall of the open office, too close people in your business exactly. And this has been half big takes, half baked takes. Thanks for listening

to another episode of game Plan. You can find me on Twitter. I'm at rsy Greenfield and I'm at Francesca today. You can tweet at us with any message, including your half baked takes. You can also call and leave us a voicemail at two and two six one seven zero one six. If you want to hear from us even more, sign up for our newsletter. You can find it at Bloomberg dot com slash Newsletters and then you have to find game Plan and then click the box and then

sign up for it. Another thing you can do if you like our show is go to Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen and shoot us a review. Rate us subscribe. All of those things are really helpful for the show. The show is produced by Liz Smith and Magnus Hendrickson. The head of podcast is Francesca Levie. We'll see you next week. Bye. Oh yeah, that's right. Yeah. Buffalo, buffalo, buffalo, buffalo, buffalo. Yeah. I get it now