Isn’t it amazing how different people react so differently?
Putting very different personalities together into a situation always makes for good theatre.
But in real life, working with others can be a somewhat peculiar and even traumatic experience at times.
The good news is that people are seldom trying to be difficult.
In fact all they are trying to be is just themselves. Yes, the person who keeps moaning that the coffee cups are not being washed after use; the person who insists on checking in on you even when it is not their job; the person who colour codes their wardrobe; all of them are just trying to do what comes naturally.
In your own work, have you thought about why you prefer certain activities and procrastinate on others? It is easy really, you are drawn to doing things that you find easy and feel engaged while doing them.You avoid the stuff you find hard and boring.
We refer to these natural patterns of behaviour as talents (Gallup refer to them as Signature themes). In other words being able to express your talents is something you want to do, every second of the day if you can. And why not? It is such fun.
But when you put a whole lot of people into a room, with each person trying to express themselves in a way that makes sense to them, you are going to have theatre. Whether it's great theatre or just a really bad comedy, depends on how each of those personalities chooses to express themselves.
So who gets to express themselves the most if everyone wants different things? This is the core challenge of any team – how best to align how each person desires to express themselves to what the team needs without the threat of a tantrum.
Take a look now at your team dashboard. Look at each of the talent themes in a person's results and see how many of the behaviours you can recognise! The higher up the list a theme is, the more dominant and visible the behaviour is likely to be.
Most importantly, the closer the match another person’s talents are to yours, the more you will be drawn to connecting with them.
